May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing to you, O Lord. Amen.
It's a fascinating thing to me that everyone needs tools. A doctor uses a stethoscope, a police officer carries around hand cuffs and a teacher writes on a board.
Christians too have some "tools" in their toolbox, which enable them to be true followers of Jesus Christ. One of those tools is the Bible. In a way, like with every other tool we too need to be trained to use it right. So let us use this opportunity today to do just that.
As we will discover today the Bible is the word of God. It is an amazing source of spiritual renewal. It will fully transform our lives when we let it unleash its power by approaching it with an open heart.
It is impossible to do justice to the word of God within the short time of a sermon. Nevertheless, I would like to point out five things today, which we discover about the Bible through the lens of our scripture reading today.
We just heard in Nehemiah Chapter 8 how Ezra the priest read the law to the people. And how this became a powerful moment of spiritual renewal in Israel. We notice that at the centre of it all were the Scriptures as a source of unity, strength and hope.
To truly appreciate this powerful moment we need to begin with what happened prior to this event.
God's people had become so corrupted and indifferent to God over time that at some point He allowed His people to be invaded by a nation too strong for them. The nation "Babylon" attacked Judah. The Babylonians were ruthless in destroying the entire city. The people of God were carried off forcefully and as we can imagine this cruel deportation was such a disrupting and traumatic experience in the life of these people. For 70 yrs. they faced an extremely challenging set of circumstances in Babylon.
After the Babylonians, the Persians rose to power and they had a different foreign policy in place. They allowed God's people to return to their native land. When they returned to Jerusalem their homes and the city they left looked so different. They had to face these huge piles of rubble which brought back painful memories of defeat and destruction, of loss and desperation. Somehow rebuilding their homes and God's temple from scratch felt more challenging than building it the first time around. They felt powerless to say the least.
By the time we come to the events from our first reading today, Nehemiah had managed to mobilize God's people to rebuild the city's walls in a record time of 52 days. And that was despite of the periods of desperation and hopelessness from within their ranks as well as despite great opposition and vicious attacks from rather influential and powerful people who simply did not wish to see the Israelite's dwell in a well-protected city.
There was no doubt that God had been on their side all the time.
Maybe this is also what prompted God's people to set aside a time for spiritual renewal a time of worship and reflection after all these events. God's people personally went to Ezra, the priest, and asked for the law to be read to them. They wanted to know what the Scriptures said. They had this great need to go right to the source to find spiritual renewal.
1.) And this brings us to the first point: That the Bible is a divine source which actively engages with us.
This divine source waters our soul! When I speak of a divine source I do NOT mean, that the Bible is God but that it contains God's words - His message to humanity. This message and every word in the Bible is God-inspired. The Bible truly is a divine source because as soon as we read it humbly and prayerfully, we can see that God uses his word to actively intervene in the corruptness of our hearts and minds.
In fact, God says in the Bible: "My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please" And Jesus goes on to say: "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."
So, the Bible truly is a divine source which waters our souls and brings spiritual renewal.
2.) The second lesson we learn from the reading today, is that to experience powerful moments we need to keep the Bible right at the centre of our life.
The men, women and children asked the priest for the Word of God to be read to them. The scriptures in our reading today was not locked up in a temple, it was not just the priests or an elect group of people who came in touch with God's word. The people of God were unified in the decision that truly everyone in their community needed to hear the law. Not in a temple, or in a private gathering but during a public reading in a public square, accessible to everyone.
We too, need the Bible to be at the centre of our life. In our homes, in our families and everywhere we go so that we can experience its full measure of renewal and refreshment.
3) Thirdly, we find that the larger story of the Bible gives us hope and helps us to make sense of our own life because it connects us back to its larger story.
The Bible begins with "Genesis" and ends with "Revelation". Even though the stories and lives of the individuals we get to know between Genesis and Revelation seem chaotic, traumatic or even hopeless at times, we find that God always is faithful and loving to those who call upon his name. We see that He remains unchanged throughout all circumstances and generations and that He alone steers the course of humanity. That, in turn, makes us feel less vulnerable and fragile despite our challenging circumstances or past hurts. We have hope because through the pages of the Bible we learn that we are God's children and that He wraps us up in his love and protection.
4.) Fourthly and perhaps the most important lesson of today's reading is that we should take every effort to understand what we are reading. And this often takes great dedication on our behalf.
Anyone who honestly and humbly approaches the Bible will at some point come across passages they struggle to make sense with. There will be moments where we just simply won't get it.
Ezra the priest, knew how he could tackle this very real problem at their public gathering. He sent out Levites, who were trained in the law, to move around the groups of people. The people attentively listened to the word of God and the Levites explained to the people the meaning of what they were hearing. They helped them to make connections and answered questions when the people were confused.
This needed great determination from everyone involved. Everyone needed to be open to receive the word of God and to understand its true meaning and they dedicated about 6 hours straight to do this – all men, women and children together with their priests and Levites. I would say that this really prompts us to re-examine our dedication to study the Bible and to really engage with the Scriptures.
Hence, I invite us all to think about the following question in the coming few days: What is my personal next step to become more confident and familiar with the Bible?
I would also like to point out at this point that there are some very good resources which can enrich your Bible study, e.g. reading Bible commentaries or going through various resources by the Bible Society.
One of the first bibles which helped me to engage better with the text I am reading is the "Student's Bible" published by Zondervan. This particular bible contains little boxes with explanations, Bible character profiles, maps, timelines as well as introductions to every book in the Bible. Zondervan also happens to have a wide range of such bibles for every age group.
For those of us who are more into multimedia I can also recommend the YouTube series by Bible project with its animated summaries of every book of the Bible. Then of course, attending Bible studies here at Church or listening to various sermons all help to gain more understanding.
I want to add a little disclaimer here, though. Before turning to any other resources it is much more important (and frankly more profitable!) to engage directly with the Bible itself because studying the Bible is NOT about coming up with smart and eloquent interpretations. It is much more about looking for the clear and simple meaning of the text in front of us and about letting God guide our hearts into a deeper knowledge and application of the Scriptures to our life. Often, this means approaching the Bible with a prayerful heart and repetition of the same text, like we do during the lectio divina.
5.) And this brings me now to my fifth and last point. Reading the Bible with an open heart will help us eventually to process our own experiences.
Once God's people had heard and understood the scriptures emotions started to surface. They cried. Some might have cried because they repented but many were very likely crying because of the traumatic experiences welling up inside of them, because of their struggle to build and because of their realization that God had been with them throughout this entire period. The Bible was the safe space which helped them to process their emotions and release them to God. They lamented together but once that was over they could also feast and laugh together. This is the recipe to put together an authentic and true community.
So to sum up:
The Bible is a divine source, which helps us to make sense of our life's experiences. It helps us to face the fears, challenges and hopes for the future with courage and together as a united people of God.
So I pray today that we as a Church we can gather together around the Bible now and always to experience its full wisdom, inspiration, hope and truth. I pray that we can experience a spiritual as we become part of offering hope to a thirsty and needy world in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Archana Jacob