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Monday, October 04, 2004
The city was refurbished after 300 years of ruins.
The nation of Israel repatriated in 7 months. They moved back in.
A worship gathering was called. The Word of God was read aloud. Amens were said. Reverence took place. Their sins were exposed and they started to weep.
Ezra the priest would have none of that. At least not yet. The nation is back together. The focus is on God now. Ezra told them to celebrate for a whole week. Everyone. Nobody left out. They did.
But there was time for confession. A time for admitting that God is God and we are not Him. On the 8th day, after fasting...you know, one of those things we're supposed to do that we never do that helps us focus on God?
They dressed in sackcloth. The clothing of the poor. Again, echoes of Matthew 5...blessed are the poor in Spirit. They recognized their spiritual poverty before the Lord their God. He's Holy. Holy, Holy, Holy! We're not. Not, not, not. The poor get the Kingdom of Heaven.
They had dirt upon them. The symbol of mourning. Again, echoes of Matthew 5...blessed are those who mourn. They're sad, to the point of grieving, over their unfaithfulness to God. Their falling short of the mark. Their failure to be holy. Well, let's just say it: Their sin. The mourners will get comforted.
In verse 3, we see the nature of this confession service: A fourth of the day reading the law, and a fourth of the day confessing their sin corporately.
All too often, we think of confession as something we're supposed to kinda make a grocery list of our sins and tell God about them. I'm not so sure that's the idea. I mean, this Holy, all-knowing, all-everything-we-can-imagine-and-more God knows our grocery list, and in fact knows the ones we can't think of or don't know about. Any list we'd make would be incomplete, anyway.
But I don't get that sense here. Not at all.
I mean, look at verse 15 & 16. You'll see a contrast. God's the Provider of Food, Doer of Miracles, Giver of Land and Keeper of Promises. We're arrogant. We're stubborn. We're ignorers.
Look at 25 & 26: Another contrast. God's the Fortifier of Cities and Provisionary Farmer. He's the Giver of Blessings. He's the Maker of Abundance. He's Great and Good (Grood, for those of you Homestarrunner/Teen Girl Squad fans). We're disobedient. We're rebellious. We're the selectively blind. We're the killers of prophets.
Verses 32 & 37. Same deal. He's Awesome. He's Great. Mighty. Keeper of Covenants. Just. Faithful. We're wicked. Lawbreakers...and it goes on and on until we get to verse 37. My Bible (NASB) finishes with "So we are in great distress." The Message reads better to me, "We're in big trouble."
And we are. And we should confess. But not in such a way that we become even more selfish and focus on ourselves even moreso. Nope. We should admit our shortcomings but not as a grocery list...rather we should focus on God as He is Everything We're Not. And glorify Him and praise Him for being Who He Is. The name of God should be praised, even in the midst of our sloppy lives. Corporately speaking, anyway. We'll talk more about personal confession tomorrow.
I'd really like the "comments" section to become more interactive between all of us as readers. So, if the Church of America were coming together to confess our poverty before Him, what would we confess, and what would the countering quality of God be in that? I'll start...
"God...we have elevated our human methods of church growth over You, rather than being dependent upon you, because you are One we can truly depend on."
Brent 7:48 AM
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