Eight Straight
Days
Eight
straight days. For eight straight days
God’s Old Testament people gathered around the Word of God. And for hours on end they listened to those
words and they worshiped with those words and they even cried over those
words. Why? Because they hadn’t heard those words in a
long, long time. And they needed those
words. They needed them more than they
had ever known.
These
people were in Jerusalem for these eight days: a city that was surrounded by
brand new walls, a city whose governor at the time was a man named Nehemiah, a
city whose high priest was a man named Ezra.
140 years before, the Babylonian armies had come in, knocked down the
walls of the city, burned down the temple of the Lord, and deported the people
of Israel to another country. But the
grandchildren and great grandchildren of these people were back, the temple had
been rebuilt, and the walls had just now been reconstructed a century and a
half later. And they Israelites were
overjoyed! Their capital city was finally
intact once again and now they could start to become the nation they once had
been! And to celebrate this event, God’s
people observed one of the three main festivals of Old Testament worship life:
the Feast of Tabernacles.
The Feast
of Tabernacles was an eight day celebration during which the people lived in
tents and lean-tos made out of leaves and branches. That’s what “tabernacle” means: it means
“tent.” And they did this so that they
would remember how their ancestors had lived in tents and lean-tos when they
had come out of the land of Egypt centuries and centuries before. For the first seven days they were supposed
to live like this, but then on the final day of this festival they were to
gather together in a grand celebration, praising the Lord for what he had given
them. And so during the time Nehemiah on
the first day of this festival for the first time in 1000 years, this is what
happened: “All the people assembled as
one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring
out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel. So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra
the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and
women and all who were able to understand.
He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before
the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could
understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.”
Did you
notice how long they listened to God’s Word being read? From daybreak until noon! For six hours the people stood there outside
listening to Ezra read from the Bible!
But that wasn’t the last time they listened to God’s Word during this
festival. The story continues later on
saying, “Day after day, from the first
day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God” (v.18). They listened to God’s Word for eight
straight days! But even more impressive
than the time they spent listening to the Word of God is the fact that they wanted
to! They weren’t forced to listen to
God’s Word. They weren’t required to
listen to God’s Word. They were the ones
who asked that it be read! “They told
Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses.” It wasn’t Ezra’s idea; it was their
idea! And so for six hours on the first
day and then day after day throughout the festival, the people listened
attentively to the Word of God. They
couldn’t get enough of it! They wanted
more! They needed more.
We Can’t Find
the Time
In my
office upstairs I have at least nine Bibles of various translations in various
languages. In the conference room
upstairs there are about 25 more. In our
house there are probably another ten Bibles - kid and adult - lying
around. And you undoubtedly have a few
in your home too, don’t you? And on top
of all that, we can get the Bible on the internet instantly. Dozens of different English translations in a
split second. And if you have a Kindle
or a Nook or an ipad or any other hand held device, you can get free Bibles in
a couple seconds that you carry around in your pocket. We have access to God’s Word at any time of
day in any place. So have often do you
take advantage of that? How often do you
actually read and listen to God’s Word that is right there at your
fingertips? The Israelites during the
time of Nehemiah didn’t have instant access to the Word of God. But they craved it! They wanted it! They needed it! And when they got it they couldn’t get enough
of it! Do you crave God’s Word? Do you want it so badly that you would stand
outside for hours just to hear it? Do
you need it so much that you would take an eight day vacation just to be around
it? Or don’t you need it that much at
all?
There
are some nights when I’m exhausted from the day’s work. And when it comes time for me to read my
Bible on my own for my own personal benefit, sometimes I convince myself that I
don’t really “need” to read it right now, what I really “need” is sleep. And so I crawl into bed and leave God’s Word
unopened. And then there are other times
when I really need to spend more time digging deeper into God’s Word to make
sure that I understand it correctly, but then I tell myself that what I really “need”
is to get these other things done and God’s Word can wait. And there are still other times when I get so
busy with the details of this life - those projects that I “need” to get done
and those deadlines that I “need” to meet and those people that I “need” to see
and those activities that I “need” to do - that reading and listening to God’s
Word doesn’t even cross my mind as something that I “need” at all.
Do you
feel the “need” to read your Bible every day or is it something that you can
easily let slip by? Do you feel that you
really “need” to go to Bible study today after our worship service or do you
have more important things that you “need” to get done? Do you think that you really “need” to show
up to a worship service every single week or do you have other “needs” that far
outweigh the spoken Word of God in this building?
For
thousands of years God himself spoke through Christian men to produce the Bible
that we have today. And for thousands of
years more God himself has worked to preserve that Word in pristine condition
so that generation after generation can hear and read and learn and know of his
love. Our God has hand-crafted a five
course meal for us that he has laid out in the words of the Bible available any
time we want it. Do we crave that
food? Do we want that food and need that
food? Or do we pick at it? Do we eat that feast on our plates like we
are starving to death or do we treat it like a little child might treat the
food his mother worked so hard to prepare?
“I’m not hungry.”
Our Lord
has worked hard to prepare his Word for us.
In fact, he died in the process.
And so it does not make him too happy when we act like we don’t need
that food at all and we let it just sit there with an “I’m not all that hungry”
kind of attitude. In fact, after a
while, the Lord tends to take that food away if all people do is pick at
it. He took it away from his own Old
Testament people a number of times. And
if he takes away his Word, how can faith be fed? And if faith cannot be fed, how can faith
survive? And if faith in your Savior
cannot survive, how can you expect to end up in heaven?
What We Really Need
Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest
and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all,
“This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the
people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and
sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is
sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
Why do
you think the people were weeping as they heard the words of the Law of Moses
being read? The people were crying
because they realized how bad they had been, how many commands they had broken,
and how often they had sinned against their Lord. But Nehemiah said, “No! Don’t cry!
This is not a day of sadness but a day of happiness! God’s Word is once again being read and you, God’s
people, are once again hearing it! Do
not be sad; the joy of the Lord is your strength!” The joy of the Lord was their strength. He was happy with them, not angry. He was thrilled that they were listening to
his Word, not frustrated. And he forgave
them. He forgave them for the years of
neglect and the decades of selfishness and the generations and generations of
rebellion. He forgave them for
everything. And that’s also what they
heard being read. Since Ezra was reading
from the book of the law of Moses - the first five books of the Bible - the
people not only would have heard commands, they would have also heard about the
special Prophet who was to come from their own people many years later. They would have heard about all of the
sacrifices that were daily announcements of the sacrifice of their Savior yet
to come. They would have heard about the
promise given to Abraham that through his Descendant all nations on earth would
be blessed. They would have heard about
how God preserved the line of the Savior throughout the centuries, how God
directed everything in this world to set up the coming of the Messiah, and how
he had promised the Savior to the very first human beings on this earth, Adam
and Eve. The Israelites would have heard
a lot about their Savior in those first five books of the Bible. And that’s exactly what they needed to hear.
That’s
exactly what we need to hear. We need to
hear those hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus coming into
this world. We need to hear about the
stories of Jesus himself: his birth, his miracles, his teachings, his healing,
his thoughts, his attitudes, his emotions, his passion. We need to hear about Jesus’ life: what he
did, what he went through, what he suffered, what he accomplished. We need to hear about his love for us and his
compassion for us and his sacrifice for us.
We need to hear about his resurrection from the dead and his ascension
into heaven. We need to hear about his
rule and his authority and his guarantee.
We need to hear all of that. And
we need to hear it all the time. Which
is why when you come to a worship service, we repeat the same truths week in
and week out. There aren’t a lot of new
things you learn in a worship service because it is the same forgiveness and
the same salvation and same eternal life that you’ve heard before. But we need to hear it again. We need to be comforted by it again.
So Many Opportunities
But
don’t just wait to hear it here on a Sunday morning. You have that opportunity every day when you
open up your own Bible at home. You have
that opportunity multiple times a week in a number of Bible classes here at
church. You’ll have the opportunity on
Wednesday evenings starting next month during the season of Lent. You have an unique opportunity this morning
once again as we gather together for the Lord’s Supper. Because here at the altar we receive our
Savior’s love, his body, his blood, and his victory once again. Here at the altar we receive the real
forgiveness of sins, the same forgiveness he won on Calvary, given to us in
tangible form. That’s why the Lord’s
Supper is the third “Mark of the Church.”
The gospel in Word, the gospel in baptism, the gospel in the Lord’s
Supper.
So eat it
up! All of it. Here in the Lord’s Supper, here from the
pulpit, here in a Bible study, there in your own Bibles at home. Because that is what you need! You don’t need much of anything in this
life. A little food, a little water, a
little shelter… but most importantly, you need God’s Word. That is the only way your faith in your
Savior grows and builds and strengthens.
That is the only connection with Christ you have. That is the only means through which you are
saved. You need it. You
need it. I need it. And we actually have it. A five course feast prepared by God
himself. Don’t let it go to waste.
Amen.
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