Tag: judgment

Who Is Running from God? (Jonah 1:1-17)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.”

But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.

But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.

But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. So the captain went down after him. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he shouted. “Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives.”

Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, the lots identified Jonah as the culprit. “Why has this awful storm come down on us?” they demanded. “Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”

Jonah answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”

The sailors were terrified when they heard this, for he had already told them he was running away from the Lord. “Oh, why did you do it?” they groaned. And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, “What should we do to you to stop this storm?”

“Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.”

Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it. Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God. “O Lord,” they pleaded, “don’t make us die for this man’s sin. And don’t hold us responsible for his death. O Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.”

Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.

Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. (New Living Translation)

God said, “Go!”

Jonah said, “No!”

And, God said, “Oh!?”

Jonah did a complete turn-and-run from God’s clear instructions to go to the city of Nineveh. That doesn’t sound like a good idea. So, why did Jonah run? And why do we run?

Who were the Assyrians?

Nineveh was a large city in the ancient world, and the capital of Assyria. The Assyrians had a reputation as fierce soldiers and conquered the Middle East. They are mentioned many times in the Old Testament. It was Assyria that God used to judge the northern kingdom of Israel.

The typical military practice of the Assyrians was to attack a city and completely subjugate it by deporting most of the people and repopulating it with some of their own people. They did this so that the conquered people could not mount a revolt or resistance to their rule.

The Assyrians, the Ninevites, were notorious in the ancient world for their brutality toward conquered peoples. Many forms of torture that we are aware of today were invented by the Assyrians. Their methods were awful and inhumane. The Assyrians were experts at thinking up and executing extreme forms of torture on everyone who resisted their power. It was a very violent culture.

Who is God?

God isn’t at all like the Ninevites. The ways of the Assyrians caught the notice of God, who was ready to pronounce judgment on the heart of the Assyrian Empire, the capital city of Nineveh. So, as God typically did in the Old Testament, he told one of his prophets to go and give a message.

The message was simple: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” Lest we think God was determined to wipe Nineveh off the map, think again. Jonah confesses later in the book, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:2)

Who was Jonah?

Jonah did not like the Assyrians. More than that, he hated their guts. They killed, maimed, executed, and deported Jonah’s fellow Israelites. The last thing Jonah wanted was to have effective preaching and see Nineveh repent of their violent ways. Jonah wanted judgment, not grace.

In this little four-chapter prophetic book of the Old Testament, it is Jonah who needs divine deliverance as much as the Ninevites do. In fact, Jonah’s need for rescue gets more attention than the evil Assyrians. The message of Jonah comes down to this:

Racism and hatred, however much perceived to be legitimate, have no part whatsoever in the kingdom of God.

Who are we?

Christians are the community of the redeemed. New life in Jesus Christ involves a wholesale jettison of bigotry and the manure pile of hatred directed toward any ethnic and/or religious group of people, period. New life means adopting the love of God. It involves becoming a dispenser of grace and mercy with all people, not just the ones we feel deserve it.

What does God want us to learn?

To share the same heart as God has – a heart that beats for people to know and live by a better way – a heart that has grace and compassion even in the face of flat-out evil. We are meant to think twice about pointing the finger at others. Instead, we are to take the plank out of our own eye before we address the splinter in another’s eye.

It wasn’t the Assyrians who were running from God; it was Jonah. In God’s upside-down realm, the wicked become the righteous, and the righteous are exposed as wicked. The unrighteous run to God, whereas the religious run from God. Nineveh eventually turned from their evil ways.

So, let’s keep to the side of mercy, not judgment.

O God, you created all people in your image. We thank you for the astonishing variety of races and cultures in this world. Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of friendship, and show us your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of your love is made perfect in our love for all your children; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dealing with Denial (Jeremiah 32:1-9, 36-41)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

The Lord spoke to me in the tenth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylonia. At that time, the Babylonian army had surrounded Jerusalem, and I was in the prison at the courtyard of the palace guards. Zedekiah had ordered me to be held there because I told everyone that the Lord had said:

I am the Lord, and I am about to let the king of Babylonia conquer Jerusalem. King Zedekiah will be captured and taken to King Nebuchadnezzar, who will speak with him face to face. Then Zedekiah will be led away to Babylonia, where he will stay until I am finished with him. So, if you people of Judah fight against the Babylonians, you will lose. I, the Lord, have spoken.

Later, when I was in prison, the Lord said:

Jeremiah, your cousin Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will visit you. He must sell his field near the town of Anathoth, and because you are his nearest relative, you have the right and the responsibility to buy it and keep it in the family.

Hanamel came, just as the Lord had promised. And he said, “Please buy my field near Anathoth in the territory of the Benjamin tribe. You have the right to buy it, and if you do, it will stay in our family.”

The Lord had told me to buy it from Hanamel, and so I did. The price was 17 pieces of silver, and I weighed out the full amount on a scale….

Jeremiah, what you said is true. The people of Jerusalem are suffering from hunger and disease, and so the king of Babylonia will be able to capture Jerusalem.

I am angry with the people of Jerusalem, and I will scatter them in foreign countries. But someday I will bring them back here and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will make their thoughts and desires pure. Then they will realize that, for their own good and the good of their children, they must worship only me. They will even be afraid to turn away from me. I will make an agreement with them that will never end, and I won’t ever stop doing good things for them. With all my heart I promise that they will be planted in this land once again. (Contemporary English Version)

Denial is a powerful mental force.

Disaster was about to befall Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Few were prepared for what was ahead. But they should have been ready. That’s because the prophet Jeremiah repeatedly told the king and the people about their need to live in justice and righteousness.

The dominant belief within the city was that judgment would never come to them. The people looked at their covenant with the Lord, and the presence of the temple, as some sort of rabbit’s foot or insurance policy that would keep invading armies at bay.

But they were in denial about what was actually occurring. The people lived as they wanted, giving Yahweh some temple time and a bit of worship, but then turned around and also worshiped other gods. Furthermore, they exploited the poor, took advantage of the needy, and engaged in unscrupulous business practices. So, the prophet Jeremiah was given a message by God to the people:

I brought you here to my land,
    where food is abundant,
but you made my land filthy
    with your sins.
The priests who teach my laws
    don’t care to know me.
Your leaders rebel against me;
your prophets
    give messages from Baal
    and worship false gods….

You, my people, have sinned
    in two ways—
you have rejected me, the source
    of life-giving water,
and you’ve tried to collect water
in cracked and leaking pits
    dug in the ground. (Jeremiah 2:7-8, 14, CEV)

The message was repeatedly ignored, along with warnings of judgment, if the people did not change their errant ways. The city’s denial was palpable, holding the false belief that the Babylonians could never take them, and that God was on their side.

Pay attention, people of Judah! Change your ways and start living right, then I will let you keep on living in your own country. Don’t fool yourselves! My temple is here in Jerusalem, but that doesn’t mean I will protect you. I will keep you safe only if you change your ways and are fair and honest with each other. Stop taking advantage of foreigners, orphans, and widows. Don’t kill innocent people. And stop worshiping other gods. Then I will let you enjoy a long life in this land I gave your ancestors. (Jeremiah 7:3-7, CEV)

The antidote to denial is acceptance – not necessarily accepting that a situation is okay, fine, or right – but that the situation is actually there; it’s true, and I’ve got to face it as it is, and not as I want it to be.

The Babylonians were at the city gate. Yet, even then, Jeremiah was getting the stiff arm from King Zedekiah and was in prison for preaching sedition. Nobody wanted to face the music – that a funeral dirge was about to play. But they needed to own up to what was happening and why they were in such a position.

It’s a sad scene. It’s hard to watch, whenever others refuse to listen, knowing what will happen if they keep to their denial. There were some things Jeremiah did and didn’t do when he was in this awkward and precarious position.

Jeremiah did not:

  • Give up and/or shut up. He didn’t give in to the temptation of being frustrated, throwing up his hands, and walking away; and he didn’t adopt their denial and stop talking.
  • Manipulate by resorting to shaming the people, or using Machiavellian tactics to force or leverage repentance out of them.
  • Say, “I told you so!” In fact, he did just the opposite; he grieved and lamented the unchanged hearts and the destruction which did happen.

Jeremiah did:

  • Connect with both God and the people. He was able to differentiate himself from the situation, while at the same time, remaining connected as a voice to the people.
  • Accept his role as prophet. He took responsibility for himself and his own particular calling – and nothing more than that. He focused on what needed to be said and done in the moment, and left the rest to God.
  • Kept living his life. He went and bought a relative’s field, keeping the land in the family, knowing he was still going to have a life after such devastation.

The Lord, as the Good Shepherd, isn’t going to herd cats – so we must follow as the sheep who trust in the Lord’s voice and actions, to say and do what we most need to hear and obey.

Just and right God, you invite us to give ourselves in service to others, equipped with justice and righteousness. Be with me as I choose each day to reflect your divine presence in our world. Give me the courage and generosity to respond to your love, and to your call. May all your people speak your message with bravery, humility, and skill. Open the minds and hearts of those in denial — that they may accept you and your words. Amen.

Mercy Will Happen (Isaiah 60:17-22)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

I will exchange your bronze for gold,
    your iron for silver,
your wood for bronze,
    and your stones for iron.
I will make peace your leader
    and righteousness your ruler.
Violence will disappear from your land;
    the desolation and destruction of war will end.
Salvation will surround you like city walls,
    and praise will be on the lips of all who enter there.

“No longer will you need the sun to shine by day,
    nor the moon to give its light by night,
for the Lord your God will be your everlasting light,
    and your God will be your glory.
Your sun will never set;
    your moon will not go down.
For the Lord will be your everlasting light.
    Your days of mourning will come to an end.
All your people will be righteous.
    They will possess their land forever,
for I will plant them there with my own hands
    in order to bring myself glory.
The smallest family will become a thousand people,
    and the tiniest group will become a mighty nation.
    At the right time, I, the Lord, will make it happen.” (New Living Translation)

The people of ancient times typically had a love/hate relationship with prophets. After all, the Lord’s messengers gave verbal punches to the gut with bad news of judgment. But they also were bearers of good news, as well. They were able to hold both judgment and grace together.

It is good to always keep in mind that, despite human foibles, grace exists and is the grand operating force in God’s big world. Good news turns to great news when there is a realization that judgment is deserved, yet it won’t have the last word.

God’s grace prevails in the end. God has a tenacious resolve to work out good for people, not ill. Although the Lord dispenses judgment, sometimes with a firm hand, there is an unflagging commitment to divine love which shines through the darkest of times.

God expertly knows how to make a reversal in people’s situations from hopeless despair to incredible fortune (and vice versa). The Lord truly has plans of goodness and well-being for humanity. Humiliation and powerlessness will give way to exaltation and empowerment. Peace will eventually overcome both the human heart and human institutions.

Deliverance from the ills which plague both body and soul comes from the God who specializes in penetrating the blackest darkness with overwhelming light – and it’s more than personal well-being. Isaiah’s prophecy communicates a cosmic vision of peace which thoroughly works its way in all the shadowy places of the world. It’s a vision of a new world and new life.

Because of God’s merciful action in a broken and bruised world, we can make some bold and hopeful theological claims for God’s people:

  • God’s good grace and steadfast love are the superior forces in the church and the world. Because grace and love are pure gifts from the Lord, they are not dependent upon whether we deserve them, or not. The sheer fact that we need them is what prompts God to give generously and unsparingly. A new heaven and new earth are coming. Sin and death are not permanent.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. (Revelation 21:1, NRSV)

  • God is the center of every good thing that was, is, and is coming. God’s world runs on God’s providence and power, and not on human agency. God is in control. All the Lord’s good promises shall not fail but will be realized. For the Christian, those promises are ultimately fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When circumstances are at their worst, faith is at its best.

In everything we have won more than a victory because of Christ who loves us. I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love—not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord! (Romans 8:37-39, CEV)

  • God’s promises extend well beyond the “spiritual” to all of life. God’s peace will work its way into the fabric of the whole world, not only individual hearts. God’s benevolent kingdom and ethical will shall be done on earth as it is always done in heaven. Just as every human institution and all creation have been profoundly touched by sin, so everything will be touched by grace and renewed. Our prayers are to encompass this grand scope of God’s renewing vision for the world.

May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:11, NLT)

God’s plans are more than good and gracious; they are cosmic in their scope and include an expansive realm of peace which is so incredible that the Lord’s glory will overwhelm all darkness and shall shine forever.

Human sin might seem as though it is so pervasive as to win the day, yet it will not always be this way. God’s light will penetrate, overcome, and dispel guilt, shame, and disobedience. And it has already begun…

Almighty God give us a new vision of you, of your love, of your grace and power; and then, give us a new vision of what you would have us do as your people, and an awareness that in the strength of your Spirit we can do it to your glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Get a Different Perspective (Isaiah 29:1-12)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,
    the city where David settled!
Add year to year
    and let your cycle of festivals go on.
Yet I will besiege Ariel;
    she will mourn and lament,
    she will be to me like an altar hearth.
I will encamp against you on all sides;
    I will encircle you with towers
    and set up my siege works against you.
Brought low, you will speak from the ground;
    your speech will mumble out of the dust.
Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth;
    out of the dust your speech will whisper.

But your many enemies will become like fine dust,
    the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant,
    the Lord Almighty will come
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
    with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
    that attack her and her fortress and besiege her,
will be as it is with a dream,
    with a vision in the night—
as when a hungry person dreams of eating,
    but awakens hungry still;
as when a thirsty person dreams of drinking,
    but awakens faint and thirsty still.
So will it be with the hordes of all the nations
    that fight against Mount Zion.

Be stunned and amazed,
    blind yourselves and be sightless;
be drunk, but not from wine,
    stagger, but not from beer.
The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep:
    He has sealed your eyes (the prophets);
    he has covered your heads (the seers).

For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I don’t know how to read.” (New International Version)

Reading the Bible may sometimes feel like a weird Catch-22. We’re supposed to read, observe, and obey the contents of Holy Scripture; yet there is so much within it that we often just plain don’t understand – and even are not going to understand, at least on this side of heaven.

For many people, this is maddening. It may even cause them to throw up their hands and say that God is some mad scientist who merely tinkers and experiments with people like mice in laboratory.

I understand how some could think that way. The Lord comes along and does a mysterious dance of proclaiming judgment, then pivoting quickly around to assure deliverance. Reading through any prophetic book of the Old Testament is likely to make our heads spin with questions and our hearts to reel. No matter how you slice it, there are a lot of difficult passages in Holy Scripture.

So, I invite you to take a few differing perspectives.

First, if God is a Being who is infinitely higher and greater – the Creator who has made all things – then we are the creatures who are neither privy to all God’s reasonings nor even able to understand such a Being who is other than us.

Second, it seems we rarely even attempt to try and see things from God’s angle. We see our own situations, many of them confusing, and we wonder why the Lord doesn’t just step in and fix all the crud. However, none of us has the full picture, as God does – which is why we are continually invited to pray for wisdom, to see our life, relationships, and circumstances from a divine perspective. (James 1:2-5)

The prophet Isaiah, along with the other prophets, proclaims a double message of judgment and deliverance. Indeed, it appears there is a continual rhythm of identifying guilt and giving grace throughout a large chunk of the Old Testament.

And that is perhaps where we need to pay attention. People have a great predilection for saying and doing things (or failing to say and do things) which bring guilt. Our guilty actions and inactions are not okay; they cannot simply be dismissed as stuff that people do, as if we were just silly folks who don’t know any better.

Maybe we would like to view God as some geriatric grandfather who lets everyone do what they want, but that’s not the God we get in the Bible.

No, our words and actions have real impact and consequences for others. And the Lord is a real force to contend with, for whom we cannot escape nor ignore for long.

In Isaiah’s day, the people were called to account for their abject callousness toward their fellow humanity. God’s commands all have to do with living in harmony with creation. Chaos, disorder, and systemic evil result whenever the creature rebels against the Creator by trying to be a little god of their own making – taking the perspective of using people rather than serving them.

The Lord will have none of it; God will intervene. Hence, the judgment portions of Scripture. Yet, because God is gracious and loving, the judgment doesn’t last forever; mercy takes hold and overwhelms the guilty sinner.

If we could understand everything God does or doesn’t do, then God wouldn’t be God. But the very fact that God is mysterious, and in some ways unknowable, tells us that there is indeed a God.

Our task is not to take over God’s job because the Lord isn’t doing what we want. Our mandate is to reflect the image of God placed within us by loving the Lord and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Yes, we are all guilty of a great many things. Yet, grace always has the last word, and not judgment. This, then, gives way to a life of gratitude that has learned to sync one’s heart with the heart of God.

Catch-22’s are certainly maddening… if we are truly in one to begin with. It could be that we just haven’t yet gained a different perspective on our situation, learned to accept it, and made the choice to live in harmony with the world as it is, rather than the world as we think it ought to be.

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.