Then, at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my Godand prayed:
“I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today.
“But now, for a brief moment, the Lord our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place in his sanctuary, and so our God gives light to our eyes and a little relief in our bondage. Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia: He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.
“But now, our God, what can we say after this? For we have forsaken the commands you gave through your servants the prophets when you said: ‘The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By their detestable practices they have filled it with their impurity from one end to the other. Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them at any time, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it to your children as an everlasting inheritance.’
“What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins deserved and have given us a remnant like this. Shall we then break your commands again and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices? Would you not be angry enough with us to destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor? Lord, the God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.” (New International Version)
God had made a covenant with the Israelites. The Lord graciously gave them laws and stipulations to live by before entering the Promised Land.
Yet, much of Jewish history during the times of the kings was characterized by a breakdown in morality. Cheating on workers and preying upon the weak became commonplace. The poor were fleeced for what little they had, and reduced to servitude.
Failing to obey God completely, the people intermarried with the surrounding nations. The worship of Yahweh was, at times, in severe neglect, due to worshiping the gods of other places. As a result, divine judgment brought a Babylonian captivity and an exile of the people to a foreign land.
But God, who is rich in mercy, brought many of the people back to Palestine and Jerusalem. The Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, who had a different philosophy about how to handle the nations within their empire. And they were open to Jerusalem being rebuilt and the temple restored.
Ezra was a scribe (a copier of Scripture) and one of the returning exiles. Ezra left Babylon in 458 B.C.E. with a considerable group of people. Because of Ezra’s position as a Jewish scribe, and as a descendant of Levi, the Persian king authorized him to reinforce the Torah (the Law) by reading it and setting up the necessary administrative systems to ensure it would be followed.
Under Persian rule, each subject people was allowed to live by its ancestral laws, which were enforced by the imperial government. Violations of the laws of the group to which one belonged constituted an offense against the state precisely because they led to instability.
Soon after Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, he learned of the spiritual state of the Jews there. They had intermarried freely with the non-Jewish women of the land, and had ceased to keep the Jewish holidays and other commandments.
This situation devastated Ezra. He tore his clothes and sat in mourning the entire day until evening. After the evening sacrifice was brought, he got up and began praying loudly to God, weeping for forgiveness for the sins of his people.
Ezra read the Torah publicly to the entire people. Indeed, this was a covenant‑renewal ceremony in the strict sense. To make the Torah understandable to them, he had it explained, because Hebrew was no longer in most people’s vernacular. (Nehemiah 8:1-18)
In today’s Old Testament lesson, we have Ezra’s prayer, his great confession of sin, and concern that the people not get into the same situation which brought God’s judgment and exile upon them to begin with.
It is a prayer laced with love for the covenant code, the Jewish people, and most of all, for God. A very complicated situation prompted Ezra’s prayer, and would take much courage and wisdom to confront and deal with.
Whenever things are awry, circumstances are less than desirable, and situations seem overwhelming, the place to begin is to pray. Admittedly, prayer is not everything; but it is certainly something – and something powerful – for which we have both the duty and the delight to engage in.
And in praying, there is perhaps no better way to begin, than with a heartfelt prayer of confession:
Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment.
Set us free from a past we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
