{"id":2413,"date":"2023-03-03T09:10:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T14:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2023-03-03T09:10:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T14:10:52","slug":"nehemiah-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/03\/nehemiah-316\/","title":{"rendered":"Nehemiah 3:16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.

Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th<\/sup> verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books.\u00a0<\/em>

\u201c<\/em><\/strong>Beyond him, Nehemiah son of Azbuk, ruler of a half-district of Beth Zur,\u00a0made repairs up to a point opposite the tombs\u00a0of David, as far as the artificial pool and the House of the Heroes\u201d (Nehemiah 3:16).\u00a0

At this point, it\u2019s getting harder to make the case that every \u201c3:16\u201d is worth studying.\u00a0 \u00a0

It\u2019s hard to imagine, for example, that anyone would claim Nehemiah 3:16 as a \u201clife-changing verse,\u201d let alone a statement that has any relevance to what any of us might be facing this weekend.

But before we kick Nehemiah to the curb, let\u2019s drop back and look at the wider context.\u00a0 This book represents a dramatic surge of hope after centuries of despair.

During the \u201cgolden age\u201d of the reigns of David and Solomon, Israel had risen to the apex of its power and influence.\u00a0 Israel was a nation of consequence.\u00a0 But during the three and a half centuries that followed, God\u2019s people suffered a long, slow slide into spiritual oblivion.\u00a0 The citizens of Jerusalem were crushed by Babylonian invaders who burned their gates, broke down their walls, and destroyed their temple.\u00a0 For seventy years the Chosen People, bowed and broken, were exiled in Babylon.

Then something remarkable happened.\u00a0 The conquerors themselves were conquered.\u00a0 The armies of the Medes and Persians \u2013 who were essentially kinder, gentler dictators \u2013 overwhelmed the Babylonians.\u00a0 Suddenly, for the Jews, hope became a realistic option.\u00a0 Their new Persian overloads granted them permission to trudge back home again to begin the laborious process of rebuilding.

Only a remnant of the Jews decided to embark on that journey.\u00a0 The Jerusalem they returned to was a heartbreaking heap of ruins.\u00a0 When the first wave of returned exiles laid the foundation for a new temple, the Bible tells us that the oldest men and women amongst them wept openly.\u00a0 They wept not because of joy but because of shame:\u00a0 Their new temple was merely a fraction of the size of what Solomon had built.\u00a0

The resettled Jews took one swing at rebuilding the walls that surrounded the city, but the project failed.\u00a0 The people then decided, for all intents and purposes, that while national mediocrity wasn\u2019t the best thing, at least it was something.\u00a0 Progress ground to a halt.\u00a0 Decades went by.\u00a0 What would happen next?

As so often happens in the Old Testament, God sends a hero \u2013 a special leader to meet the needs of the hour.\u00a0 He is Nehemiah \u2013 a Jew who lives in the region of Babylon about 445 BC.\u00a0 He hears that those who have returned to Jerusalem \u201c\u2019are in great trouble and disgrace.\u00a0 The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.\u2019\u00a0 When [Nehemiah] heard these things, [he] sat down and wept\u201d (Nehemiah 1:3).\u00a0

Why is a broken-down wall such a big deal?\u00a0 Virtually any citizen of the ancient world could tick off three reasons why a wall was far more than just a pile of rocks.

First, a wall helped provide the identity<\/strong> of an ancient city.\u00a0 What made Jerusalem special?\u00a0 It was the only place on earth where the God of Israel could be encountered in the context of sacred space \u2013 inside a temple specifically dedicated to his worship.\u00a0

One week after our wedding, Mary Sue and I moved into our FCA \u2013 that would be our First Crummy Apartment \u2013 just north of Chicago.\u00a0 It was old.\u00a0 The bathroom fixtures had been installed when Harry Truman was President.\u00a0 The people who lived above us generated a significant amount of noise.\u00a0 But that was our space<\/em>.\u00a0 We had a twelve-month lease on our very own four walls \u2013 which seemed to announce to the whole world that we were now a couple to be reckoned with.\u00a0

Even at its height, Jerusalem was hardly the most beautiful city on earth.\u00a0 But it was the <\/em>Jewish city, and the one piece of real restate where God had chosen to dwell.\u00a0 That gave the Jews a unique identity.

A wall was also, secondly, the key to Jerusalem\u2019s security<\/strong>.\u00a0

Ancient cities had walls for the same reason that modern houses have locks.\u00a0 Apart from a thick barrier, foreign invaders could come and go at will.\u00a0 In the age before cannons and battering rams, a wall was almost always a city\u2019s number one defensive weapon.

Mary Sue and I felt secure in our First Crummy Apartment until the day she forgot her key.\u00a0 While she stood patiently outside the door, waiting for me to come home, the guy who lived upstairs \u2013 this would be the guy with the aforementioned reputation for being noisy \u2013 just happened to walk by.\u00a0 \u201cI can get you inside,\u201d he said, whereupon he whipped out a credit card and opened our door in five seconds.\u00a0 That night we didn\u2019t feel nearly as secure in our apartment as we had the night before.\u00a0

For any ancient city worth its salt, it was vital to have a wall tall enough and thick enough to deter strangers.

But most important of all in the case of Jerusalem, a wall helped ensure spiritual integrity.<\/strong>\u00a0 There had to be a separation between the people of God and the people of the world, or Judaism itself would be subject to dilution.\u00a0

The border between North Korea and South Korea is essentially arbitrary.\u00a0 The 38th<\/sup> Parallel was selected on a map in Washington D.C. during the course of the Korean War 70 years ago as a way to separate the Cold War allies of China to the north from the Cold War allies of America to the south.\u00a0 Those two nations are governed by radically different philosophies, leading to astonishingly different ways of life.\u00a0 If the border were somehow erased and people migrated from one side to the other, it would quickly become impractical to enforce the laws of either nation.\u00a0

In the same way, a secure wall around Jerusalem was a helpful asset in regulating the Jewish people\u2019s fidelity to Torah legislation like a kosher diet and Sabbath-keeping.

Nehemiah\u2019s leadership efforts in the rebuilding project were spectacularly successful.\u00a0 What the Israelites had been unable to accomplish in almost 100 years, he and hundreds of volunteers accomplished in just 52 days.\u00a0 The completed wall was six-and-a-half feet thick and featured 11 gates and multiple defensive towers.

Archeologists have uncovered a few remaining stretches of Nehemiah\u2019s wall, including the one pictured above.\u00a0 Because it was built so hastily, it\u2019s not a thing of beauty.\u00a0 The unfinished stones were pieced together in ragtag fashion, and the large gaps between them were packed with smaller rocks and mortar.\u00a0

But it\u2019s still intact.\u00a0<\/em>

That brings us back to the third chapter of the book of Nehemiah.\u00a0 All 32 verses provide an enduring record of who did what work on various segments of the wall.\u00a0 The \u201cNehemiah, son of Azbuk\u201d mentioned in 3:16, by the way, is different from the Nehemiah for whom the book is named.\u00a0 The verse we\u2019re spotlighting today may seem trivial. \u00a0But it\u2019s a priceless memorial to those who believed in safeguarding the identity, security, and integrity of God\u2019s people.

That was then, and this is now.\u00a0 Jesus has forever changed the way we experience those three realities.

Our identity is no longer associated with a limestone temple surrounded by an imposing barrier.\u00a0 We ourselves are now God\u2019s dwelling place on earth<\/em>.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a preview of another \u201c3:16,\u201d the one in I Corinthians: \u201cDon\u2019t you know that you yourselves are God\u2019s temple, and that God\u2019s Spirit dwells within you?\u201d

Our security no longer comes down to rocks and blocks.\u00a0 Instead, \u201cI can do all things through [Christ] who gives me strength\u201d (Philippians 4:13).\u00a0

And our job is no longer to put up walls that will keep outsiders at bay \u2013 so we can create a pure community \u2013 but to tear down the walls that have separated us from others for far too long. \u00a0So-called \u201coutsiders\u201d are people who need to hear the Good News that they, too, are known and loved by the Savior who died for them.

Nehemiah 3:16 may not be a verse worth memorizing.\u00a0

But it\u2019s a great reminder that all of us are always building something.

Let\u2019s join God in his work of building his kingdom, right here and right now.\u00a0
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here. Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books.\u00a0 \u201cBeyond him, Nehemiah son of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[571],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-316-verses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2415,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions\/2415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}