Riding the Crazy Cycle

The court system calls them repeat offenders and habitual felons. These are those folks that simply can’t stay out of trouble, can’t stay out of court, and can’t stay out of jail. For some, the entrance of the prison is a revolving door. In and out. Over and over and over again. Here in Nehemiah 9:1-3, the people of Israel come face to face with the fact that they’re repeat offenders. They realize that rebellion against God is a family tradition. Their parents disobeyed. Their grandparents disobeyed. Their great grandparents disobeyed. The cycle is always the same. Sin then exposure then confession then worship. Once more, God’s people take a ride on the crazy cycle. 

Let’s take a step back and get a little better view of what’s going on. It’s early fall in Jerusalem. The Hebrew calendar tells us it’s Tishri 24, 445 BC (early October for us Gentiles). A little less than a month ago, the people wrapped up the huge project of rebuilding the city walls in just 52 days (Neh 6:15). Shortly after that, lead teaching pastor Ezra drops a six-hour sermon on the entire Hebrew crew by reading the first five books of the Bible (Neh 8:1-8). Once God’s Law diagnoses their sin, God’s gracious Gospel brings healing and joy (Neh 8:10-12). The result is an epic weeklong cookout/campout called the Feast of Booths that includes even more study of Scripture (Neh 8:13-18). 

We pick up the story two weeks later. In the wake of the seven-day feast, the people are back together again, this time not to eat. “The people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads” (v1). Let’s all be on the same page about what’s happening here. This isn’t some sort of diet after stuffing your gut for a week. It’s a lot more than simply wearing that itchy sweater your grandmother gave you. Don’t confuse this with the need to lather-rinse-repeat. Fasting, sackcloth, and dust are all outward expressions of incredible mourning. They’ve just gone old school by reading the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Now they’re going old school in their physical response of confession. They realize they’ve sinned just like their ancestors so they’re expressing their repentance like their ancestors.

They’ve continued the long held family tradition of disobedience by hooking up with pagan hotties. “And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners” (v2). The author is not simply describing how this is just a Jewish only meeting. He’s telling us how they put an end to any and all serious relationships with people who don’t worship Yahweh. It never ends well each time a worshiper of God gets intimately involved with an unbeliever. So God protects us from ourselves by putting rules in place for our own protection (Ex 34:12-16; Dt 7:3-4). It just about destroyed Abraham’s marriage to Sarah (Gen 21:9-12). Despite being the wisest cat on the planet, Solomon did the dumbest thing when he built a harem of unbelieving beauties despite the LORD’s specific order. It cost the king his entire kingdom (1Ki 11:1-8). Ezra had to deal with this garbage while his buddy Nehemiah was still pouring Merlot at the palace in Susa (Ez 9-10). Here we go again. And the sad part is the governor is going to have to deal with this again later (Neh 13:23-27). God’s people go for another spin on the crazy cycle.

The LORD is certainly NOT against interracial marriage. There are all sorts of examples of that in the pages of Scripture. He’s opposed to any serious relationship between His people and folks who reject Him. This is about maintaining the spiritual integrity of God’s people. And this doesn’t mean we should lock ourselves in some sort of bomb shelter for Jesus so the mean old sinners can’t get at us. Jesus says that we’re “not of the world” (Jn 17:16) but that He’s sending us into the world as His messengers (Jn 17:18). We need to be very careful not to be squeezed into the world’s ways while allowing God to change us from the inside out (Rom 12:2). Christ has sent us in the world to win the world. 

The Jewish people rise to their feet and “confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers” (v2). They’ve simply fallen back into the same old destructive pattern as their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. They don’t just confess of their own disobedience but on behalf of their entire family line. It’s the same thing that Nehemiah did back in Persia (Neh 1:4-11). A spiritual leader understands that he or she is part of a community. We live together. We love together. We sin together. We confess together. It’s being heartbroken for the impact of everyone’s rebellion and going to God on their behalf. The “the iniquities of their fathers” (v2) goes back centuries. They’ve read and heard all about it with their recent focus on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Those books are loaded with examples of their ancestors peddling hard on the crazy cycle. And that’s the focus of their following prayer (Neh 9:6-37). You see, sin is a family tradition

Once again, God’s Law exposes sin like luminal exposes blood at a crime scene. “And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of a day” (v3). They were already standing and stay on their feet. They hear of God’s zero tolerance policy on sin and their long history of doing it anyway. You could say that they take a stand against their own disobedience. They stand under conviction of God’s truth. And they do it for three hours! The author makes some sort of direct mention of the reading or studying the Book of the Law six times (Neh 8:1, 3, 8, 13, 18; 9:3). God’s Word reveals sin. It always precedes confession. And confession always precedes worship. 

Instead of the crazy cycle, let’s take a ride on the confession cycle. That’s what God’s people do that day in Jerusalem. “For another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God” (v3). They confess their sin. What does that mean? Confession is agreeing with God about what we’ve done. It’s not just feeling bad because we’ve been busted. It’s saying out loud what we’ve done wrong. As much as I try to avoid that like Ebola, actually telling a trusted friend about my failure to meet God’s standard is incredibly powerful. Once I bring my sin into the light, it loses almost all of it’s power. A huge part of riding the confession cycle is repentance. We’ve turned away from Jesus to do whatever we want. God has given us the gift of repentance. We do a 180 from our sin and back to Christ. It’s the heartfelt admission that He’s SO much better than the counterfeit we’ve fallen for. 

And then they “worshiped the LORD their God” (v3). It was time to thank the One who showers us with His mercy and undeserved goodness time after time after time. Despite being repeat offenders, welcomes us back. That’s reason to celebrate! That’s reason to party! But here’s the deal. His people are going to hop back on the crazy cycle again soon. And we will too. It’s just the way of life on this side of eternity. But God always graciously offers us another ride on the confession cycle.