A View from the Press Box

A football coach in the press box has a much different perspective than one on the sidelines. From field level, the coach can get a real feel for the speed of the game, the intensity of the play, and the mood of his players. But the view from up top allows the coach to see the formations of both teams, their overall strategy and the bigger trends of the game. Neither one is better. Both are essential in understanding the larger story of the contest. Here in Ezra 4:6-24, the author takes the elevator up the press box to give us a broader view of the historical perspective. But there’s an even wider point of view. Think of that as a looking down on the stadium from the blimp. When we step back even further with the fuller picture God gives us in Scripture, we see an even wider and more glorious panorama of His grace. When it comes to God and His Gospel, it’s all about perspective.

This section of the book is actually like a giant parenthetic comment. Don’t make the mistake of thinking verses 6-24 happen right here and right now in the text. No, Ezra describes events that go down about 50 years later. He wants us to know that the Israelites faced consistent and relentless opposition from the Samaritans in trying to resettle the Promised Land and rebuild the temple. He’s just painted the picture of the “adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” getting all hot and bothered when they hear the big party on the temple mount (Ez 4:1). They pull out every trick in their playbook of Samaritan sabotage in order to shut things down (Ez 4:2). Eventually they threaten and intimidate the Jews as well as grease the palms of various construction supervisors to grind the project to a halt (Ez 4:4-5). What started with such great promise and enthusiasm dies quickly with a whimper. Ezra inserts this section of Scripture to let us know this happened to God’s people over and over and over. 

Let’s be honest, this kind of resistance and hostility is still going on today. Everything from brutal violence by Isis to frustrations with local planning and zoning boards, the world continues to try to stand in the way of the kingdom of God. But we know that the love of Jesus eventually wins. If you’re not sure, you might want to read the end of the book. (And by “end of the book,” I don’t mean Ezra. I’m talking about the Bible. Don’t be afraid to jump to the exciting conclusion. You’re not going to ruin a cliffhanger. Spoiler alert: GOD WINS!) This is where I’m tempted to insert the phrase made infamous by the Borg in Star Trek: “Resistance is futile.” While that may be the case, Jesus isn’t looking for cyborgs in the collective. He’s loving each one of us to willingly follow and obey Him. And the Samaritans are no different. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s not quite take a ride in the blimp quite yet.

Ezra tells us how the Samaritans made whining and complaining about the Israelites a hobby during the reigns of both King Ahasuerus (v6) and King Artaxerxes (v7). These Persian dictators are the son and grandson of King Darius. It seems world domination is the family business. Ahasuerus is actually the Hebrew name for Xerxes. He ruled from 486-464 BC. You might remember him from such stories as the book of Esther and the movie “300.” He was the king that fell head over heels with Mordecai’s niece and came within an eyelash of beating Hitler to the punch on the Holocaust by several thousand years. If you saw the motion picture “300,” Xerxes is the warrior king that squares off with the Leonidas and the Spartans at Thermopylae. His boy Artaxerxes hopped onto the Persian throne from 464-423 BC. Ezra knows all about Darius’ grandson. We’ll see soon how it was this king who gives Ezra the royal stamp of approval for his role in the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ez 7:13-28). Artaxerxes is also the same dude that Nehemiah works for as a cupbearer and throws the resources of the Persian crown behind his return to Promised Land as well (Neh 1:11-2:8). While these three generations of Persian kings will never be confused with Abraham Lincoln, God uses these three kings to play a huge role in His story. That’s a lot of historical info crammed into a small space, but hopefully it allows you to take a look at the entire playing field from the biblical press box.

Without going into meticulous detail on Ezra 4:6-24, here’s the bottom line. Most of the passage describes how Samaritan leaders wrote letters to Artaxerxes about the problems with the new neighbors. Kind of like griping to the HOA board about that new family in the cul-de-sac who park their RV in front of your house. They cook up a bunch of crazy accusations against the Israelites. They won’t pay their taxes. They’ll be a hotbed of rebellion. If the king lets this go on, he’s gonna be really sorry. Artaxerxes pushes the pause button the rebuilding project and the Jewish adversaries couldn’t wait to folks in Jerusalem, “Nanny nanny boo boo!” (Let’s just say that’s a fairly loose translation of this passage.) Down in verse 24, Ezra flashes back to the days of King Darius to say that this opposition has been going on a very long time. He lets us know that the Samaritans delayed the project this first time “until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia” (v24). That’s a 16-year shutdown if you’re scoring at home (Ez 4:5; Hag 1:1-15).

If that’s the view from the press box, let’s now take a look from the biblical blimp. The Samaritans continue to be a royal pain the Hebrew tail for hundreds of years. They hate the Jews and the Jews return the favor. Prejudice and bigotry would be kind words to describe the relationship between these two people groups. So you would think God wouldn't waste a moment in wiping the enemies of His people off the planet. But something funny happened. Jesus shows up. He tells a story about what it means to love like God and has the gall to make a Samaritan the hero (Lk 10:25-37). Christ stuns His own posse by not only traveling through the heart of enemy territory but having a conversation with a (gasp!) Samaritan divorcee (Jn 4:1-42)! Just before He heads home to heaven, Jesus tells His followers that once His Spirit falls on them, “You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea an Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And before you can say “Great Commission,” God is welcoming in these former enemies into His kingdom (Acts 8:9-25). Bet you didn’t see that one coming back in Ezra!

What you and I need to remember is that we were just like the Samaritans. We were rebels and terrorists against the King of heaven. Despite shaking our fists at God, He reached out to us through Jesus. “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Rom 5:10). Instead of slaughtering His enemies, Jesus serves them. Instead of taking their lives, He gives His. We bring absolutely zilch to the table except our sin and rebellion. “But God shows His love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). He died for His enemies like the Samaritans. He died for rebels like you and me. While it’s important to get the view on the field, it’s vital to check out the perspective from the press box. And it’s even more critical to see things from the eye in the sky. When it comes to God and His Gospel, it’s all about perspective.

When the Going Gets Tough

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Legendary football coach Knute Rockne used these words to focus his team when their backs were against the wall. We’re all pretty good when things are easy. We’re all winners when life is going our way. We’re all superstars when the Big Mo is wearing our team’s jersey. But what happens when opposition rears its ugly head? What happens when things get hard? When the going gets tough, does the tough get going…in the opposite direction? That’s because resistance reveals resolve. Do I cut and run when I hit hostility? Do I allow the enemy to get me off my game plan? 

That’s exactly what happened to the children of God just when they were getting started rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. Ezra 4:1-5 takes us to the Promised Land to witness Israelite enthusiasm turn to apathy. One minute they’re throwing the loudest party the land has ever seen (Ez 3:11, 13). They worship God for His goodness as they lay the foundation for Temple 2.0. The very next minute they’re discouraged, afraid, and frustrated thanks to Samaritan sabotage. 

The big worship shindig was so loud that “the sound was heard far away” (Ez 3:11, 13). It apparently got the attention of “the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” (v1). The author makes it clear from the get-go that these folks are bad news. They are the enemy. They are the opposition. So who are these guys? They’re Samaritans. Let’s crank up the WABAC machine for a little history lesson. In 722 BC, the Assyrian superpower steamrolled the ten tribes of Jewish northern kingdom and hauled them off into captivity. They did just take them as slaves back to places like Nineveh but also shipped folks from other parts of their kingdom. Flip over to 2 Kings for a list of the folks the Assyrians sent to dilute those still in the land. “And the king of Assyria brought people form Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of of Samaria instead of the people of Israel” (2Ki 17:24). Eventually this stew of cultures and religions cook up some goofy pagan hybrid of worship that incorporates a little bit of this, a little bit of that, including a smidge of Jewish burnt offerings.

Almost 3,000 years later, this garbage is still going on. No, most of us aren’t building Asherah poles in our backyards or worshiping Baal in the basement. Folks who say they follow Jesus also sprinkle in a little bit New Age stuff here and little bit of Oprah over there. And we also worship such 21st century idols as cash, careers, cars, and kids while squeezing in just a little bit of time for Christ if we don’t feel like sleeping in on Sunday morning. Let’s be careful not to become modern day Samaritans.

After hearing the big throw-down on the temple mount, the Samaritans knew they had to do something to shut down this Jewish comeback. As Barney Fife would say, “Nip it. Nip it in the bud!” That’s when “they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, ‘Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to Him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here’” (v2). While this might sound all well and good, remember how Ezra describes them as “adversaries” in the previous verse (v1). Had they worshiped the same God as the Israelites? Well, if sort of. If you squint hard enough you could kinda, sorta come to that conclusion. But they also worshiped every other god and goddess like they were in some sort of Golden Corral buffet of dieties. Let’s face it, they were simply pretending to be all nicey-nice in order to execute the Samaritan sabotage.

The Z man and the rest of the Jewish leaders see right through their smarmy, Eddie Haskel-like approach. They shut the Samaritans down before they can say another word. “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us” (v3). Do you think Zerubbabel was being more than just a little bit rude to turn down the Samaritan offer to help? On top of not trusting their motives, he knew full well that it was because of idolatry that God sent His people into captivity in the first place (2Ki 17:18; 23:26-27). If Zerubbabel had anything to do with it, he would do everything in his power to keep it from happening again. Good leaders learn from history. 

But the Samaritans didn’t just shrug their shoulders and walk away to bother somebody else. “Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose” (v4). If they weren’t able to infiltrate the construction project from the inside, they had a few other tricks up their sleeve. They demoralized and deflated the Jews. They put fear in their hearts to put down their tools and stop building. They even greased the palms of the foremen and engineers on the job site to keep the project from ever getting off the ground. When the going got tough, the people got going…home.

And the Samaritan sabotage was successful. It lasted “all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia” (v5). Remember, this whole send-the-Jews-back-to-Jerusalem-to-rebuild-the-temple-so-they-can-worship-God thing started with King Cyrus. God stirred his heart to get behind this project (Ez 1:1-4). But after local opposition bullied and bribed the reconstruction to a halt, nobody lifted a hammer or pushed a wheelbarrow for 16 years. It wasn’t until God used the prophet Haggai to remind His people that He was backing their effort that they got back to work (Hag 1:12-15).

So is this some sort of hang-in-there-you-can-do-it pep talk using the Jewish people as the bad example? Let’s face it, we’ve all heard messages from the Old Testament like that before. But we need to keep in mind that the entire Bible is about Jesus. He said so Himself (Jn 5:39, 46). We find encouragement here in the fact that our Savior didn’t waver in the face of satanic sabotage. Christ never wavered when His Father set the cross before Him (Lk 22:42). He saw His mission through to the end until it was absolutely and completely finished (Jn 19:30). We can be very thankful that when the going got tough, Jesus got going. 

When the going got tough, the Tough got going.