Nehemiah 1–2

Nehemiah opens with a man who hears bad news and turns it straight into prayer, and the prayer becomes a wall — the cupbearer who weeps in Susa will rebuild Jerusalem because he first wept before the God of heaven. Set the book in the canon before a word of it is read, and it changes how the chapter sounds. Nehemiah is the last history in the Old Testament. Malachi is his contemporary; after this book closes there is no more narrative — four hundred years of silence until a priest is struck dumb in the temple. Everything from Genesis forward has been running toward a wall and a scroll in a ruined city, and then the record simply stops, mid-restoration, waiting.

Word comes that the survivors in Judah are in great affliction, the wall broken down, the gates burned. Nehemiah sits down and weeps, and fasts, and prays before the God of heaven — and his prayer is built of confession, the remembered word to Moses, and a plea for the king’s favor. Grief is turned to intercession before it is turned to action.

The prayer leans on a promise rather than on Nehemiah’s standing. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses — that if the scattered return and keep the commandments, Yahweh will gather them to the place of his Name. He holds Yahweh to his own covenant word, the surest ground of all prayer; not I deserve but thou hast said. Months later, standing before Artaxerxes with a sad face, he shoots up a silent prayer — so I prayed to the God of heaven — between the king’s question and his own answer.

The king grants everything, and Nehemiah names the reason without hesitation. The king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. The good hand of God opens the king’s heart — the same refrain that carried Ezra up now carries Nehemiah, the unseen hand moving the most powerful man on earth to fund the rebuilding of a ruined wall.

Arrived in Jerusalem, Nehemiah inspects the ruin by night, telling no one, surveying the broken gates alone in the dark before he speaks. Then he lays it before the people: Ye see the distress that we are in… come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach. And they answer, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work. The hands once weakened by the enemy are strengthened for the work — the exact reversal of Ezra 4, where the adversaries weakened the hands until the building stopped.

Turn the bad news into prayer before you turn it into action; hold Yahweh to his own word, and let the good hand that moves kings strengthen your hands to build.

Hosea 12

Hosea 12 sends Israel back to Jacob their father — to the man who wrestled and prevailed — and the lesson is that the nation must become what its name means: a prince who has power with God. The prophet recalls the patriarch: he took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication unto him. Jacob prevailed by weeping and clinging, not by force — the heel-grasping supplanter became Israel only when he held the angel and would not let go.

And out of the wrestling comes the Name. Even Yahweh God of hosts; Yahweh is his memorial — and it opens: Yahweh Elohim Sabaoth, He who will be manifested in mighty ones of armies, the Name given at the bush and carried into Egypt, the guarantee that the Spirit of Yahweh means to show itself in a company. It is not a title; it is a memorial — a thing set up so a people cannot forget what he intends to become in them. Jacob got the Name by holding on; the nation has the Name and cannot remember it.

The place is named for a reason. He found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us — Bethel, the house of God, where Jacob first met the ladder and last met the wrestler. The house of God is where the wrestling is won — the nation is pointed back to the place of encounter, the altar of vision, to find again the God their father held onto in the dark.

Out of the memory comes the summons. Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually. Turn, keep mercy and judgment, and wait — the whole duty of the returning heart in one line, the active turning and the patient waiting held together. It is Jacob’s clinging made into a way of life: hold on, and do not let go, and wait.

The indictment that follows is sharp. Ephraim feedeth on wind, and does more than that: they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt. The Hebrew is sharper — a covenant is not made but cut, the word of split carcasses and blood between the pieces, the most solemn act a man can perform. They cut that covenant with Assyria while sending oil south to hedge it with Egypt. They spend the holiest thing they have on the two powers that will eat them. And Ephraim is a merchant with balances of deceit in his hand, grown rich and saying I have found me out substance — but the call to be Jacob still stands over it. The deceitful trader is summoned to become the prevailing prince — to trade the false balances for the wrestling grip, the self-made substance for the substance found in clinging to God. The nation that wandered is told whose son it is, and what that son became when he would not let go.

And the answer to the false covenants is one line that reaches all the way to the end. I am Yahweh thy God from the land of Egypt — and then, as the Revised Version reads it, I will yet make thee to dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast. He will bring them out again and put them back in booths — the second exodus written as a return to tabernacles, the feast of the wilderness kept once more by a people brought home. They cut covenants with Assyria for security; he promises them a tent.

Become what your name means — wait on God and will not let go, for Jacob prevailed not by force but by weeping and clinging in the house of God.

Colossians 3–4

Colossians 3 takes the reckoned resurrection of chapter 2 and turns it into a way of walking: if you are risen with Christ, live as those whose life is hid above, awaiting the day it is revealed. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. And the timing is held exactly: your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. The risen life is hidden now and revealed at his appearing — the saint is reckoned risen, but the glory is future, given when Christ appears; the resurrection is sure and still to come.

The walk is a putting-off and a putting-on, the very pattern of the circumcision made without hands. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth — fornication, uncleanness, covetousness which is idolatry. Put off the old man with his deeds; and… put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Put off the old man, put on the new — the body of the sins of the flesh laid aside in daily walk, the new humanity put on, renewed after the image that Colossians 1 named.

And the garment that crowns the new man is love. Put on therefore… bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering… and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. Love is the bond that holds the new man together — every other grace is gathered and tied by it; the divided heart of Ephraim is healed in the one heart clothed in mercy and love. Let the peace of God rule in your hearts… and be ye thankful.

The new life then fills the ordinary day. Whatever is done, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men — wives, husbands, children, servants, masters, each in their place, all as to the Lord. The risen life is lived in the small obediences — not in mystical escape but in honest work and ordered households done for Christ. Chapter 4 adds the watch of prayer — continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Gethsemane is in it, and it is hard not to hear: the word is to stay awake, and it is the word the Lord used on three sleeping men — what, could ye not watch with me one hour? Prayer that does not keep its eyes open is not prayer yet. Then the walk in wisdom toward outsiders, and let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt.

The letter closes in a circle of names — Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Mark, Epaphras labouring fervently for you in prayers, Luke the beloved physician — the body knit together in love and labor. The doctrine ends in a fellowship of working saints — the firstborn’s body at its ordinary, faithful work, greeting one another by name, the new creation lived out in a network of people who pray and labor for each other.

And the last line is written in a different hand. Paul takes the pen from the scribe and signs it himself: The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Three words, and they gather the whole letter — the man who wrote your life is hid with Christ in God wrote it in a chain. A date sharpens it further: this went to Colosse about AD 62, and about two years later an earthquake levelled the city. The life hid with Christ in God was the only thing in Colosse that the earthquake could not touch.

Seek the things above and live the risen life in the small obediences, clothed above all in love — your life is hid now, and will appear in glory when Christ appears.