November 16, 2014: Swords into Plowshares

Isaiah 36:1-3, 13-20; 37:1-7; then 2:1-4

36:1-3

Assyria’s King Sennacherib marched against all of Judah’s fortified cities and captured them in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. ² Assyria’s king sent his field commander from Lachish, together with a large army, to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. He stood at the water channel of the Upper Pool, which is on the road to the field where clothes are washed. ³ Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who was the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder went out to them.

36:13-20:

¹³ Then the field commander stood up and shouted in Hebrew at the top of his voice: “Listen to the message of the great king, Assyria’s king. ¹⁴ The king says this: Don’t let Hezekiah lie to you. He won’t be able to rescue you. ¹⁵ Don’t let Hezekiah persuade you to trust the Lord by saying, ‘The Lord will certainly rescue us. This city won’t be handed over to Assyria’s king.’

¹⁶ “Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because this is what Assyria’s king says: Surrender to me and come out. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own well ¹⁷ until I come to take you to a land just like your land. It will be a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸ Don’t let Hezekiah fool you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us.’ Did any of the other gods of the nations save their lands from the power of Assyria’s king? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did they rescue Samaria from my power? ²⁰ Which one of the gods from those countries has rescued their land from my power? Will the Lord save Jerusalem from my power?”

37:1-7

When King Hezekiah heard this, he ripped his clothes, covered himself with mourning clothes, and went to the Lord’s temple. ² He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests to the prophet Isaiah, Amoz’s son. They were all wearing mourning clothes. ³ They said to him, “Hezekiah says this: Today is a day of distress, punishment, and humiliation. It’s as if children are ready to be born, but there’s no strength to see it through. ⁴ Perhaps the Lord your God heard all the words of the field commander who was sent by his master, Assyria’s king. He insulted the living God! Perhaps he will punish him for the words that the Lord your God has heard. Offer up a prayer for those few people who still survive.”

⁵ When King Hezekiah’s servants got to Isaiah, ⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Say this to your master: The Lord says this: Don’t be afraid at the words you heard, which the officers of Assyria’s king have used to insult me. ⁷ I’m about to mislead him, so when he hears a rumor, he’ll go back to his own country. Then I’ll have him cut down by the sword in his own land.”

2:1-4

This is what Isaiah, Amoz’s son, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

² In the days to come
    the mountain of the Lord’s house
    will be the highest of the mountains.
    It will be lifted above the hills;
        peoples will stream to it.
³ Many nations will go and say,
“Come, let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain,
    to the house of Jacob’s God
        so that he may teach us his ways
        and we may walk in God’s paths.”
Instruction will come from Zion;
    the Lord’s word from Jerusalem.
⁴ God will judge between the nations,
    and settle disputes of mighty nations.
Then they will beat their swords into iron plows
    and their spears into pruning tools.
Nation will not take up sword against nation;
    they will no longer learn how to make war.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Think of the nastiest, meanest, cruelest villains in any story you can remember.  Darth Vader followed by a bunch of storm-troopers from Star Wars.  The Dark Lord Sauron and his orcs from Lord of the Rings.  The Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. Throw in some real-life villains from our own world (the Nazis, ISIS, or whoever…) and you have an idea of what the Assyrian Empire was like.

Empires are usually not warm-and-cuddly, but Assyrians took cruelty and destruction to a new level.  They were based out of what is now Northern Iraq and they were able to conquer most of the Middle East.

The Assyrians were cruel. “How cruel?” you ask. They were so cruel that when the city of Babylon (filled with hundreds of thousands of people) was destroyed by the Assyrians, the destruction was so complete that it was the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off. The Assyrians created that much destruction with hand-held weapons.

The Assyrians were bullies. “How were they bullies?” you ask. The King’s Palace in Nineveh was covered with carvings and paintings of Assyrians executing, dismembering and enslaving conquered people in very hideous ways. This artwork was usually found in the room where they made foreign ambassadors sit before going to see the Assyrian King. 

The Assyrians were greedy. “How greedy were they?” you ask.  The Assyrian Empire lasted for hundreds of years and they would go out campaigning every few years, fighting and conquering enemies. After a while their economy became so dependent on warfare that they would campaign every year. And if they couldn’t find enemies to fight, they’d simply attack and destroy FRIENDLY nations. 

THESE are the people outside of the walls of Jerusalem when our lesson begins.  No wonder King Hezekiah and his officials are frightened.  The bragging that the Assyrian field commander does to the officials listening on the walls can be backed up by a trail of blood, death, and slavery.  The alternative to fighting must have sounded very tantalizing.

But the prophet Isaiah encourages the king and his officials to hold fast: the LORD can be trusted, even in the face of these monsters.  And this faith is well placed: when the dust settles at the end of this episode Hezekiah is still in control of Jerusalem and Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, has been killed in palace intrigue back home in Nineveh.  In the meantime, the Assyrian army was ravaged by a plague which the Bible attributes to an angel of the Lord.

Have you ever faced a person or situation like the Assyrians? Has it ever seemed hopeless?  Maybe your personal Assyrian Empire is not a person per se. Maybe it’s an addiction or compulsion or habit you really, really, REALLY need to leave behind. Maybe it’s a life situation that you can’t seem to get out of.  Whatever it is, these verses can inspire you to HOLD ON and look to the Lord for help.

Our lesson finishes with a beautiful vision that we are still waiting to see: swords will be beaten into plows and nation will not take up sword against nation; they will no longer learn how to make war.  It seems almost too good to be true, doesn’t it?  Our world has been filled with violence and destruction for thousands and thousands of years.  Could something like this ever happen?

                                          

Even Jesus Christ our Lord, the Prince of Peace, faced violence and was killed by another empire. But the empire that killed him (Rome) as well as the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Macedonians, Communist Russia and so many others are now on the trash-heap of history.  Jesus Christ is very much still alive and with us.  Let this lift your heart when you see bullies in your life.  

 

November 9, 2014: Micah

Micah 5:2-4; 6:6-8

As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
    though you are the least significant of Judah’s forces,
        one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out from you.
    His origin is from remote times, from ancient days.
³ Therefore, he will give them up
        until the time when she who is in labor gives birth.
        The rest of his kin will return to the people of Israel.
⁴ He will stand and shepherd his flock^[a] in the strength of the Lord,
        in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
        They will dwell secure,
        because he will surely become great throughout the earth;

⁶ With what should I approach the Lord
        and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
        with year-old calves?
⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
        with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
        the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
⁸ He has told you, human one, what is good and
        what the Lord requires from you:
            to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The prophet Micah lived during tough times: trouble was brewing both outside of the land of Judah and also within its borders. At this point in the people of Israel’s history the Kingdom that had been united under Saul, David and Solomon has been divided into two entities: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. It appears that Micah lived in Judah and he saw a great deal of less-than-perfect things going on. The rulers of the land, both political and religious, were corrupt and lazy.  They had a bad habit of abusing the poor and twisting justice to suit their needs.

At the same time, large empires in the region where growing even larger and there was always the chance that the Assyrians or the Egyptians would gobble up a little country like Judah.  Needless to say: there was a lot on the line.

These selections cover two topics: the first is how God will one day send a ruler who will clean up the corruption and complacency that was the norm. The second is how we should live in the meantime.  Verse 4 describes what this ruler from Bethlehem will be like: a shepherd who protects his flock so that they “will dwell secure.”  This is an amazing standard of leadership that can be used to judge ALL leaders.  Do they protect and NOT exploit those underneath them?

And in the meantime, there is the second topic: how should we live in the meantime?  In those days people quite often offered extravagant and costly sacrifices to appease the gods as if they could buy the deities off and “wow” them.  In verses 6-7, Micah uses some hyperbole in listing truly over-the-top sacrifices that would cost the equivalent of a country’s Gross Domestic Product.  But then he says something revolutionary.  God doesn’t care about getting fancy gifts, God wants us to treat each other will justice, fairness and love.  THAT’S what matters. Many people have memorized verse 8, and with good reason! It gets at the heart of what a life in the name of God and in the name of Jesus Christ looks like. It’s the standard by which to grade everything we do, the measure of our actions.

Many centuries after Micah, the people of Israel were still waiting for the promised ruler to appear.  When three star-gazers from the east arrived in Jerusalem with the announcement that they had seen the star of a new ruler for Israel, it produced some excitement. The King at the time, a man named Herod, consulted with his religious scholars and they pointed to these words from Micah. 

And guess what?  A king was born in Bethlehem, and he has changed the world. Maybe not in the way people expect, but in a much, much better way indeed.  Wonder who that king might be? His name is Jesus and he’s the Son of God.