The Sun will Rise

November 23 (Ezra 3)Looking over the development of the Old Testament story, at least from the timeof slavery in Egypt, there seems to be some parallels with how we have come tounderstand human development. With the deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery inEgypt God birthed a new community. To infants the world is magical. Children use atremendous amount of imagination in order to understand the world around them. I canremember racking my brain trying to imagine how swallowing bubble gum wouldimplant a small seed in my stomach that would grow into a tree. Their attention andthinking is immediate and they may not always be able to connect discussions to a larger framework. On the first day of Kindergarten a teacher told the children that if they had togo to the bathroom they should raise their hand. One brave young boy in the back of theclass responded by asking how that would help. The dots are not all connected in achild’s world and so the world around a child is always on the brink of transforming intosomething entirely different. A backyard becomes the site of a great adventure and acardboard box quickly becomes a spaceship. The birthing of the people of God in Egyptand through the Red Sea was filled with signs and wonders. God was close to them infire, smoke, and miracles. The people were daily shown something new from God.As we grow older the world becomes less sporadic and changeable. We begin tounderstand that there is order and firm shaping to the way things are. At this age perhapsaround 10 years old children become keenly aware of what is right and wrong and formrigid and clear guidelines for these decisions. It can be difficult to explain to someonethis age that certain decisions were right for mom and dad even they were not right for their son or daughter. Why do parents get to stay out later, why do they get to watchdifferent shows? At this time in Israel’s life God gives instruction on Mt. Sinai andguides the people in the wilderness for 40 years where this law can be clearly lived outwith few external influences to deal with. In the wilderness the people are more isolatedfrom the influence of strangers much like we are growing up at home. But even here youhave some people beginning to ask questions outside of the moral framework. You havethe daughters of Zelophehad asking Moses whether it is right that no daughter is allowedto be given inheritance when they are not married. God is raising the people in thewilderness, a relatively protected environment, to be able to discern right from wrong.Then the people enter the land of Canaan. The child grows up and moves out of the house and God’s presence takes a step back from what it was like in the wildernessand begins to speak to Israel a little differently. This is our teen years and perhaps earlyadulthood where all of life revolves around us. We have experienced drastic change.Our bodies have matured, our emotions have developed and we are getting used to livingin a new land. But our relationships or our ability to relate is often still quite immature.Relationships are based on how much another person is like us or how much we want to be like them. This is the age of the most clear and intense form of peer pressure. It iscritically important for most of us at that age to dress and act in certain way to fit in withcertain people. This is the expression of the people of Israel as they enter Canaan whereat first they allow no one and nothing that is not like them to enter their community.Over time however they are lured by the people and practices around them and becomeconformed to them and forget their true identity.

2There is very little space here for critical thinking, which is the ability to look at your beliefs and practices knowing that some of them may need to be changed. The prophetscome and try to help the people see how they are going off track. The prophet Isaiah saythings like,

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,who put darkness for light and light for darkness,who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.Woe to those who are wise in their own eyesand clever in their own sight.

The prophets like many good parents tell their growing children to reconsider their ways.Perhaps they are getting involved in activities or relationships you don’t approve of andso you tell them with the best of intentions that, you know what, it may be best for themto make different choices. And the words of the prophets tended to be about as effectiveas the words of many good parents to their teenagers and young adults. At that stage inlife most of us are utterly confident in our ability to make decisions for ourselves. Thisconfidence however, is often unexamined and consists of whatever environment weimmerse ourselves in. Most of the kings throughout this period of Israel’s history livedas though they were in charge and not God. One image of this stage of life is kingUzziah who died just before the prophet Isaiah’s vision. Uzziah decided that as king, asthe centre of his world, he could also offer sacrifices on the alter in the Temple eventhough God commanded that only priests should do this. And as most often happenswhen we stray from where God calls us Uzziah suffered for it being struck with leprosywhen he entered the Temple.This is the trajectory that many of our lives arc towards that Jan explored lastweek. We get into relationships or relationship patterns that are not healthy and suddenlywe find ourselves feeling alone or estranged from the person next us. We make lifestylechoices that seemed harmless and suddenly addictive tendencies start manifestingthemselves. We pursue careers for wealth, stability or status and suddenly they startfeeling like a prison. And as Jan also pointed out sometimes things happen that are out of our control. Tragedy strikes in the form of illness or the loss of loved ones. Perhapsdepression sets in for no apparent reason. The vigour and assurance that once marked our lives has been eroded and we are left in exile, in the foreign land of uncertainty. As mostof us will or have already experienced, part of the development of life is be estrangedfrom a life of clarity and security; a life that is centred on our wants and needs.But this morning there is a strange rumour. There is a rumour that some peopleand families are beginning to return home from exile. We heard that the Babylonianswho captured us have been overthrown by Persians but what is the difference betweenone world power and another? But another rumour is spreading. Some people are sayingthat this Persian king Cyrus is supporting the Jews in their return to Israel. They say thatCyrus will even provide resources to rebuild the Temple. Something is different thistime. God always needed to deliver us from these sorts of nations. Things were black and white. God destroyed the nations or when we were bad God used the nations to

3destroy us. Now God appears to be using the nations and we are returning to a land nownot to destroy the people but to live among them. What was the motivation of Cyrus?Is he just trying to establish us as puppets for his own political means, we hear that other groups are getting sent out as well? What can it mean now to live faithfully in the landwhen so much has changed?After experiencing exile you can return home but it is never really the same. To be quite honest I don’t feel like I can really speak to this sort of experience. LastWednesday we had the final night in our series on the Bible and at the start of the nightwe were given some stories from the Bible and asked if any of them fit where we were inlife and then we were to share our thoughts with two other people around us. One of thestories was the 40 years in the wilderness. But I think it was perhaps exile that moreaccurately described what the two people beside me described. Here I was with two people much older than myself. I sat between them and listened to them share briefly of coming out of a period of exile. I was humbled in their presence knowing that they hadwalked through something I have not. We can experience hardships and come out themstronger but there is something more I think that happens when the months stretch intoyears and what is experienced is not so much a crisis but a profound absence or loss.These are the dry bones that God asked Ezekiel whether or not they could live. And byGod’s grace they return to the land of living but not as the same person and not to thesame situation.People that emerge out of exile tend to understand that there are not only twosides to a story but multiple perspectives. Where there was once a zealous legalism for doing the right thing there is now at times a painful and conflicted spirit over what it is to be faithful. There is a heart-rending image at the end of the passage that was read thismorning. The people have returned to the land and their desire is to return faithfully toGod’s law. Throughout Ezra and Nehemiah, the books that chronicle the return fromExile, we have accounts of how the people are trying to establish a faithful community.First and foremost they attempt to re-establish the alter for worship and the foundation of the Temple. I wonder if there was almost a mechanical sense of purpose in approachingthis knowing that this must come first for their community. When the foundation waslaid there was a great celebration among the people but then something else emerges. Itsays that many of the elderly people who returned, those who still remembered the firstTemple that Solomon built, began to weep while others were shouting for joy. Thechapter ends by saying, “no one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from thesound of weeping.”The people are conflicted. It is wonderful that the Temple, the center of worship,is being rebuilt. But it is not the same. We are not entirely sure what these people arethinking but it may be that the foundation is not as large as it was in the time of Solomon.Perhaps they were thinking that this was all funded by a foreign power who they suspectare using it to their own advantage. There is a profound sense of conflict in this time.Perhaps for some of us this can be experienced in the challenges that are facing thechurch or our morals or beliefs. Sometimes there is a divide between what our headthinks and what our heart feels about situation or issue. Or it is between what we believeand what we experience. Or perhaps your exile has left a physical and emotional scar that even when you are recovered leaves you unable to function the way you once did.Joy and sadness are mingled.