With all of the bad news around, it’s easy to lose sight of reasons to celebrate: the sadness of illness, the threat of war. So often it can feel as if we live under one dark cloud after another. Yet as we saw from Nehemiah chapter 8 last Sunday morning, even in the midst of opposition, and faced with their own failure and sin, God’s people were commanded to celebrate regularly. Telling them to wipe the tears from their eyes at the grief of their sin, Nehemiah’s words to them are thrilling:
“…the joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Neh 8:10)
In other words, their strength and security and certainty was not to be found in their circumstances, performance or abilities, but in the goodness of God. They could look forward with confidence that is found in Him rather than themselves.
They could do that with confidence because of the past: each year they were also to celebrate God’s goodness to them in the past. By living for a week in temporary shelters (which must have been very exciting for the children especially!) they were remembering how the LORD brought them out of slavery in Egypt to the promised land. The message was loud and clear that He is a powerful redeemer as well as a generous giver! That whole picture was pointing to and fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus.
For us, living this side of the cross, trusting in the Lord Jesus, we too can know His power in redeeming us and generosity in giving us a guarantee of His presence with us now and a future one day with Him in glory.
We can step forwards in our broken world with that sure knowledge. Praise God!
Spencer Shaw