Matins Devotion: September 23, 2024

Nehemiah 9:22-38

If we want to be good students of Biblical history, it helps if we don’t fall victim to what I suppose we call the “Along Time Ago Parallax”, the tendency to think think that two historical events that both happened “a long time ago” are somehow closer together than they are. We tend to think of all of the Old Testament as “a long time ago,” and therefore think of all the events of the Old Testament as being in close proximity, but this isn’t always the case.

A good example of this can be found in our reading from Nehemiah today. When the Jews are confessing their sins and seeking the mercy of God, they speak of those who wandered in the wilderness as their fathers and treat themselves as part of the same story. But the wandering in the wilderness was not a recent event. It was over a thousand years earlier. A thousand years ago, most of my ancestors were still worshiping Norse gods. I don’t know any of their names. I don’t speak their language. I have no connection to them. I imagine that’s the same for you.

But that’s, of course, the beauty of this collective repentance we see among the Jews under Nehemiah. They weren’t any closer in time to those who wandered in the wilderness than I am to my pagan Viking forefathers. But they see themselves as the same people because, out of His mercy, they are the same people. God preserved them with the promise of the Savior, the promise of His Son. And now, with that same mercy and steadfast love, He has grafted us into that family. By covering us in the blood of Jesus Christ, by destroying our sinful nature and giving us new birth in the waters of baptism, God has made us His children, made us brothers of Christ and therefore heirs of Abraham, heirs of Moses and those who wandered in the wilderness, heirs of David and Solomon.

Their story is our story. Their redemption, our redemption. Their promises, our promises. And our Lord will fulfill them all. So when we sin, let us look upon the forgiveness poured out upon those in the wilderness, call those men our fathers, and beg for our Lord to pour out the same forgiveness on us. And when we repent, let us know that the same merciful hand that fed our fathers in the wilderness now leads us to the altar where we can feast upon our Lord Himself, the very Bread of Life.