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Taking a break today from John’s gospel, we turn to another of my favorite stories of the Old Testament, that of Hezekiah and the Assyrian invasion. Hezekiah is one of the true heroes of the bible, yet is little known. He is king of Judah, the most southern of the two kingdoms into which God’s People divided when Rehoboam and Jeroboam were both proclaimed king.
Israel, the Northern Kingdom, has turned away from God and been sacked by the Assyrian Empire from the north, but now the Assyrians are setting their eyes on Judah as well. With Israel out of the way, Assyria takes over city after city and finally comes to Jerusalem. As the Assyrian commander taunts the people of Jerusalem, he gives us one of the most crucial questions Hezekiah, and in fact we ourselves, face in this world: “On what are you basing this confidence of yours?” His point is that Assyria has defeated every nation who relied on their god to protect them. Those gods are now ash heaps or piles of rubble. What, he asks, makes your God any different? How can one city stand against the might of the Assyrian Empire?
Hezekiah begins by trying to appease Assyria, stripping the city of its wealth (including the temple of God) and sending it off, but Assyria is not appeased and continues the assault.
We face foes today who as us the same question: “On what are you basing this confidence of yours?” When we trust in God against all odds, like one small city against a vast and proven empire, our enemies will work hard to shake our confidence in God. And usually, our best response is that of Hezekiah’s people: silence. Trust does not require us to win arguments with others, or convince them that we are correct. As we’ve seen again and again, this fight, whatever it may be, is not ours anyway. It is God’s, and as we will see tomorrow, God will come through and save us from our enemies if we simply follow and trust in Him. If not, then our fate will be like that of Israel.
As John continues his teachings that Jesus is greater than the symbols of the Jewish culture (yesterday it was Ritual Cleansing and the Temple), today he takes on the Pharisees. But when John takes on the Pharisees, he doesn’t do it the way we usually see it, with Jesus attacking them as His enemies. Instead, we find a Pharisee coming to Jesus for help. Rather than trying to trap Jesus in His own words, Nicodemus tries to understand what Jesus is teaching.
Granted he came at night, probably out of fear his counterparts, but he comes with a legitimate desire to learn. And in the midst of this exchange between Jesus and a Pharisee, we get one of the ultimate explanations of the Christian faith, “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” This statement of faith has defined the Christian faith for centuries.
But equally important is the next phrase, one that is much less well known, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” As “born again” Christians, another catchy phrase that comes from this exchange, we proclaim these truths of God’s love to everyone in every way.
And so John shows Jesus as wiser, smarter, and more able to teach than the very Pharisees who proclaim themselves the best at all three.
The book of John is laid out theologically instead of chronologically, and this is desperately important as we read it. Again and again I’ve heard people dispute the truth of the bible by arguing that John is in a different order than the other three gospels, an argument that doesn’t realize John’s purpose in writing. He states it quite plainly at the end of the book (John 20:31): “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
According to Dr. Gary Burge, the layout of this gospel story is done in such a way as to show Jesus superseding everything the Jews hold as powerful, righteous, or important. And so John begins with ceremonial cleanness. The large jars holding the water during the Canaanite Wedding of today’s reading were reserved for the ceremonial cleansing that was required regularly of every practicing Jew. But instead of honoring the need for ritual cleanness, Jesus turns that water from dutiful obedience to the law into a means of celebrating relationship.
The temple itself was Jesus’ next target. The idea that God was present in Jesus Himself instead of in the temple is widespread through all the gospels, but in John it is made most clear here. As Jesus comes to the temple, He does so to reform it and show His authority over it. He drives out those selling the sacrifices from the Court of the Gentiles, for the buying and selling, the bleating of animals, and the general ruckus is disrupting the Gentiles from their worship in the only place they are allowed to worship by Jewish law. He then makes His usurpation of the temple obvious. “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days,” is a foretelling of His resurrection of course, but also acts as His final replacement of the temple when it comes to God dwelling with us.
So, with the first two symbols that Jesus is superseding, ritual cleanness and the temple itself, John begins his explanation of just how important Jesus is to our life, our worship, and our eternity.
Sometimes the God about whom we read in the Old Testament seems like a completely different God than He whom we worship today. It is readings like today’s that make us believe the great heresy that the Old Testament God is a god of wrath and vengeance while the New Testament God is a god of grace and love. The truth is that God doesn’t change and has never changed – He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
But as we read about so much death and killing, children and women, soldiers and servants, it is hard to believe that God sanctioned these actions. Yet Jehu, who carried out the murder of the entire family of King Ahab, is praised by God for his righteousness and faithfulness.
What does the bible mean to you? How does your interpretation go – from the bible to you, or from your own experience and belief into the text? The first is called “exegesis”, where we seek answers in the bible. The second is called “eisegesis”, where we read our own opinions, experiences, and beliefs back into the bible. The first begins with God and His Word and then travels out to and through us. The second begins with us and then travels back into the text.
Far too many people today are experts at eisegesis, able to find a verse to back up any belief they may have come to. Want to get drunk? Find verses that suggest a glass of wine before bed. The NRA, the ACLU, and even Westboro Baptist people have verses to back up their desired message. But if you read the scriptures as a whole, you find a God with His own agenda, beliefs, behaviors, and theology. And He’s a God who expects us to follow His path, not the other way around.
As you read hard texts like this one, it is right to struggle with it, even to question it. But ultimately we have to remember that God is not subject to our opinions or desires. He acts as He acts, differently in each generation and across cultures. And we dare not call Him false, or liar, or mean because He doesn’t follow our game plan. He never said He would.