The Story Chapter 16 - The Beginning of the End

A few images have been playing on my mind as I’ve worked my way through chapter 16 of The Story this week, and been thinking about the fall of Israel.

 

The first is what they call The Blue Screen of Death. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced the Blue Screen of Death, but when you do it’s never good news.

 

You switch on the computer as normal. But instead of the nice swishy windows logo and the four or five note tune that tells you the computer’s awake and ready to do your bidding, all you get is a blue screen filled with lots of meaningless alphanumeric code and computer terms that mean absolutely nothing to you.

 

So you call your friend who knows a little about these things, but after a few hours of poking and prodding and chin-scratching, he tells you what you already suspected deep in your heart. It’s going to cost nearly as much to repair it as it is to get yourself down to PC world and buy a new machine.

 

So with a deep sigh, you take a visit to the sad little cabin at the Recycling point in Ellon where all the broken computers go. Hardware that’s far more powerful than the technology that first took us to the moon, now lined up for scrap along the walls of a damp hut because they’re no longer fit for purpose.

 

Now come back with me a couple of thousand years.

 

 

Jesus is telling a parable about a landowner who has an unproductive fig tree on his property. “Cut it down” says the landowner to the gardener. But the gardener says – ‘Let’s give it one more try, sir. I’ll dig around it, and make sure it’s fertilised. And if we don’t get any fruit this year, then let’s cut it down.

 

Later on in his ministry, during Holy Week, Jesus was walking the three miles from Bethany to Jerusalem when he became hungry. And he spotted a fig tree by the side of the road. But when he went to investigate, it was fruitless. So he cursed it then and there. And walking past it the next day, the disciples noticed that it had withered and died.

 

What do you do when something’s no longer fit for purpose?

 

Do you keep going with it? How long do you keep going?

 

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 

We all know that patience is a virtue, but doesn’t there come a time when you know that the only sensible option is to draw a line under things and move on?

 

God has reached that point with Israel in today’s chapter of the Story.

 

Remember that the people of Israel had been chosen for a purpose. To show the nations what it’s like to live with God as the centre of your spiritual and national life. That was their purpose in God’s Upper Story plan to win the world back to himself.

 

But try as God might to hold them to that purpose. they kept going their own sweet way, despite the seemingly endless warnings of the prophets.

 

Those of us who are parents may well know how that feels. I saw this the other day which made me smile! (IMAGE)

 

The teenager always knows better. Why would he or she need to listen to mum and dad – they’re just trying to spoil our fun!

 

Israel always knew better – why would they need to listen to God? He was just trying to spoil their fun.

 

So despite the warnings, they went their own way. And God, finally, had enough of it. Like all good parents, he knows that when you make threats or sanctions, you have to follow through on them. And that’s exactly what happened. (MAP)

 

The last ruler of the Northern Kingdom, King Hoshea of Israel, tried to get one over on Assyria – the dominant force in the region - by currying favour with Egypt, but it didn’t work.

 

Shalmaneser, the King of Assyria, got wind of this; seized Hoshea and put him in prison, laid seige to Samaria for three years and finally captured it, deporting the survivors back to Assyria in 722BC.

 

And just like that, Israel – the Northern Kingdom – was gone. They never come back. We never hear of them again. Those tribes are referred to in history as the lost tribes. Scattered and then, presumably, assimilated. Their culture, their faith, their identity blown away like chaff in a strong wind.

 

So all that’s left of God’s people now is tiny Judah, to the south, centred on the city of Jerusalem.  And with bigger, more powerful nations on their borders, God’s plan seems to be balancing on a knife’s edge. What will happen to Judah?

 

Well for once, Judah was ruled by a good King, Hezekiah, who did what was right in God’s eyes. And when he found himself under incredible pressure to surrender to Sennacherib, Assyria’s King, he took his concerns to God in prayer, and God answered him through the prophet Isaiah.

 

(SLIDE) “He will not enter this city, or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it. By the way that he came, he will return; he will not enter this city.”

 

And we’re told that that evening, the angel of death passed through the camp and decimated Sennacherib’s forces. An event immortalised in Byron’s poem – The Destruction of Sennacharib.

 

And though there’s historical debate about whether and why such a catastrophe actually happened, it’s interesting that in Sennacharib’s own record of his triumphs, which is on display at the British Museum in London (SLIDE), Jerusalem is the only city mentioned as being beseiged, but not captured. Now why wouldn’t the Assyrians capture the biggest prize of all if it were sitting there waiting to be taken? Just a thought.

 

So Judah, the southern Kingdom,, survived for the duration of Hezekiah’s reign. And it was during his reign that the prophet Isaiah came to prominence, and of all the prophetic writing in Scripture, Isaiah’s is probably the best known.

 

Isaiah’s commissioning came in the form of a vision of God in all his glory;  and in the light of that revelation he makes the only response he can:

 

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”. Then one of the angels flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

 

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

 

And indeed he was sent to the people of Judah; sent with three messages that permeate his writings.

 

The first is a message of judgment, because Isaiah foresaw that Judah, in time would go exactly the same way as Israel.

 

(SLIDE) Jerusalem staggers – Judah is falling. Their words and deeds are against the Lord., defying his glorious presence. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves”

 

And by 586 BC that prophesy was fulfilled when the Babylonians overran Jerusalem and burned every building of significance to the ground – David’s Palace; the temple that Solomon had lovingly constructed at such vast expense. And the people with it – thousands of them taken as slaves to Babylon.

 

More of that next week.

 

The second message Isaiah brings is one of comfort, and it’s spoken to those who find themselves in exile in Babylon. God wants them to know that even though his judgment has fallen, this isn’t the end for them:

 

Comfort, Comfort my people

says your God.

speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

double for all her sins.

 

This was a message the exiles didn’t expect to hear. They thought they’d blown it forever with God, but here he is talking about restoration. And we’ll see how that works out in the weeks to come.

 

But we might well ask, at this point, why does Judah get a reprieve and Israel doesn’t?

 

And the answer’s nothing to do with Judah’s faithfulness. It’s to do with God’s faithfulness and the promises that he’s made.

 

He promised Abraham land and descendants.

 

He promised to bless all the nations through Abraham’s seed.

 

He promised David to establish the throne of his offspring forever.

 

And if the people stay in exile – none of that happens.

 

God – to be true to himself – has to act. Has to stick with these people that he’s chosen, and fulfil these promises that he’s made to them.

 

But it’s only now, as the project of forming a godly nation seems to have died its last breath, that we begin to see what this was all about.

 

This cycle Israel has been in – the sin cycle of obedience, disobedience, repentance and falling into sin again is something they couldn’t get out of. If there were ever any question of us being able to do this ourselves, Israel knocks that idea firmly on the head. Chapters 1-16 of the story couldn’t make it clearer. We cannot save ourselves. We need someone to do that for us. Maybe that’s what both they, and we are to learn from all of this.

 

And that’s where Isaiah’s third strand of prophesy comes in. Because he starts to speak about one he calls the suffering servant. One who would take upon himself the sins of the people and make atonement for them in his own body. (SLIDE)

 

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed by our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.

 

We know who the prophet’s speaking about. It’s blindingly obvious. And yet these words were written 700 years before the Christ was born.

 

More and more we’re beginning to see that the whole of the story has been leading up to the birth of this one man – a son of Abraham, a son of David, yes.  But more than that – the son of God himself– born among us to do for humanity what we could not do for ourselves. To set us free from bondage to sin and death so that we can truly live for God, both now and hereafter.

 

The community gathered around Jesus and his story, the community that we call the church has been given a purpose, just as Israel was given a purpose all those years ago.  To live in such a way that people see the difference God makes to our lives; and to draw others into his forgiveness, love and service.

 

Those are the purposes of the church. God is making his appeal to the world, evidencing himself to the world, through us.

 

How are we doing?

 

How am I doing.

 

How are you doing?

 

“Whom shall I send?” says God.

 

“Who will go for us?”

 

May we find the courage to say  “Here am I, Lord. Send me!”