Something Old …

  • My morn­ing read­ings get a lit­tle painful some­times, but this morn­ing I didn’t know in the end whether I was more sad or glad. I’ll break out the two sep­a­rately, but the first read­ings turned out to be very hard.

    My idea this year was that besides a New Tes­ta­ment read­ing and psalm, I would read through the Old Tes­ta­ment with the apoc­rypha after the fash­ion of those Bible in a year books — some­thing from the pen­ta­teuch and his­tor­i­cal books, some­thing from the poet­i­cal and prophetic books, some­thing from the apoc­rypha. I can’t read through the Old Tes­ta­ment every year, but I thought the addi­tion of the apoc­rypha would make it a lit­tle easier.

    Well, no. Read­ing the Old Tes­ta­ment is rough, really rough. It’s not that the lan­guage is that dif­fi­cult or that (good­ness knows) the story is that hard to fol­low. But it’s just heart­break­ing in a lot of ways. It seems like the slow story of God mak­ing big­ger and bet­ter things, cre­at­ing them, estab­lish­ing them — a man, a fam­ily, a lin­eage, a nation — and then us mak­ing a hash of it in more and more alarm­ing ways.

    The addi­tion of the apoc­rypha lends new gems to the read­ings, espe­cially the books of Tobit and Judith. But at present, I’m in the his­tor­i­cal books I, II, III and IV Mac­cabees, which cover the period from 175 B.C. to 54 A.D. On one hand, it’s a lit­tle amaz­ing to start read­ing about what hap­pened in Israel came into con­tact with Alexan­der the Great or the early Roman Empire, but these things get short men­tion and kings and nations I’ve never heard of get a lot more. And in light of the present war between Israel and Lebanon, it’s just incred­i­bly hard to read these detailed accounts of the con­stant and bloody wars that Israel fought both inter­nally and externally.

    Two years later the king sent to the cities of Judah a chief col­lec­tor of trib­ute, and he came to Jerusalem with a large force. Deceit­fully he spoke peace­able words to them and they believed him; but he sud­denly fell upon the city, dealt it a severe blow, and destroyed many peo­ple of Israel. He plun­dered the city, burned it with fire, and tore down its houses and its sur­round­ing walls. They took cap­tive the women and chil­dren, and seized the live­stock. (I Macc. 1:29–32)

    Judas and his men, call­ing upon the great Sov­er­eign of the world, who with­out bat­ter­ing rams or engines of war over­threw Jeri­cho in the days of Joshua, rushed furi­ously upon the walls [of the heav­ily for­ti­fied city of Caspin]. They took the town by the will of God, and slaugh­tered untold num­bers, so that the adjoin­ing lake, a quar­ter of a mile wide, appeared to be run­ning over with blood. (II Macc. 12:15–16)

    Whose side are you sup­posed to be on? The first quote tells of a vic­tory of the “bad guys”, the sec­ond one a vic­tory of the “good guys.” That’s the prob­lem with the Old Tes­ta­ment. Those of us liv­ing in the Church Age are con­stantly hor­ri­fied by the chron­i­cles of vio­lence and geno­cide just as we’re heart­sick at the end­less fol­lies of “the apple of God’s eye” — the nation of Israel that seems so com­pletely bent on its own destruction.

    In the present war, almost every­one whose war it isn’t is say­ing “STOP!” STOP, Israel. STOP, Hezbol­lah. No more. Enough. No more killing and blood­shed. No more inno­cents exploited as shields or demol­ished as col­lat­eral damage.

    Doesn’t it seem like these areas of the world shouldn’t have any soil left at all, no brick, no plants, noth­ing that resem­bles nor­mal exis­tence? They were battle-born and they’ve lived with it ever since. Doesn’t it seem like they would sim­ply be unable to con­tinue mak­ing war?

    I’m not try­ing to talk like a paci­fist, maybe just another per­son an age and a hemi­sphere away that looks at the events of these ancient lands in a per­pet­ual state of won­der and hor­ror. The way things look from this side of the world doesn’t seem like they make much dif­fer­ence. Israel and Lebanon can’t stop, and we can’t make them stop. An abrupt and forced cease­fire would just be another idi­otic ges­ture of a peace that the two war­ring par­ties can’t con­ceive of. It would make West­ern­ers feel good, but then we could all count down the sec­onds until it breaks out again.

    Don’t you think God’s heart must break every day?


    Related posts:

    1. Advice from one pos­si­ble future
    2. Yes, Vir­ginia, there is a St. Nicholas
    3. Fairy tales, the Old Tes­ta­ment and Napoleon Dynamite
    4. Heck­uva speech going on
    5. War and prayer

    August 3rd, 2006 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Jamie 08.03.2006

    I was won­der­ing if you were going to write today… :)

    In regards to wan­der­ing about God’s heart breaking…I don’t know. I don’t know if God’s heart breaks. I can’t help but think back to a book I read a while back, “Prac­tic­ing the Pres­ence of God” by Brother Lawrence (writ­ten in the early 1600’s) this:

    ‘He said that as far as the mis­eries and sins he heard of daily in the world, he was so far from won­der­ing at them, that, on the con­trary, he was sur­prised there were not more, con­sid­er­ing the mal­ice sin­ners were capa­ble of. For his part, he prayed for them; but know­ing that God could rem­edy the mis­chief they did when He pleased, he gave him­self no fur­ther trouble.’

    I mean our fee­ble brains can­not under­stand God’s full will for all of mankind. He works in ways beyond our com­pre­hen­sion. He gave us free will so that we might choose Him. In regards to the war that is going on now, it is evi­dence of hearts that do not belong to the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit. If any­thing good that could come of this war, it is for oth­ers to see of the utter destruc­tion that is caused by hearts that choose to go against the com­mand­ments of Christ. Christ came to bring us the new covenant, and like Father said last Sun­day, that covenant was love, which replaced eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.

    Still crazily enough, amidst the blood­shed, lost lives and utter destruc­tion, the glory of God, His Son and the Holy Spirit is ever present. For those that are Chris­tians and those that are not, it is for us to see what can hap­pen when you choose to fol­low the will of Lord and when you do not.

    But yes, for those of us down here that can’t see the whole plan, yes it is indeed very heart breaking.

  • Mimi

    I just fin­ished read­ing the Old Tes­ta­ment and like you I am con­tin­u­ally amazed. And, I do wish I could just shout STOP.

    Lord have Mercy.

  • Grace

    Jamie:
    Stop read­ing blogs and get back to work! ;-)

    That’s a good point from that book. I wres­tle between the two unde­sir­able extremes — being detached for all the wrong rea­sons, being too involved for all the wrong rea­sons. Hope­fully I’ll get it right sometime.

    God’s heart: of course that’s one of the more unknow­able things in the uni­verse. Since we’re made in His image, I just have to remind myself some­times that being grieved over ter­ri­ble things isn’t an unholy response.

    After all, after exco­ri­at­ing the Phar­isees and faith­less Jews in Matthew 23, Christ said, ““O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your chil­dren together, as a hen gath­ers her chicks under her wings, but you were not will­ing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.”

  • Grace

    Mimi,
    I don’t know how many times I had to read it through before I stopped approach­ing it from a tri­umphal­is­tic Protestant-esque point of view, think­ing that it was just one big easy-read for us proud Church Age’rs. And maybe there are some that just feel more and more good about them­selves with every lamen­ta­tion of the prophets and king who “did what was evil in the sight of God.” But for me, I feel that I have to go to it with a gritty deter­mi­na­tion not to just let it all depress me. There are lessons to be taken, to be sure. They’re just hard to face.

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