Sermon of the Month - May 2009
Old Testament Hope: 2 – Liberation
(Readings: Nahum 1:11 – 2:4 and Exodus 3:1-15)
1. Nahum’s message
Before we turn to Exodus, I’m going to start with Nahum. I have never preached before on the prophet Nahum, nor ever heard a sermon on it, nor even ever heard any of it read in any service in any church before! There is a reason for this: if you like the book of the prophet Jonah with its message that God’s mercy even extends to the pagan people of Nineveh, if they repent, then you will struggle with the book of Nahum, which is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It is a book whose central theme is a delight that the pagan oppressive nation of Assyria and its capital Nineveh is going to be judged and fall. It delights in the terrible violent end about to befall the people of Nineveh. Since we are Christians, we follow Jesus; and he said Love your enemies – but Nahum is far from that spirit.
Many Christians struggle with the Old Testament, and say they prefer the New, with its much more encouraging message of forgiveness, mercy and love. The start of Nahum is a classic example of what such people find so very difficult in the Old Testament. Nahum 1:1-2: An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. You see what I mean? What can a Christian, a biblical Christian, a New Testament Christian rightly take from the book of Nahum?
Nahum spoke his vision between 663bc (the fall of Thebes [Nahum 3:8-10]) and 612bc when Nineveh fell, and most probably during the very last few years, well after the death of the long stable of reign of King Asshurbanipal in 627bc, as Nahum speaks in 3:18 of the unstable situation of those last 15 years. Nahum himself may possibly have been an Israelite descendant of those exiled a century earlier, living near Nineveh, but more probably was a man of Judah, looking from afar.
What his message is, from a wider biblical perspective, is a recognition of and a delight in God’s justice and judgment. Evil will not go unpunished. Even Nahum says, The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. But for Nahum this does not mean that he is slack. Simply that judgment will be slow to come, but will inevitably come for the oppressing nation of Assyria. Their evil oppression will not continue for ever.
So there are two positive themes from this otherwise difficult book: on the one side we have the issue of justice, and the expression of judgment on the unjust; on the other side with have the theme of liberation – freedom and salvation for the oppressed. The bottom line for most of Nahum, in all its powerful and violent imagery is the execution of God’s justice in the form of judgment on what he calls the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims (Nahum 3:1). But the reading we selected from earlier in the book (Nahum 1:11 – 2:4) also brings the theme of liberation for God’s people, for Judah and Israel.
First of all, in Nahum 1:12, the prophet declares God’s word to his own people: Although I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. (The NIV assumes this is addressed to Judah, but as the square brackets indicate, these words are not the prophet’s words, but the translator’s addition. ‘Judah’ is probably right, but ‘Israel’ remains a possible alternative meaning.) God’s people have been afflicted by the Assyrians, but this will now end. In history, this affliction meant exile, the long-term destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in 721bc, and the occupation of Judah and seige of Jerusalem in 701bc, during the reign of Hezekiah, and the hegemony of Assyria over Judah during the terrible reign of Manasseh, which followed. Good news for Judah is proclaimed in Nahum 1:15, and good news for Israel in Nahum 2:2. For the end of Assyrian power means respite for both the formerly beleaguered people of Judah, and the exiles of Israel.
The words of Nahum in Nahum 1:15 are very similar to those of Isaiah 52:7, which come in that part of the book of Isaiah set in the later Judean exile, about 540bc, and God’s promise of liberation for the destroyed city of Jersualem: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion [in other words, Jerusalem], “Your God reigns!”... Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem...” God’s people have wandered far from God, and lost so much. But their suffering will not continue. God’s people can rejoice. Nahum again: Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, O Judah, and fulfil your vows – for you will now be free from oppression and invasion. And now the word of hope for God’s people Israel. Jacob and Israel are alternative names for each other. Both here mean God’s people, whether the people of the northern kingdom, or the whole people of God. Translators show that a clearer way of translating Nahum 2:2 is: Truly the Lord restores Jacob’s beauty,/ The beauty of Israel,/ Though emptiers emptied them,/ And cut off their branches. It may be doom for the pagan empire of Assyria and its capital Nineveh, but it is not just freedom, but restoration and rebuilding for God’s people, especially in Judah. And so it was: Judah had a new king, Josiah, who undertook reforms to restore the worship of God, of Yahweh, and to remove the idols of Baal, and lived to see the restoration of the God of the Bible as Israel’s faith (scholars suggest the book found in the temple in 622bc was Deuteronomy), and lived to see Judah freed from Assyrian influence and indeed the destruction of Nineveh and the Assyrian empire.
Liberation is a positive theme in Nahum. But Exodus is the central place to see the hope of God’s people for liberation spelt out.
2. Exodus: God the Liberator
Like Genesis chapter 1, Exodus chapter 3 is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. Genesis 1 tells us God is Creator; Exodus 3 tells us God is Liberator. This chapter is foundational for the definition of God. Moses plays for time, tries to find every excuse to avoid and evade God’s commission to stand up to the most powerful man on the planet. ‘Who am I?’ was his first question. God answers him by saying that he is the man who has God with him. This leads to the outrageous question of a believer to God, ‘And who are You?’ But God answers this impudent question. The text provides two clear if mysterious answers. The first is this: I am who I am. That is the first definition of God. Hebrew tenses work differently to English, so the Hebrew carried the possibility of future meaning as well: I will be who I will be. And the verb carries the hint of action: I do what I do and I will do what I will do. The translation, I am who I am carries the central meaning; but God defines himself by what he does and by what he will do. In a sense, this therefore repeats the extension of God’s first answer to Moses. God did not simply say, I will be with you. He added: And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. No help to Moses at that time of course! But God will define himself and prove himself by what he does. This prophesy does come true. Moses can know who God is by what he does: he does enable the people to escape from Pharaoh, the most powerful man of the day, and the people do worship God on that mountain.
So that is the first definition: I am who I am. The second is historical: Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.’ He is no new God, but the God of the covenant with Abraham.
The God they have long worshipped, the God who called them to be a people now defines himself as the Liberator. He is what he is; he shows who he is by what he will do. This is how the story starts. When Moses has been brought to recognise he is in the presence of the Holy, by the bush which burns without burning up, God speaks. He defines himself as God, The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, and then states his intention in speaking to Moses: I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey... God is the Liberator. You, Moses, and you Israelites know me as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You will now know me as the God who is, and whose existence is dynamic, and whose existence is to act, to act to save Israel, to rescue Israel, to save Israel from Egypt – that is the negative side – and to provide the Israelites with a land of plenty – that is the positive side.
God is Liberator; God is Redeemer; God is Saviour; God is the Rescuer; God is the Provider; God is Compassionate; God is the One who Cares; God is the One who acts to save us. This is where it all starts. Read the Hebrew Scriptures – the Old Testament – and you will see this time and time again. It is certainly in many of the songs of Israel in the Psalms. But it comes up in the prophets again and again. It is foundational for Israel. It is also foundational for us as Christians. For us, Jesus is Saviour. He is not just Lord, he is Saviour. He died on the cross to save us. His body was broken and his blood shed to express God’s new covenant with us in Christ’s death. Just as God saved Israel from Egypt, so God saves us today. The high point – the fulfilment of God’s promise to Moses in Exodus 3 – comes in and from Exodus 12, in the Passover. And ever since, the Israelites share in a meal of unleavened bread and lamb, with various extra features, bitter herbs, a cup of thanksgiving and other cups, to express gratitude to God for saving the people, and for making the people. And as Christians we celebrate the new covenant with Jesus as the sacrificial Passover lamb, slain for our salvation, sharing also in bread and in a cup of thanksgiving.
3. Hope of Liberation
This, then is Israel’s hope and ours: hope of liberation.
Talk of Exodus and Liberation might raise the question of liberation theologians – of South America and elsewhere, and a question of politics. I believe there are important questions here which we will only touch on briefly.
On the one side we need to avoid the danger in a politicisation of liberation. Moses did not set up a political programme, he responded to the command of God, and the promise of God. The Israelites were oppressed both in the days of Moses and of Nahum. But God operates as redeemer of his people, he is faithful to us, and he calls us to be faithful to him.
On the other hand we do need the liberation of politics! We must not de-politicise liberation. In these syories of liberation, we see that God shows us his concern for the oppressed, for the poor and so on. This must inform and transform our politics.
The gospel of God should never be reduced to a political message. But it should never be reduced to a sentimental message which is irrelevant to real people, or a mystical message that hovers above the real world in detachment. God is Liberator, and we should worship and honour him as such. But he is also our inspiration. As Paul says, in Ephesians 5:1: Be imitators of God. Let God inspire us to work as agents of hope, of liberation, of salvation, that we may be salt and light in the world.