In the winter of 2010, I was living in Bristol and was asked to lead a group from church to organise the weekly Saturday lunchtime soup run for the city’s homeless. I was co-leader of a 20s group at the time, and our group duly turned up one cold day in December at the gathering point near the main shopping centre. It was a couple of hours which changed my life. It’s hard to put into words now, but I had a profound sense that each face I looked into as I served out the soup was the face of Jesus. It felt like holy ground.
After it had finished, I called my wife to say I was on my way home. ‘How was it?’ she asked. I couldn’t reply – I just wept on the phone. Six weeks later, I was leading a team to help at the Wild Goose Café, Bristol’s brilliant café which serves the homeless, the first evening of a regular commitment with which I would be involved for the rest of my time in Bristol.
Why did that soup run touch me so deeply? I can’t really say; I had helped at a homeless shelter in the past, so it was something close to my heart – but that had been more than ten years ago, so truthfully it had not been a ministry priority for a long time. And then I agreed to help with one event…. and everything changed. I knew that in that season I had to act, I had to respond.
Maybe you’ve had a similar experience. It could be about anything – but there was a moment when something which had lain dormant in your heart suddenly awakes. It is this kind of experience which inspires the wonderful little book of Nehemiah which we begin today.
The book dates to the period when Israel has been conquered by Babylon and many Israelites are living in exile. By the time we get to Nehemiah, it is the mid-fifth century BC, in other words well over a hundred years since the destruction of Jerusalem. Several generations of exiles have lived in Babylon, 900 miles from their homeland. However, things are stirring. Fourteen years previously (458BC) Ezra the priest had led a return of the Levites and restored the religious life of the Jews (as they were now known – from the name Judah, meaning ‘praise’). Word now reaches Nehemiah via one of his brothers that, although the priests are presumably still performing their tasks faithfully, the fabric of the city is in a sorry state: (v3) ‘The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.’
It is unlikely that Nehemiah had ever visited Jerusalem. He was probably born in Susa, where he now served with an important job at the royal court: the king’s cupbearer had to taste everything that the king was going to drink before the king did, so that if it was poisoned, then the cupbearer died, and not the king. In other words, he had every reason to just stay put and continue in his vital role.
But something stirred in him that day: (v4) ‘When I heard these things I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned…’ Like me, I’m sure he would have found it hard to put into words just why this news touched him so much now. After all, he was probably privy to updates about his homeland more than most of his fellow Jews. But this was the moment when God called him to act – and over the coming days we’ll see where that deep, divine conviction led him.
Is God speaking to you about anything at the moment? If He is, then maybe this a moment to resolve to listen – wherever it may lead. And if not – pray for those facing such a call: for wisdom, courage and grace to respond, in faithfulness to our glorious God.