The Great Rededication
Text: Nehemiah 12
Proposition: Rededication is restoring the lost things back to their rightful place of honor with joy. This is what the cross of Christ has done, our Great Restoration.
Introduction: Last week you all heard of how Carol’s car had been stolen and then after a period of days it was found and restored back to her. Can you imagine what that could have looked like if all the police constables and their corporals and sergeants came and gathered around that car now sitting again in Carol’s driveway where it belonged. The police officers stand around the car in a circle and then they begin to sing, quietly at first and then louder and louder until finally they are singing praises to God so loud the whole block can hear them. Everybody begins to come out of their houses and there is sense of great joy and celebration that what was stolen has now been returned and even restored. I know that sounds comical because it so far from what we would ever expect or see. Yet I tell you that because of where we are about to go this morning as we read a portion of Nehemiah 12.
It is about 450 BC, three waves of people have left Babylon and repopulated Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside. The third wave was led by a man called Nehemiah who inspired the people to rebuild the walls, make new gates. They create a lottery where one out of ten living in the countryside would be chosen to sell their possessions and move into the city and make it their new home. That’s what we talked about last week, the theme was ‘Don’t despise the day of small things’, which is what living in the newly rebuilt Jerusalem looked like to them. It was at that time a city without people, a place where the Temple had been restored but was sitting in a vulnerable state. So chapter 11 of Nehemiah describes a repopulation of the city and then you come to chapter 12. This is the account of the great Rededication of the city where God chose to have His presence and name dwell. Turn with me to Nehemiah 12.
I. The Great Rededication Begins With a Change of Focus.
When you read chapter 12 the first 26 verses are a chronology or record of the names of the priests who came back from Babylon. There were 24 divisions or families of priests that went into the captivity at Babylon (1 Chron. 24:1-20), only four groups returned less than 70 years later (Neh.7:39-42). So Nehemiah takes the time to list the chronology of these four divisions of priests and the Levites who worked with them. What you see in this is not just a record of the purity maintained in the line of the priesthood but from this time onward the very chronology of the Jews was now connected to the succession of their high priests rather to their kings (JFB). The king over the people of Israel in Nehemiah’s day was the Persian king Artaxerxes. So from this point forward the nation was defined in part by who the high priest was even through to the days of Jesus some 450 years in the future. This great shift in focus is not an accident or a minor detail, it is the beginning point of God shifting the people’s expectation of the Messiah as being the political king and deliverer of Israel to the introduction of the Messiah as the High Priest of the nation, the One who would prepare and offer the perfect and final sacrifice for sin, even His own body and blood on the cross. The great rededication begins with this shift of focus, to see that the greatest need of the people was not greater prosperity, power or political prominence. It was to have a way that their sin could not only be atoned for but actually paid for in full, removed from them as far as the east is from the west. This too is what the rededication of a person’s life to Christ continues to be to this day, a refocus that agrees with His assessment of our sin and His call over our lives as our High Priest. It is as 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all three ways that God pleads, intercedes and leads as Prophet, Priest and King but it is His ability and function as Priest, our High Priest where He steps between us and the wrath of God against sin and takes the full effect of it upon Himself for us. Rededication is gripped by that truth as a slave is gripped by new found freedom.
II. The Rededication is a Thanksgiving Immersed in Joy For Restoring Us. Have a look now at verses 27, “And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps.” This shows the way the people were invited to participate, to see that this was theirs to celebrate, theirs to own and even theirs to be consecrated in by their own purification. Look at verse 30, “And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and purified the people, and the gates, and the wall.” It was a bowing low in humility before God, seeing the need to be cleansed just like Isaiah had said years before, “‘Come now, and let us reason together’, saith the LORD: ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’” (Isah1:18) That’s the voice of God inviting the people to draw near, inviting us to draw near. It’s a preparation of heart that precedes the rededication, that precedes the proclamation that is about to happen. Have a look at this map of the walls of Jerusalem : (https://ca.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrTcc978ttX1sMAhK4XFwx.?p=Map+of+Jerusalem+in+Nehemiahs+time&type=25431_070816&fr=yhs-tightrope-tig4&hsp )
In verse 31 it says, “Then I brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great companies of them that gave thanks, whereof one went on the right hand upon the wall toward the dung gate.” So Ezra goes with one group and the second group described in verse 38 goes with Nehemiah. They are singing and instruments are playing and there is a great celebration as both groups eventually meet at the Prison gate which leads right into the temple courtyard. Then Nehemiah and half the leaders and the priests go down from the wall and enter in to the Temple area. Do you see what is happening here, they are rededicating the restored walls of Jerusalem but that can’t be done without also coming to the Temple. It’s like the walls of Jerusalem are the body of the city but the Temple is the soul, the place of will, intellect and emotion. It is a picture of what rededication looks like, it involves your life and the things you did or didn’t do but even more so it involves your soul. Canadian singer songwriter Carolyn Arends sings a song where she repeats the phrase, “I have a body, but I am a soul, I see a fraction, it's not the whole. I cannot prove it, but still I know I have a body … I am a soul.” Rededication is about all of who you are just as salvation also is. You have a body but you are a soul. The truth is God has made all of who you are and all of you is precious to Him. It’s why resurrection is what Jesus not only promised but demonstrated, proclaiming sin has been paid for in full to all who would call upon Him. Listen to how this ends in verse 43, “Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.” This is the final outcome of a life rededicated to Christ… He is our great sacrifice that God makes us rejoice in, He is our great joy.
Rededication is restoring the lost things back to their rightful place of righteousness and honor in Christ with joy and deep thanksgiving. This is what the cross of Christ has done, our Great Restoration.