Stirred to Regather
On Thursdays, at lunch, there is a group at my church that gathers to eat soup and salad and study the Scriptures together. This season we are walking through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In the Hebrew Bible, those two books are actually one book, probably forming one scroll in the ancient world. The fellowship we have around the table, and opening the Word together, is fantastic and I have missed this simple gathering of believers. We chose Ezra and Nehemiah because it describes regathering after a collective trauma in Judah.
From the first verse of Ezra it was clear who was really in charge of the events happening all around. God’s people had been disciplined by God – handed over to the consequences of their idolatry and lack of justice. A good portion of them were exiled, but a new super-power had arisen – Persia and King Cyrus. King Cyrus had a policy of not really caring whose god you worshipped, as long as you were paying your taxes. So, he issued a decree allowing the exiled Jews to go home. Yet, Ezra’s phrasing was pointed, “Yahweh stirred the spirit of King Cyrus . . .” Then, a little while later, “Yahweh stirred the spirit of the returnees . . .”
In both the king’s decision to allow the exiles to go home and the exiles decision to go home, Yahweh stirred their spirits to head back to Jerusalem. While in the Holy City, the very first priority was to be able to worship once again.
From the outset then, Yahweh stirred the spirit, and the people responded with worship. The Lord God stirred the regathering, and the people responded to the regathering with praise.
I do not think I can declare us back to “normal” because normal has forever changed. However, I do think the Lord is stirring again. The Lord is drawing people to regather or maybe they have never gathered before. Some, like some of the Israelites, will choose not to regather. They have found comfort elsewhere. For those of us who do choose to regather under the Lord’s stirring, our first response is worship. God is worthy of worship, worthy of praise. I pray that the Lord is stirring your heart to worship, not just on Sundays, but rather you are coming to the place where every breath is praise.