NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
NEHEMIAH 1:10
"THEY ARE YOUR SERVANTS AND YOUR PEOPLE, WHOM YOU
REDEEMED BY YOUR GREAT STREGTH."
This is
the second of three prayers by Ezra and Nehemiah that we will look at in these
devotions. All three prayers are exemplars of the mind of an intercessor – that
deep sense of solidarity with a people, treating their sins as one’s own and
pleading for God’s mercy for "us" not, "them."
John Donne’s famous meditation captures the perspective of these great men of
prayer.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a
piece of the Continent, a part of the man; if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of
thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am
involved in Mankind: And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
Only
love can cause us to see others this way. Paul told husbands to love their
wives as they love their own bodies, for that is how Christ loves the church –
as his own body (Ephesians 5:25-33).
Ezra and Nehemiah love the people of God the way Christ loves the church.
In
this prayer, Nehemiah draws on a text from Moses' intercession and puts himself
in the same place Moses was when he pleaded with God for the life of the
nation. Nehemiah prays, "They are
your servants and your people, whom you redeemed" (Nehemiah 1:10). The
first time that kind of prayer was prayed, the Israelites were close to
extinction following the incident with the golden calf (Deuteronomy 9:25-29). So Moses did a daring and provocative thing: "He stood in the breach before [God] to keep
his wrath from destroying" the nation (Psalm 106:23). Now Nehemiah does the same.
What
would happen to our personal life, and the prayers of our church, if these were
the perspectives we brought to prayer; a deep sense of solidarity with the
people we pray for and the courage to stand in the breach between them and
destruction? It would be harder to get drowsy and trivial when we pray.
PRAY:
Holy God, my heart
is narrow! Expand it with your holy presence,
that I might make
room for others in my prayers.
Playwright Janet Irene Thomas
Founder/CEO
Bible Stories Theatre of
Fine & Performing Arts
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