Nahum 1:

2019 1.20 Nahum 1:1-8 1 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. 2 A jealous and avenging God is the Lord, the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither, and the bloom of Lebanon fades. 5 The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who live in it. 6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and by him the rocks are broken in pieces. 7 The Lord is good, a stronghold in a day of trouble; he protects those who take refuge in him, 8 even in a rushing flood. He will make a full end of his adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. 1

Into Darkness For the past year all of the full-time pastors and jundosas of this church have participated in a daily QT forum on Kakao. Everyone, that is, except me. As the only non-native speaker of Korean, I have received grace in this matter (and in a few other matters as well), for which I am grateful. Sometimes it s a challenge to be the only foreigner on staff at a Korean church, but sometimes it has its advantages. However, a few weeks ago, at the start of the year, the pastors were out having lunch together as we do each Tuesday. One of the pastors suggested that I participate in the QT forum by writing my reflections in English. I grabbed my chopsticks and pretended that I was about to whack him across the face for suggesting something so outrageous! But when I got home that night, I thought some more about it. I thought, I m in my final year of my term at this church. Maybe I should try to finish strong, go all aout. Maybe it s time to [sigh] join the other pastors in this morning QT ritual. What that ritual consists of is reading that morning s Bible passage, as found in the QT book, and before 9:00 AM submitting a reflection on the passage in the QT Kakao chatroom. Since the beginning of January we have been working our way through the book of Joshua. Of all the biblical books from which to seek spiritual enrichment, Joshua would not be at the top of my list. It s a violent book, a book that portrays God as not only condoning but even commanding violence against the Canaanites, who occupy the land that God has promised to Israel. In the passage that we read for last Thursday, Joshua decides to spare the people of Gibeon. As told in the book of Joshua, the Gibeonites were one of many nations living in Canaan, which in the eyes of the Israelites, marked them for destruction. However, out of fear of the Israelites and their God, a small band from Gibeon 2

disguise themselves as travelers from a distant land. They put on raggedy clothes and worn-out sandals to appear as though they have traveled a great distance. They beseech Joshua to make a treaty with them. He does. The deception works. But soon the Israelites learn that they have been deceived. They begin to grumble and murmur against their leaders. How could you be so dumb to be so easily deceived? We can t let these outsiders, these Gibeonites, live among us. They re not like us. They re different. They re dangerous! But having sworn to them by the Lord, Joshua keeps his word [SLIDE]. We will let them live, he says, so that wrath my not come upon us (Josh. 9:20). Ah, wrath. The wrath of God. There are few biblical topics that make us more uneasy. Circumcision would be a preferable topic to wrath. The thought of God s wrath is disturbing. Maybe even a little embarrassing. A relic from an earlier time. An ancient people s ancient understanding of God as a tribal warrior. We, of course, know better. God is love. After all, that s what it says in 1 John. And then there s the Gospel of John, which tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Jn. 3:16). We believe that God is love, not wrath. This idea of a jealous and avenging God, as we read in verse 2 of today s reading from Nahum, has no place in our modern understanding of the nature of God. We know God most clearly, most fully, in Jesus Christ, and Jesus has nothing to do with wrath. Not. So. Fast. It was only a month ago that we were in the season of Advent. We did not read Mary s song, as it appears in Luke 1, but Mary s song is often read during Advent. The song is also known as the Magnificat, for the first word in its Latin translation. Celebrating God s favor toward her, the Magnificat begins with Mary singing [SLIDE]: 3

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior (Lk. 1:46-47). Among the things for which Mary rejoices in God include: He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty (Lk. 1:51-53). Mary praises God for God s strength. What does God do with that strength? God scatters the proud, brings down the powerful, and sends the rich away empty. Mary celebrates that with the birth of her son God has intervened in the world against the powers that oppress the weak and vulnerable. This is what we need to consider: all of these things that Mary celebrates describe God s wrath. We hear the word wrath and we picture thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and apocalyptic devastation. But God s wrath is not mindless rage. God s wrath is not arbitrary. God is not a tyrant who flies into a rage on a whim. Yes, God is love, but the love of God also contains the wrath of God. Without wrath, love descends into sentimentality. Sentimentality is what we find in greeting cards, not in the pages of the Bible. The Bible speaks of both the love of God and the wrath of God. They are not opposites. They are two sides of the same coin. Consider this sentence [SLIDE]: The wrath of God is the unconditional love of God directed against anything that would frustrate or destroy the designs of his love. 4

That sounds profound. And it is. I wish I had thought of it, but I didn t. It comes from my favorite theologian, Fleming Rutledge, an American priest in the Episcopal Church who is in her eighties now but still very much active preaching and writing. I recently finished her 2015 book The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, which is where the quote comes from. We ll read another of her books at the next Tea-ology, which begins in March. Let s let that sentence from Rev. Rutledge ring out again for a moment: The wrath of God is the unconditional love of God directed against anything that would frustrate or destroy the designs of his love. In other words, God s wrath is not mindless, it is purposeful. God s wrath is not cruel, it is just. God s wrath is not vindictive, it is restorative. The wrath of God is purposeful. It is God s response to sin, which opposes God s good purposes. The wrath of God is just. It is directed against all powers that seek to destroy what God has created. The wrath of God is restorative. It puts into a right relationship what sin had destroyed. That is the wrath of God as it is portrayed in today s passage from Nahum. Nahum this is another one of those books in the Bible that is often neglected. For one, it s short. Like Titus, which we read last week, Nahum contains just three chapters. However, the more likely explanation for why we don t often hear sermons preached from this book is because the whole of those three chapters is taken up with God s wrath, in particular God s wrath directed against the city of Nineveh [SLIDE]. 5

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. And in the eighth and seventh century BC, Assyria was the dominant power in the region. In 722 BC, Assyria swallowed the northern kingdom of Israel, leaving the southern kingdom of Judah by itself. Judah lived in Assyria s shadow, ever mindful of its status as a vassal state, a state under the protection of Assyria. Of course, Judah paid for this protection with funds from their treasury. All of this was humiliating for Judah. A significant part of their past had been erased, their present was one of constant threat, and their future was bleak. They were but a small island in a sea of empire. While God had allowed Assyria to rise to power, while God had used Assyria as his instrument to address the sins of Israel, Assyria grew proud, arrogant, and cruel. Assyria thought that it answered to no one. But no empire is forever. In the late seventh century, Assyria s power began to wane. Their grip upon Judah loosened. It was probably during this time of Assyrian decline that the book of Nahum was written. We know next to nothing about the author of Nahum. Unlike many of the other prophets we encounter in the Old Testament, he tells us little about himself. Even the location of his hometown of Elkosh is disputed [SLIDE]. Yet one thing that we can say of him is that his name means comfort. Comfort. Isn t that an odd word to associate with this book that is filled with images of God s wrath? His way is in whirlwind and storm... He rebukes the sea and makes it dry... The mountains quake before him... His wrath is poured out like fire, and by him the rocks are broken in pieces. 6

Comfort. Yet comfort, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. For the one who has afflicted God s people with cruelty and brutality, the wrath of God is something to be feared. If you have abused God s people, you wouldn t want to be on the receiving end of that God s wrath. But for the one who has been the victim of cruelty and brutality, God s wrath is welcome. Consider the closing verse of the book of Nahum, which is addressed to the city of Nineveh. The prophet foresees the city s demise, as the one who has inflicted suffering on so many others now tastes the bitterness of suffering for itself [SLIDE]: There is no assuaging your hurt, your wound is mortal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For who has ever escaped your endless cruelty? (Nahum 3:19) How is this good news? Imagine yourself as a citizen of Judah who has suffered at the hand of Assyria. On second thought, no. Perhaps that s asking too much. That was more than 2,500 years ago. Another time. Another place. Another culture. A context vastly different than our own. Then let s put it in more familiar terms. Let s imagine ourselves as Christians living in North Korea today in 2019 [SLIDE]. Pyongyang was once referred to as the Jerusalem of the East. No doubt the number of Christians living there today is a fraction of what it was before the North came under the rule of the Kim family. But I don t doubt that the faith survives. I don t mean in the state-approved churches in Pyongyang, the churches with pictures of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il on the walls. 7

I mean underground, in secret house churches. And not only in churches but in prisons, which Christians risk being thrown into if they do not deny their faith. Imagine living under the boot of this brutal regime your entire life. Would you not welcome as good news the demise of this totalitarian state of terror? Would you not clap your hands in celebration that its cruelty had come to an end [SLIDE]? For who has ever escaped your endless cruelty? The final verse of the book of Nahum ends in a question. That s unusual. The only other book of the Bible that ends in a question is Jonah: And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals (Jon. 4:11)? You probably already noticed that, aside from ending with a question, the books of Nahum and Jonah share something else in common they both concern the city of Nineveh. While the book of Nahum speaks of judgment against Nineveh, of God s wrath poured out on the capital, the book of Jonah is all about the grace that God shows to Nineveh. The prophet Jonah, much to his dismay, is sent not to Israel but to the enemy s capital, to Nineveh, where his task is to call the people to repent of their sin. Jonah doesn t want to go. He does all that he can to avoid going, even sailing in the opposite direction of Nineveh. Jonah resents the grace that God offers to Israel s enemy. He doesn t want them to see the light; he wants them to remain in darkness. But God will not leave them in darkness. Today s passage ends with what sounds like a threat against the enemies of God. It speaks of God s determination to pursue them even into darkness [SLIDE]: 8

He will make a full end of his adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness (Nahum 1:8). The Lord will pursue his enemies into darkness. That certainly sounds threatening. However, having heard in the book of Jonah that God extends grace to the capital of the enemy, we are now challenged to hear this verse differently. Rather than a threat, it becomes a promise. God will not forsake those who have forsaken him. God will not leave in ignorance and isolation those who oppose him. He will pursue them into darkness. Into their own darkness. God will make their darkness his own. This is what Jesus does on the cross. He descends into the darkness of sin and death. He enshrouds himself in the depths of sin and suffering. When he is arrested while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he suffers betrayal and abandonment. His disciples flee from him. Peter three times denies even knowing him. That is darkness. In the hands of the high priest he is falsely accused. He is spat upon and beaten. That is darkness. Handed over to Rome, he is beaten more skillfully and more savagely. He is mocked as a false prophet, a comical king. He is stripped of his clothes and of the last shreds of human dignity. He has no one and nothing. His hands and feet are nailed to a cross from which he is hung cursed, naked, and alone, scorned by the crowds and abandoned by his friends. Into darkness. Utter darkness. The Son of God pursues the enemies of God all the way to the cross. He experiences there the shadow of sin and the shroud of death. He does so for the sake of his 9

people, for all his people, Israelite and Nivevite alike, Jew and Gentile, victim and victimizer. Jesus was crucified as much for the Roman soldiers who hammered the nails that were driven into his flesh as he was for his own disciples. For all were in darkness slaves to sin, captives of death. But on the cross sin and death have been defeated. Their defeat is not final but it is certain. Yes, we still experience their sting. We still suffer under their weight. But we know that their reign has ended. We know that the light of the world has descended into darkness, into the darkness of human pain and suffering. He did so of his own will and by the will of his Father. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Jn. 3:16). God gave his Son not in order to save us from his wrath, although that is how it is sometimes spoken of. Maybe you ve heard the gospel framed like this: God was angry with sinners, but Jesus offered himself in place of us to suffer God s wrath. In effect, the Son saves us from the wrath of the Father. The song that we re going to sing after the sermon has a line to that effect: But on the cross where Jesus died / the wrath of God was satisfied. It s a good song. I like the melody. I like most of the lyrics, but that s not right. God was never opposed to us. God s wrath didn t need to be satisfied. God was not of two wills toward us: one against us and one for us. God s wrath is not set against God s love. They are two sides of the same coin. God was not opposed to us; we were opposed to God. We were in darkness, and quite content to remain there. But, sent by the Father, the light of the world has stepped down into our darkness. He has pursued us. He has found us. He has brought us into his marvelous light. 10