The Blessing of Strong Walls for a Holy Church

Consider this lesson on the relationship between faith and politics from Nehemiah 8.

(These reflections are based on a sermon by Rev Benjamin Miller, "Holiday Cheer: What Happens When God Comes," at Trinity Church (OPC) in Huntington NY on November 27, 2011.)

Nehemiah has returned from Babylon to Jerusalem to lead Israel in rebuilding the city's walls. Only a week after the work was complete, the people called Ezra to preach to them in the open air, and Israel experienced remarkable revival.

Notice the timeline. First, with sword in one hand and trowel in the other, they build the city walls.  They provide for their national security. God has not given them a metaphorical city, but a real one. And even though it is God's city, it nonetheless requires the ordinary defenses that any city requires: sword and stone. Only after that, living finally in peace, they turn their attention more fully to worship and study, and enjoy the spiritual fruits of those godly occupations. Political security, backed by ordinary defenses, permits the flourishing of church life.

We saw the same truths played out in the early church. The small vulnerable band of believers preached the gospel and lived in faith, and the church spread throughout the empire, even under ferocious persecution, and often because of it. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," said Tertullian. But it was only after Emperor Constantine lifted the hand of opposition and established security for the church to live out the life to which Christ has called it, openly and fully, that the church began to develop theologically and no doubt also in other ways.

But the rest of the story in Nehemiah 8 tempers any hasty and carnal judgment regarding a dependence of Christ's church on civic peace and security. In Ezra's reading of the Law that day, they discovered God's command that Israel celebrate each year a festival of booths during which they were to camp out as Israel had done in their wilderness wanderings. In this way, God reminded his people that while governmental protection is a blessing to the church, they must never forget that the Lord God--who preserved them in the wilderness where there were no walls--is their ultimate defense.

"[T]he joy of the Lord is your strength" (v.10).