Year 2, Day 59: Nehemiah 12

A City Full of Worship

Nehemiah 12 is largely a worship service.  But this is no simple worship service.  This is a worship service that encompasses the whole city.  Now, you might be thinking as I did when I read this chapter.  I was thinking that this is a huge area of land that we are talking about.  So let’s do a little math here in the beginning just so that we have a perspective on this chapter.

At its largest point before the Babylonian exile, Jerusalem spanned about 135 acres.  That’s roughly 5,880,660 square feet.  Almost 6 million square feet!  That sounds like a lot – doesn’t it?  That sounds like a ton, especially considering that the walls around the city were rebuilt in less than two full months’ time!

5,880,600 square feet would equate to a square with sides equal to 2,425 feet long.  Since there is 5,280 feet in a mile, we’re talking a little bit less than a half of a mile.  Thus, if each side is roughly a half-mile long, then one could walk around Jerusalem by going for a two-mile walk.*  If I can walk 2-3 miles in an hour {and most of us can do that} then what we hear going on in this chapter is not at all unreasonable.  The choirs that Nehemiah organizes could absolutely encompass Jerusalem in worship and it might not take more than an hour to accomplish the task.  {It could take more if they choose, but it wouldn’t have to take more than an hour of singing.}  This isn’t a stretch of the imagination in the least.

But here’s a really cool thought.  Imagine being in an area that has a perimeter of 2 miles.  Imagine taking the time to gather all the spiritual leaders and walk around that area while actively worshipping God.  Wouldn’t that be really cool?  Wouldn’t it be neat to think about worshipping God around an area?  Imagine all of the cool symbolism going on with respect to the witness to the area encompassed by the worship.  {Anyone else getting a “Joshua and the battle of Jericho” flashback here?}

I think it is really neat that the leaders of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites all got together and set forth on this kind of a demonstration.  Look at the message that they are sending to the rest of the people in Jerusalem.  Look at the message that they are sending to the people outside of Jerusalem.  Even Nehemiah himself claims that people far and away heard the noise of the people worshipping in Jerusalem and claiming Jerusalem for God.  That is so cool.  It’s really something that I can get really excited about today.

A City Full of Worship

And the end of this chapter we see a natural transition.  Worship directly leads us into service.  After the worship service, people went back to “normal life.”  Offerings were collected.  Donations to the work of the Lord were collected.  People supported God’s work among them.  I’ll say it again: worship leads us directly into service.

But here’s the point to remember.  While worship may lead us from God to life, it does not lead us into a life of our choosing.  True worship leads us from the worship of God to a life of God’s ways.  True worship leads us into service – a service of God’s agenda.  Worship leads us into accomplishing God’s ways.  True worship leads us into a humble response to God and a forsaking of the ways of the world.

For me, this is a dynamic that I have struggled with most of my life.  I have been taught by this world to see worship as service.  In other words, “I served God by giving Him an hour of my week.”  But from a godly perspective on life this way of thinking is completely off-base.  I don’t serve God by giving Him an hour a week.  I worship God when I give Him that hour.  I serve God with the rest of the hours in the week that aren’t spent worshipping Him.  {And in truth I should be giving God far more than that hour with respect to genuinely worshipping Him throughout the whole week!} 

That’s a pretty bold thought and a very high standard right there.  I am either worshipping God or I am serving Him.  Those are my options if I want to claim to be following Him.  To pick up a theme I spoke frequently about in my blog while we were reading through Romans, I think this is what it means to consider oneself a slave to God as opposed to God’s “servant.”  When I genuinely buy into the fact that I am a slave to God – a slave of righteousness – I realize that I am either worshipping God or I am serving Him.  If I am doing anything else, then I’m not really His slave.  If I do anything else, I am a slave to myself and a slave to my sinfulness. **

<>< 

*Keep in mind that when talking perimeter and area, the square always gives the smallest value of perimeter for a given area.  If we were to move from a square with equal sides to a rectangle with very unequal sides then the value for the perimeter becomes considerably larger as long as we keep the value for the area the same.  For example, a rectangle made up of sides of 100 feet and 58,806 feet would have the same area as I suggest for Jerusalem.  But this rectangle would have a perimeter of 117,812 feet – which would just over 22 miles in length!  Now, we do know that at its largest point Jerusalem was more like a square than a long and narrow rectangle.  So we can be confident that one could walk around ancient Jerusalem in the span of a few miles, not a few dozen miles.  I just wanted to be clear about the math and the fact that I do know what I am talking about fairly well.  I have considered the “square/rectangle” issue in my analysis!

**You might be asking yourself … what about the other 4 of the 6 marks of discipleship?  {Prayer, Worship, Reading God’s Word, Serving, Relating Spiritually to Others, Giving}  Well, speaking more broadly I think it still works to say that I am either worshipping or serving.  Obviously, when I am “worshipping” I am worshipping God and when I am “serving” I am serving God.  But when I am “praying” I am both worshipping God and aligning myself with His will – and that is most definitely a part of serving Him.  When I am reading His Word I am worshipping Him and aligning myself for His service.  When I am relating to other people spiritually I am hopefully worshipping Him a little but I am most definitely acting in service to God’s will.  When I give, I am worshipping Him by returning His things to Him as well as equipping His church for service.  So yeah, I think it still fits.  I am either worshipping God or serving Him.  Anything else is serving myself and my desires.