No Escape!

We have reached Nahum – not a book that many of us read often! A sign of how rarely we read it is my own confusion as I prepared. Two weeks ago, I looked up the texts, made some notes, and sent my focus statement and sermon title to Daniela. Then, at the end of the week, I did some more preparation. I found a problem immediately! I had read Habbakuk, assumed that it was Nahum, and sent Daniela information that was completely wrong!

When the preacher doesn’t even know which book he’s in, you can guess that we don’t read these books very often. So I sat down and read and reread Nahum, and wrote this sermon. We’ll see if it makes sense now!

Nahum 1: 12-15

We began with some verses from chapter 1:

¹² This is what the Lord says: “Although they have allies and are numerous, they will be destroyed and pass away. Although I have afflicted you, Judah, I will afflict you no more. ¹³ Now I will break their yoke from your neck and tear your shackles away.”

¹⁴ The Lord has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: “You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile.”

¹⁵ Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, Judah, and fulfill your vows. No more will the wicked invade you; they will be completely destroyed.

Nahum prophesied to and about Nineveh (Assyria), with a few comments directed to Judah. He conducted his ministry after the fall of Samaria and the Northern Kingdom, and anticipates the fall of Assyria to Babylon. In this fall, Nahum sees God at work, judging Nineveh just as God had also judged Samaria.

The name “Nahum” may mean “comfort” (like Naomi in the book of Ruth – “comfortable” or “pleasant”). The comfort this comforter brings is cold comfort. It is the comfort of God’s certain justice, rendered against Assyria, Israel’s great enemy. Verse 1 tells us that he was an “Elkoshite”. We’re not sure what this means, but it could place his home either in a part of Israel controlled by Assyria, or even in Assyria itself, so that he knew from firsthand experience about the great country ruled by Nineveh,

In chapter 1, then, Nahum introduces God as one takes vengeance on all God’s enemies: “The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger?” (vv 5-6) Verses 7 and 8 contrast God’s goodness with God’s judgment. The whole book is unrelenting in portraying God’s judgment, so that verse 7 almost feels out of place: “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” In fact, I suggest that this note of goodness and grace is the key that helps us understand the whole book of Nahum. We will return to this idea at the end.

Then come the verses we heard read: Nineveh will be completely destroyed, and Judah will be secure and free. Assyria’s reliance on other gods is the basic problem, combined with their violence against the nations around them. In verse 15, we hear again of hope for Judah: Judgment brings salvation. Along with verses 7 and 8, this promise of hope to Judah is a candle within the darkness of Nahum’s prophecy. This flickering light reminds us that God loves the world, and that God’s judgment is always experienced within the context of God’s love. God’s wrath serves God’s love.

Nahum 2: 1-6

An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. Guard the fortress, watch the road, brace yourselves, marshal all your strength! ² The Lord will restore the splendour of Jacob like the splendour of Israel, though destroyers have laid them waste and have ruined their vines.

³ The shields of the soldiers are red; the warriors are clad in scarlet. The metal on the chariots flashes on the day they are made ready; the spears of juniper are brandished. ⁴ The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning.

⁵ Nineveh summons her picked troops, yet they stumble on their way. They dash to the city wall; the protective shield is put in place. ⁶ The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.

Nahum pictures the destruction of Nineveh. (You can almost hear Jonah cheering in the background.) This time, unlike their response to Jonah’s prophecies, the people of Nineveh rally themselves to fight, but they fail. The palace collapses! Assyria is destroyed.

You notice that their destruction appears to equal Israel’s restoration (v 2), a thought that does not sit well with us as pacifists. This is a problem in the text for us to deal with. For the moment, we simply observe that Assyria has lived by violence, and now they die by violence. At one level, the message of Nahum is that no one who embraces violence will escape violence. The only sure path of salvation is to embrace the Lord.

Nahum 3: 18-19

Chapter 3 continues the message, a wholesale condemnation of Assyria the violent. The chapter ends with these words:

¹⁸ King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your nobles lie down to rest. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them. ¹⁹ Nothing can heal you; your wound is fatal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?

We hear the message of peace here in its negative form: Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. There is no escape. God’s hand rests on everyone, for good or for evil.

Synthesis

We see, then, that everyone belongs to God, not just the “Chosen people” of Israel, and God judges everyone. A defining, although understated, point that gives this truth meaning is that God’s desire to save also applies to everyone (1:7). God’s invitation – and God’s warning – is for everyone! Nahum then repeats the basic point that we have made throughout this series: The heartbeat of God is one of love, a love that encompasses all people and all of life. This point, however, raises a question that we must deal with. To get at the question, let’s paint a scenario for our congregational life.

Just Pretend

Let’s pretend that we have a practice of asking questions during or after the service. Someone who has a question might text it to Lee, who would put up his hand and say, “Daryl, we have a question here from the congregation. Someone here wants to know why you keep saying that every passage we read talks about God’s love. The plain meaning of the words states that God is going to destroy them, and you say, ‘That’s God’s love at work!’ What’s going on?”

Our imaginary questioner has a point. A basic principle of reading the Bible is to start with the plain meaning of the text. We look for some deeper meaning only when something in the text forces us to. For example, 1 Corinthians 14 tells us that women should keep quiet in church. But 1 Corinthians 11 says that women should cover their heads as a sign of their authority to prophesy (like I am doing now). This apparent contradiction makes it clear that something else is going on besides either covering their heads or keeping quiet. The larger context makes the actual meaning clear.

So what is it in this passage that tells us we should look for a deeper meaning? The answer is fairly simple, and it comes in two steps.

One: We read the Old Testament through the light of the New Testament. As St. Augustine said, “The New is in the Old contained; the Old is by the New explained.” That is, when we read the minor prophets, we hear what they say in light of the New Testament. Further, we read both Old and New Testaments through the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

The centre of Jesus’ life and teaching is that God loves the world so much that Jesus came to die for the world. Jesus also speaks judgment, but his words of judgment are always in the service of God’s grace and love.

A brief note: Some people think that Jesus taught a message of love, and Paul came along and changed the message to one of judgment. The fact is that Jesus speaks more judgment than Paul does, and Paul gives us wonderful verses like those found in Romans 8 (“What can separate us from the love of God? Nothing!”) Paul wrote the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. When we read Jesus fully, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, we find that he teaches God’s judgment, always in service of God’s love.

Two: Hear again how strange the verses of hope in Nahum sound. In the middle of warnings that Assyria will be destroyed, the prophet reminds Judah that they will be saved, for “the Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” These verses in chapter 1 (7, 8, 12, and 15) are so different from the rest of the book that one wonders if someone added them later. Some readers might want to take them out, because they don’t fit, but it is precisely these verses that connect the dramatic warnings of the prophet to the larger theme of God’s love. They force us to listen to the prophecies of judgment within the larger theme of God’s love.

Listening to the text this way, we hear God say clearly to us: No one can escape from God’s judgment, and no one can escape from God’s love. We live in a dangerous world, and embracing violence and strength (the world’s way) leads only to more violence and destruction. God invites people to place their trust in God, in whom alone they can find peace.

An Example from our Violent World

Recently I read an article from Christianity Today (April 20, 2018). It begins with these words:

You have seen my picture a thousand times. It’s a picture that made the world gasp—a picture that defined my life. I am nine years old, running along a puddled roadway in front of an expressionless soldier, arms outstretched, naked, shrieking in pain and fear, the dark contour of a napalm cloud billowing in the distance.

My own people, the South Vietnamese, had been bombing trade routes used by the Viet Cong rebels. I had not been targeted, of course. I had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those bombs have brought me immeasurable pain. Even now, some 40 years later, I am still receiving treatment for burns that cover my arms, back, and neck. The emotional and spiritual pain was even harder to endure.

Kim Phuc Phan Thi tells her full story in a 2017 book titled, Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace. This article is a brief excerpt. She tells how she survived the bombing. The photographer took the children to the hospital after he took the picture. The doctors did not think she would survive, but she did – after 17 surgeries over 14 months.

She tells us that her parents were leaders within the Cao Dai religion. Here is her description:

Cao Dai is universalist in nature. According to a description on CaoDai.org, it recognizes all religions as having “one same divine origin, which is God, or Allah, or the Tao, or the Nothingness,” or pretty much any other deity you could imagine. “You are god, and god is you”—we had this mantra ingrained in us. We were equal-opportunity worshipers, giving every god a shot.

Looking back, I see my family’s religion as something of a charm bracelet slung around my wrist, each dangling bauble representing yet another possibility of divine assistance. When troubles came along—and every day, it seemed, they did—I was encouraged to rub those charms in hopes that help would arrive.

For years, I prayed to the gods of Cao Dai for healing and peace. But as one prayer after another went unanswered, it became clear that either they were nonexistent or they did not care to lend a hand.

 She was nine years old when the bombs dropped. Over the next 12 years she looked for help to deal with the crippling physical and emotional and spiritual pain she bore. She writes:

In 1982, I found myself crouched inside Saigon’s central library, pulling Vietnamese books of religion off the shelves one by one. The stack in front of me included books on Bahá’í, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Cao Dai. It also contained a copy of the New Testament. I thumbed through several books before pulling the New Testament into my lap. An hour later, I had picked my way through the Gospels, and at least two themes had become abundantly clear.

First, despite all that I had learned through Cao Dai—…, that there were many paths to holiness, that the burden of “success” in religion rested atop my own weary, slumped shoulders—Jesus presented himself as the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). His entire ministry, it seemed, pointed to one straightforward claim: “I am the way you get to God; there is no other way but me.” Second, this Jesus had suffered in defense of his claim. He had been mocked, tortured, and killed. Why would he endure these things, I wondered, if he were not, in fact, God?

I had never been exposed to this side of Jesus—the wounded one, the one who bore scars. I turned over this new information in my mind as a gem in my hand, relishing the light that was cast from all sides. The more I read, the more I came to believe that he really was who he said he was, that he really had done what he said he had done, and that—most important to me—he really would do all that he had promised in his Word.

That Christmas Eve, Kim Phuc found herself in a small church in Saigon. The pastor spoke simply, of the gift we give at Christmas, and of the greatest gift ever given, when God gave God’s Son, Jesus. She writes that she was desperate for peace and joy to replace the bitterness and desire for death she felt so deeply.

So when the pastor finished speaking, I stood up, stepped out into the aisle, and made my way to the front of the sanctuary to say yes to Jesus Christ. And there, in a small church in Vietnam, mere miles from the street where my journey had begun amid the chaos of war—on the night before the world would celebrate the birth of the Messiah—I invited Jesus into my heart. When I woke up that Christmas morning, I experienced the kind of healing that can only come from God. I was finally at peace.

Kim Phuc still lives today with the physical consequences of that horror-filled day when the bombs rained down on her village, but she adds something of vital importance: “Today, I thank God for that picture. Today, I thank God for everything—even for that road. Especially for that road.” (As a side note to her story, she lives today in the Toronto area. She defected to Canada in 1996 and became a citizen in 1997. She has established the Kim Phuc Foundation International for healing children of war. In an interview with NPR, she said, “Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?”

Conclusion

This overwhelming wonderful grace of God lies deep in the foundations of Nahum’s life and message. He speaks the words of warning clearly – to Nineveh, and to everyone who lives by violence and deceit. The warnings serve to remind us that no one can escape God’s judgment, just as no one can escape God’s love. When we turn to God, not away from God, we are reminded that “Nahum” means “Comfort”. Nahum’s comfort is true. “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.”

Steinbach Mennonite Church

27 May 2018