The best remedy for remorse (Neh 8:9-12)

A friend of mine hates birthdays. Every year reminds her of the passing of time, of the fact that she is still single at 45 when she longs to be married. Birthdays for her are a time to grieve over lost opportunities and hopes that never came to be fulfilled. While these are her private feelings, imagine if she invited her friends to a birthday celebration and then sat there dejected and mournful! She would embarrass her guests and insult their efforts to celebrate her and show her their love and appreciation.

The motivation behind the exiles’ mourning

When the exiles gather to hear the book of the law read and they listen to God’s Word, something similar happens: they react with tears and mourning (Neh 8:9). At first glance, this seems appropriate, since repentance, the admission of sin and turning away from it, is a fitting response to hearing God’s will expressed and realising how far short we fall of His ideal. However, this is only an assumption and, given the leadership’s reaction, we may need to re-think what the grieving is about. There is actually no indication that what is happening is confession or repentance. Rather, the emphasis is on an excess of emotion since it takes the concerted efforts of the leadership and the Levites to calm the people down (Neh 8:10-11). It is more likely then that they feel remorse and grieve over the exile and all that had happened because of their sin.

What is wrong with the exiles’ grief?

These emotions are understandable and natural and there is indeed a place and a time to lament what was lost, to mourn what could never be. The soft response we see from the leadership suggests that they empathised with the trauma that the exiles were feeling. Yet, the excessive nature of it here suggests that the people dwelt on their circumstances too much and have forgotten God’s amazing grace that restored them and renewed their relationship with Him. Festivals in Israel were typically occasions for rejoicing when the people remembered the Lord’s goodness in saving them (e.g. Passover), in bringing them into the land and its plenty (Tabernacles) and so on. Yet, when the people spent such holy days weeping over their misery as if God had not poured out His forgiveness and faithful love on them, it was insulting to Him and sadly misguided.

The suggested remedy

What remedy does the leadership suggest for such remorse? They tell the people to get into the spirit of the festival and commemorate it, in effect, to remember what God has done for them through the simple acts of eating, providing for others who did not come prepared and rejoicing (vv.10-11). When we are emotionally spent, eating restores strength. Meat was usually reserved for occasions such as weddings and other celebrations, as well as holy days, so that eating it marked out the day as special (the ‘fat’ mentioned is symbolic of rich food rather than a reference to eating actual fat).[1] Looking outward towards the need of others also helps in practical ways to get the people out of preoccupation with themselves. Finally, rejoicing in the Lord, i.e. finding joy in His presence, in remembering what He has done for them, His faithfulness, grace, and love becomes a stronghold (the literal meaning of the Hebrew translated as ‘strength’ in v.10). In other words, it is the best protection and remedy against dejection and unrelieved remorse.

What do we do?

As we look to our lives, who hasn’t felt the sadness of missed opportunities, the grief of what could have been but wasn’t, sometimes because of sin, other times simply because of the choices we have made? There should be occasions to mourn these and to pour out our emotions before the Lord, as the psalmists do in distress. It is important, however, not to get stuck in misery as if we had no Heavenly Father to care for us. The answer in our reading gives us a combination of practical steps that require us in our physicality to move ourselves out of a posture of remorse and self-absorption, to look upward and outward, as we find our centre and strength in the joy of the Lord.

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[1] Killing an animal meant taking a life, so animals slaughtered for the purposes of meat-eating were taken to the temple as a form of sacrifice called peace or fellowship offering. The blood of the animal symbolising its life was sprinkled on the altar representing the giving back of life to God to whom it belonged (Lev 3:1-5; Lev 17:14). The fat (as the richest portion) was always offered to God (Lev 3:16), a part of the meat went to the priest for his services (Lev 7:28-33), and the rest was given to the worshipper to consume (Lev 7:15-18). For people living some distance from Jerusalem it was not practical to bring their peace offerings to the temple, so a concession was made for slaughtering animals without sacrificing them to God. The only proviso was that the blood should be poured to the ground and not eaten because of its aforementioned symbolic significance (Deut 12:20-24).

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