Building With a Sword in One Hand

The morning after Nehemiah told the leaders, "Let us build the wall," Jerusalem filled up with people carrying stones.

Priests and goldsmiths, perfume makers and shopkeepers, one man with his daughters beside him: each family took the piece of wall nearest its own house and started stacking stones.

Sanballat, the governor of Samaria next door, turned red with anger. In front of his soldiers he jeered. "What do these weak Jews think they are doing? Will they bring burned stones back to life out of a rubbish heap?"

His friend Tobiah snorted. "That wall? If a fox climbed up on it, it would fall down!"

(A fox weighs about as much as a house cat. Tobiah thought he was very funny.)

Nehemiah did not shout back. He prayed, "Hear us, our God, for they are laughing at us," and picked up the next stone. Soon the wall ran all the way around the city at half its height, because the people worked with all their hearts.

Then the jeering turned into plotting. Sanballat and his friends planned a sneak attack. Ten times over, Jews from the villages nearby came running with the warning: "They are coming from every side!"

"There is too much rubble," the tired builders groaned. "We can't do it."

So Nehemiah posted families with swords, spears, and bows behind the low places in the wall. "Don't be afraid of them!" he said. "Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families and your homes!"

From then on, half the men built while the other half stood guard. The ones carrying loads held the load in one hand and a weapon in the other, and every builder wore a sword at his side. "If you hear the trumpet, come running," Nehemiah said. "Our God will fight for us!" At night no one even changed clothes. (That means sleeping in your dusty work clothes, with a sword where your teddy bear should be.)

When God spoiled their plan, the enemies tried tricks instead. Four times they sent the same message: "Come down and meet us in the village of Ono." They were planning to hurt him there.

(Ono was a real place. Nehemiah's answer was more or less "Oh, no.")

"I am doing a great work," he wrote back, "and I cannot come down."

The fifth time, Sanballat sent a letter full of lies, saying Nehemiah wanted to make himself king. "You are making it up," Nehemiah answered, and he prayed, "Now, God, make my hands strong."

On the fifty-second day, the wall was finished. The enemies lost their nerve, because anyone could see that God had helped his people do it.

Nehemiah's wall kept Sanballat and Tobiah out, but it never turned an enemy into a friend. The people behind it kept waiting for God to do that bigger work.

Centuries passed, and a man came to Jerusalem with a greater work to do than any wall. When soldiers came for him in the night, one of his friends swung a sword, and he said, "Put it away." His enemies jeered at him on a hill just outside the city. "Come down from the cross," they laughed, "and save yourself!"

He did not come down. He was doing a great work. He prayed for the people laughing at him, and he died there, and God raised him from the dead.

Now Jesus turns enemies into friends all over the world, and some of his friends were once the ones laughing. The work is not finished yet, and no jeering has ever stopped it.