This morning my spirit rose as I read of the dedication of the rebuilt wall in Jerusalem (Nehemiah 12). Two great choirs processed around the top of the wall, trumpets sounding, and the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. I could picture it, because I’ve been in rooms like that: thousands of Jesus followers, hands lifted, faces turned upward, rejoicing in the salvation Jesus bought with His blood.
Then the story turns. Nehemiah goes back to the king in Susa, and when he returns he finds the people have already slid. The Levites haven’t been paid and have left for their fields. The Sabbath is a market day. The people have intermarried with the nations around them. An enemy of God’s people has been given a room inside the temple itself. Nehemiah is furious, and he cleans house. Yet the book ends not with triumph but with a prayer: “Remember me, O my God, for good” (Nehemiah 13:31).
It struck me that Ezra and Nehemiah both end this way. Two godly men made bold, faithful attempts to lead the people back to the law, and both saw only partial success. Which is to say, the people could not keep the whole law. And neither can we.
Consider where things stood. The Jews were back in the promised land, but few in number. There was a temple, but when its foundation was laid, the old men who remembered Solomon’s temple wept aloud (Ezra 3:12). It was a shadow of the former glory. And the presence of God, the cloud that filled the first temple so completely the priests couldn’t stand to minister (2 Chronicles 5:14), never came down on this one. Ezekiel had watched the glory depart (Ezekiel 10). Scripture never records it returning to that second temple.
But God had not forgotten His promise. Through the prophet Haggai He had said of this humble house, “The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former” (Haggai 2:9). And Malachi, prophesying to these same backsliding people, promised that the Lord they sought would suddenly come to His temple (Malachi 3:1). Then heaven went quiet for four centuries.
And one day, a young couple carried their baby into that temple, and old Simeon took Him in his arms and said, “My eyes have seen Your salvation” (Luke 2:30). The glory had returned, not in a cloud, but in flesh. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory” (John 1:14).
That’s why Nehemiah’s story ends unfinished. Walls, reforms, and renewed vows could not fix the human heart. Nehemiah could chase merchants out of the gates, but he could not write the law on anyone’s heart. Only God could do that, and He promised He would (Jeremiah 31:33). The unfinished business of Nehemiah was finished at the cross.
Psalm 126 gives voice to that longing: “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream… Restore our fortunes, O LORD.” It’s a psalm sung by people who had tasted restoration but were still waiting for more. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. The returned exiles sowed in tears. We reap in Christ.
I recognize myself in Nehemiah’s people. I have stood in worship with my heart ablaze and then, a few weeks later, found I had quietly let the Sabbath slip, let other things take the room reserved for God. My reforms don’t hold either. Thank God my hope isn’t in my own wall-building, but in the One who dwells in me by His Spirit and will finish the good work He began (Philippians 1:6).
Where in your life have you been relying on your own reforms and resolutions, when what you really need is the presence of the One who alone can finish the work?
