GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
EZRA 6:19-22
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19 On the fourteenth day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover. 20 Since the priests and the Levites together had purified themselves, all of them were ceremonially clean. They slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. 21 It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by every person who had joined them and separated himself from the impurity of the peoples of the land in order to worship the LORD, the God of Israel. 22 With joy they celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the LORD had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, so that he supported them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.
If we think back a little into 2 Chronicles, we remember that Hezekiah could not celebrate the Passover on the right day because the temple was in such terrible disrepair (2 Chronicles 30). But then Josiah celebrated a massive, magnificent Passover two generations later. Now the exiles were able to celebrate, just a month after the completion and dedication of the temple, their Passover. Adar, the twelfth month, was in our February and March. Nisan, when Passover falls, is in late March or early April. Luther refers to Passover as the Israelite’s Easter, their great feast of blessing and memorial, when they were rescued from bondage. And Luther is right; the Passover did indeed foreshadow Easter and our rescue from the bondage of sin.
And there were times when Luther used this comparison to lament the small regard that so many have for Easter and for the gospel. “The people of the Old Testament observed their Easter festival, their remembrance of wonderful works, so diligently, so fervently, and so seriously that the books of the prophets are all full of it. They composed psalms, sang and played, gave it all manner of pomp and splendor, even though they had no more than the type and symbol of our Easter festival. We have the genuine wonderful works themselves; and yet we are so lazy and sluggish, cold and coarse toward our Easter festival that we regard the Sacrament very little and act toward it just as though we did not need it. And when we hear that Christ redeemed us with His blood, it means as much as when Mr. Simpleton hears that a hen lays eggs. ‘Is that a miracle?’ he asks. ‘It happens every day!’ So here there is no joy, comfort, thanks, or amazement when men hear about Christ’s suffering. ‘What is so new about that? Everybody knows it! I knew it long ago!’ And thus the dear Christ, with His precious blood and His immeasurable, wonderful works, becomes an insignificant thing.”
For this Passover, the people made certain that they were ceremonially clean. The priests and Levites were diligent and even strict about their requirements, since the Passover is a gospel message but also a festival that was commanded, and had a fence around it of cleanness and membership in the Hebrew church. But they were joined by others who wanted to participate, and anyone who “joined them and separated himself from the impurity of the peoples of the land in order to worship the LORD” was permitted to do so. This was not usually the case in Israel; the Israelites were and perhaps still are confused about those passages in the Prophets and Psalms that talk about the nations and the heathen joining them in droves, in throngs, or about Jerusalem becoming so large that its walls will stand at the ends of the earth (Psalm 48:8-10; Revelation 20:9). Its King, Christ Jesus our Lord, is loved and believed in all over the earth through the word of the gospel, just as the Apostles preached (Acts 19:20; Revelation 14:6).
The word that Ezra dwells on here is one he surely picked up from those who were there (as we are about to see in chapter 7, he was not yet in Jerusalem at this time)– the word is “joy.” The people were happy with that happiness that is not comic, not cynical, that does not come from someone else’s misfortune, but which is pure and godly happiness, coming from one’s own remarkable fortune and blessing from God. “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy” (Psalm 126:3).
This is the sort of joy that the new parent experiences in the baby’s face (John 16:21). This is the joy some of us feel simply by reflecting on the goodness of God in the world, and in the contentment God gives when, even though there may be pain and trouble, there is also the clear and certain hand of God. It is the joy that comes through his word (Jeremiah 15:16). This is the joy we see when the new prospect, brand new to true Christianity, discovers that forgiveness, heaven, and all of God’s promises are true and offered through Jesus right now, in the loving word of God. This is the joy that wells up in the heart when we take a moment to remember the last three sentences of the Creed in all their magnificence: “The forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” This is ours, yours and mine, from the hand of God. This is the Easter comfort; the Easter joy (Matthew 28:8; Luke 24:52).
The Lord “had made them joyful.” This is not the joy that comes from a baby’s giggle or the bloom of a flower or the billing of sparrows on the wavering branch. This is a strong and intensive, causative verb: The Lord caused them to have this joy; he gave it to them, revealed it to them, uncovered his greatness in this simple, thousand-year-old festival.
The Lord had also led the King of Persia (called here the King of Assyria) to support them with his decree. There was no fear in the people as they roasted the Passover lambs, prefiguring Christ our Lord, whose blood was spilled so that the sentence of everlasting death would not be handed down to us for our sins. He rescued us, he saved us. He gave us joy, the everlasting joy of eternal and everlasting life in heaven. “Be joyful always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Ezra 6:19-22 Joy