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Context No. 2661 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

1 Maccabees 13:7-11: in context

7The spirit of the people revived as soon as they heard these words. 8They answered with a loud voice, saying, “You are our leader in the place of Judas and Jonathan your brothers. 9Fight our battles, and we will do all that you tell us to do.” 10He gathered together all the men of war, and hurried to finish the walls of Jerusalem. He fortified it all around. 11He sent Jonathan the son of Absalom, and with him a great army, to Joppa. He threw out those who were in it, and lived there.

Simon, the last of the Maccabee brothers, addresses a people worn down by loss. Judas is dead; Jonathan is dead; the family that had led the fight for years is nearly gone. And the people's spirit revives as they hear Simon speak. You are our leader now, they answer, in the place of Judas and Jonathan your brothers; fight our battles, and we will do whatever you say. And Simon takes up the work, fortifying Jerusalem, sending out his forces.

Consider what Simon does. Both his brothers, the heroes who carried the cause, have fallen, and rather than let the grief end the mission, he takes up the mantle and carries it forward. The work did not die with the ones who began it; someone stepped into the gap. That is often how God's purposes continue, not through one irreplaceable leader, but through the willingness of the next person to take up what the fallen carried. When those who inspired and led a good work are gone, the temptation is to let it end with them, to say the era is over. Simon's answer is to pick up the load and keep going.

When those who led or inspired a good work are gone, am I willing to take up the mantle and keep it going, or do I let the loss bring the mission to an end?

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