Ezra 10:1-8: a reflection

1Now while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before God’s house, there was gathered together to him out of Israel a very great assembly of men and women and children; for the people wept very bitterly. 2Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, “We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land. Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing. 3Now therefore let’s make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and those who are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God. Let it be done according to the law. 4Arise, for the matter belongs to you and we are with you. Be courageous, and do it.” 5Then Ezra arose, and made the chiefs of the priests, the Levites, and all Israel to swear that they would do according to this word. So they swore. 6Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he didn’t eat bread or drink water, for he mourned because of the trespass of the exiles. 7They made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the children of the captivity, that they should gather themselves together to Jerusalem; 8and that whoever didn’t come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the elders, all his possessions should be forfeited, and he himself separated from the assembly of the captivity.

As Ezra prays and confesses over the people's unfaithfulness, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a great crowd gathers, weeping with him. What is striking is Ezra's posture. He does not stand above the people and denounce them for their sin; though he was not personally guilty of it, he grieves over it as if it were his own, confessing it with tears, identifying himself with his people in their failure.

Notice that posture of an intercessor. Ezra could have pointed a finger, kept his distance, condemned from a height of his own innocence. Instead he took the people's sin upon his own heart, mourned it, confessed it, wept over it before God as one of them. He led not by condemnation but by grief and identification, entering into the people's guilt in order to bring them, with him, toward repentance. And into that grief comes a word of hope: even now, one of them says, there is hope for Israel concerning this.

There is a model here for how to respond to sin and failure, in a community, a family, a church, our own or others'. The instinct is often to condemn from a distance, to stand apart in our own rightness. Ezra shows a costlier, more Christlike way: to grieve over sin, to identify with the people rather than lord it over them, and to hold out hope, that repentance is possible, that even now there is hope. When you are grieved by failure, yours or others', pray as one who identifies rather than condemns, and hold on to hope. Even now, there is hope.

Lord, Ezra did not condemn his people from a height of his own innocence; he wept over their sin as if it were his own, and held out hope. When I am grieved by failure, mine or others', give me his posture: to grieve rather than condemn, to identify rather than stand apart, and to hold out the hope that repentance is possible. Even now, with you, there is hope.