1 Maccabees 3:1-9: a reflection

1His son Judas, who was called Maccabaeus, rose up in his place. 2All his kindred helped him, and so did all those who joined with his father, and they fought with gladness the battle of Israel. 3He got his people great glory, and put on a breastplate like a giant, and bound his warlike harness around him, and set battles in array, protecting the army with his sword. 4He was like a lion in his deeds, and like a lion’s cub roaring for prey. 5He hunted and pursued the lawless, and he burned up those who troubled his people. 6The lawless shrunk back for fear of him, and all the workers of lawlessness were very troubled, and deliverance prospered in his hand. 7He angered many kings and made Jacob glad with his acts. His memory is blessed forever. 8He went through the cities of Judah, destroyed the ungodly out of the land, and turned away wrath from Israel. 9He was renowned to the utmost part of the earth. He gathered together those who were ready to perish.

When Israel was crushed and oppressed, God raised up Judas Maccabeus, and this passage sings his praise: he fought the battles of his people gladly, was like a lion in his deeds, drove back the lawless, and brought deliverance. But amid all the martial imagery, one line stands out as the heart of it: he gathered together those who were ready to perish.

Notice that phrase. Behind the battles and the courage, the point of his rising up was to gather the perishing, to bring in those on the edge of being lost, to make a scattered, frightened people glad again. His strength was not for its own sake; it was spent to rescue those about to go under. A deliverer, in the end, is measured by whom he gathers back from the brink.

There is a foreshadow here of a greater Deliverer, who also came to gather those ready to perish, not with a sword but with his own life. And there is a summons in it too. Where God's people are scattered and disheartened, he still raises up those willing to act, to stand in the gap, to gather the ones about to be lost. If you have the strength to help someone on the brink today, that is what strength is for. Spend it to gather the perishing.

Lord, you raise up deliverers to gather those ready to perish, and you sent your Son to do it fully. Where someone near me is on the brink, make me willing to act, and use whatever strength I have to gather the perishing, not to serve myself.