A Time to Weep

The book of Nehemiah begins in the year 445BC in the Persian Empire, in the city of Susa. Nehemiah is found exercising great responsibility in a pagan kingdom. He is a model of how to maintain integrity amongst the ungodly. But then he receives disappointing news about the state of both the infrastructure and people of Jerusalem.

His reaction shows that he was surprised just how weak the cause in Jerusalem was. We may pin our hopes on education, economic policy or political parties to extract our societies out of the moral morass that they are in, and then be disappointed that these prescriptions fail to work. The root cause, as his prayer later shows, is sin. It ruined the city and brought it to a state of collapse. It inflicts the same damage upon our individual lives leaving us morally and spiritually ruined. Like Nehemiah, there is a need for weeping about the state that we are in. We need to admit the true verdict of God upon our case that we are sinners and weep. Such tears bring us to Christ and therefore bring us to the place of spiritual healing.