What had begun as a rebuilding program . . . and had transformed into a national reform program . . . eventually budded into a full blown revival program. Overall, reading Nehemiah is pretty inspiring. I get especially jazzed when Ezra the scribe hits the scene with the Book of the Law (ch. 8). The people are hungry for the Word of God . . . “the ears of the all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law” (8:3b). And Ezra reads . . . and the word of God is taught . . . and there is understanding . . . and there is worship . . . and there is a desire for more. And I get to Nehemiah 9 and the people are back for more of the Word.

But this time, the crowd isn’t dressed in their “Sunday best” . . . instead they are “assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads”. This time, rather than taking in the Word of God, they are responding to the Word of God . . . “and they confessed their sins and the iniquities of the their fathers” (9:2). After three hours of standing and hearing the Word of God, they continue standing for another three hours and “they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God” (9:3).

And I’ll be honest with you, my first inclination was to skim over the confession part. Give me the grounding of the Word . . . let me soar as I imagine the glorious wonder of the worship . . . but three hours of confession? Really? Yeah . . . that’s what they did. They declared the greatness of their God (aka worship) . . . and, against that holy backdrop, they openly acknowledged the blackness of their sin and they declared the stiff-necked history of their ancestors.

And I find myself wondering why I want to skim over the confession part. Maybe it’s because I have a hard time relating to such an ardent expression of contrition and repentance. Sure, I have confessed sin . . . I have asked for forgiveness for transgression against the God of my salvation . . . but I don’t know that I have even come close to such an “over the top” response to the light of the Word. While I have been “convicted” of my sin, I am seized with wonder at the degree to which these exiles had been so exposed by the light of the Word that they would so physically and so publicly and so extensively respond with confession.

Or maybe I have this natural tendency to skim over it because of a fear of admitting failure before a God I so want to please . . . a fear, that if I think about it, is rooted in some weird view that it’s somehow more about my performance than it is about God’s grace. But these confessors of Nehemiah’s day were also worshipers . . . the reality of their sin was acknowledged within the context of the equal reality of God’s mercy and grace . . . while their sin was great, their God was greater . . .

But You are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. . . . Nevertheless, in Your great mercies You did not make an end of them or forsake them, for You are a gracious and merciful God.   (Nehemiah 9:17b, 31 ESV)

Perhaps that’s the barrier to real, heart-wrenching, lay it all on the table before God confession . . . being so focused on the failure that I lose sight of the Father . . . wanting to avoid facing the reality of coming up short rather than running to and falling at the throne of grace and availing myself fully of the finished work of the cross. Rather than skimming over confession, perhaps I need to be relying instead on the sufficiency of Christ.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   (1John 1:9 ESV)