Light first purple candle - The Hope Candle
I am certainly not an architect, but I have always loved building towers. Using any given materials, I enjoy trying to see how high I can make a structure, and how I need to create a solid base to withhold the tower’s weight. Eventually, of course, it begins to teeter as I try to add just one more block and it crashes to the floor. You might be asking, “When do you have time to sit around and build towers out of blocks?” That’s fair, as most adults don’t spend their days playing with blocks. I indulge this affinity when I’m with young children - my grandchildren, neighbor kids or the preschoolers Tuck and I regularly visit to talk about their big feelings. But my plans are often dashed before I’m even finished, as there is always one child who is convinced that I’m building a tower for him to knock down and destroy!
In today’s reading, some of Noah’s grandchildren are busily working on a grand tower, designed to reach to the heavens. While God doesn’t knock their tower down, He certainly halts construction. Why? Let’s read and find out!
Read Genesis 11:1-9
As we learned from yesterday’s reading, Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. It was from these three young men that the world would be repopulated following the worldwide flood and humanity would start again. God reestablished the cultural mandate given to Adam to be His representatives on earth, to care for the land and the animals. “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’” (Gen 9:1) God’s intention for mankind had not changed. They were not to bunch up together, but to spread out and fill the earth.
One important part of the post-flood story that we didn’t read was of Noah becoming intoxicated after drinking wine from his new vineyard and undressing inside his tent. His youngest son, Ham, walked in on his drunk and naked dad and took it all in, laughing it up. Not only does Ham humiliate and dishonor his father, he apparently seeks to make his brothers a party to the humiliation as well. Instead, Shem and Jepheth make every effort to avoid seeing Noah’s naked body, approaching him backwards and covering him with his robe. Their response is in sharp contrast to Ham’s actions, as the brothers honor their father despite his foolish behavior, and Ham’s descendents will pay the price.
So Ham had a son named Cush and “Cush fathered Nimrod, who began to be powerful in the land. He was a powerful hunter in the sight of the Lord. That is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a powerful hunter in the sight of the Lord.” His kingdom started with Babylon, Erech, Accad,and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and the great city Calah.” (Gen 10:8-12) Nimrod, whose name means “rebel,” is an important figure in the narrative. Known for his ferocity and forging his own path, it is believed that Nimrod commissioned the construction of the Tower of Babel, leading the people to build for themselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky as well as a name for themselves and avoid being scattered throughout the earth. This was in direct disobedience to God’s command to fill the earth.
It seems that God let the foolish humans, led by arrogant and rebellious Nimrod, build their ziggurat-type tower fairly high before taking action. Ironically, it was necessary for the Lord to come down from his heavenly throne in order to see the city and tower and intervene by confusing their language so that they could not understand one another, halting construction and dispersing the people throughout the world. From then on, the city was called Babel, from the Hebrew verb balal, which means “to confuse, to mix, to mingle,” and eventually became known as Babylon, a city as well as a worldview symbolizing humanity’s ambition to dethrone God and make the earth its own.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? The Babel enterprise was all about human independence and self-sufficiency apart from God. The builders believed that they had no need of God. Their technology and social constructs of unity gave them confidence in their own ability, convincing them that they could actually be God’s peers and not His subjects. Can you relate to the temptation to embrace a Jesus-plus gospel, convincing yourself that you’ve got this life, this family, this job under control and will let God know if problems arise and you need Him to step in and fix it? I know I can!
This is how the writer of Hebrews describes God’s purposes in “knocking down our towers” or “confusing our speech:”“You have perhaps lost sight of that piece of advice which reminds you of our sonship in God: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him; for whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives’. Bear what you have to bear as “chastening”—as God’s dealing with you as sons. No true son ever grows up uncorrected by his father. For if you had no experience of the correction which all sons have to bear you might well doubt the legitimacy of your sonship. After all, when we were children we had fathers who corrected us, and we respected them for it. Can we not much more readily submit to a heavenly Father’s discipline, and learn how to live?” (Heb 12:5-9, Phillips)
Sing Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus (see page 15 for lyrics)
Reflect
It’s important to note that the messianic ancestral line would be through Noah’s oldest son, Shem, not Ham. This was not because Shem was the oldest son, but as we’ll discover through our study this Advent God turns that inheritance structure upside-down over and over again. So why was Shem chosen? Why were you chosen to become part of God’s forever family through Jesus’ sacrifice on your behalf?
Has Sovereign God knocked down any of your towers, those idols that you’ve been building to display your identity and worth? Have you found yourself despising His discipline or discouraged by His rebukes?
Pray to receive any discipline from your good Father God as the kindness that it is. You are the child that He loves! He is training you up into righteousness! The result will be a greater resemblance to Jesus!!
