Left-handed glory, crappy idols, and the Burning of the Word

(Editorial note: all references to poo in this article have been stolen from Mike Reeves. All credit to him for his extensive research on the matter.)

Today's post is just some (slightly rushed) story-telling. I shall try to make it worth your while. I suppose it's a story remix.

Two stories

One rarely hears of 'Left-handed Leo Da vinci', 'Julius Caesar the left-handed' or 'Barack Obama the left-wing leftie'. This is because it's a fairly incidental point to make about someone - a lot of people are left-handed.

But, in Judges 3, that's pretty much the only thing we're told about our hero:

Ehud, a left-handed man, was a judge in Israel.
The people had been subject to the rule of Eglon, the fat Moabite king for eighteen years, and he had filled their land with idols.
For those eighteen years, the Israelites wept while Eglon grew fat off their land, yet still they persisted in disobedience and idolatry.
When the Israelites finally turned to God for help, He sent them Ehud who went to the king, claiming to have a word from God. The king's servants left him, and Ehud, with his left hand, reached into his robe and pulled out a 'two-edged sword' and stabbed the king.
The Bible tells us that the sword went deep into the king's belly, the fat closed over the hilt and "the excrement came out."

Apologies.
But it does say that.

Then he ran back past the idols, gathered the Israelite army and marched them to victory.

So, why mention that Ehud was left-handed? Surely this is an inconsequential fact? (If anything it was an advantage - these guys wrote right to left - no smudging!!)

Well, the only thing more frustrating than a man who answers his own questions is a man who answers questions with a story...:

According to Livy's legend, in 508bc Gaius Mucius was a young Roman soldier during the Etruscan siege of Rome. The senate, desiring to end the siege quickly, sent him out in the dead of night to assassinate Porsena, the king of the Etruscan city of Clusium. 

Alas, despite successfully finding the king's tent unhindered, he killed the king's secretary who was close by and in similar clothes. 

Immediately he was captured and the king demanded he be burned alive at the altar unless he betray Rome's battle plans.

At this, Mucius said: "[This is so] that you may see how cheap they hold their bodies whose eyes are fixed upon great glory."

With that he thrust his right hand into the flame and watched the flesh burn off.

The king was so impressed by this act of defiant loyalty that he freed him.

He was known from then on as Gaius Mucius Scaevola. Scaevola means 'left-handed'.

Name-calling

The reason Ehud is described as left-handed is that he was crippled. As with Gaius Mucius, calling someone left-handed, historically is not a comment about how they play tennis or why they might appear to be slightly more artistic, or why the nuns at their school didn't like them... it just means that they do not have a functioning right-hand.

So this was why Ehud was called 'left-handed'. An innuendo, I suppose, for 'definitely not right-handed'.

Maybe a bit harsh, but the Israelites really had a thing for name calling. At the beginning of this chapter, they refer to king 'Cushan-rishathaim' which means 'Cushan...of double wickedness'. 

They wanted history to remember him as he was, so they wrote it into his name.

They do the same with idols and foreign gods: 

In 1 Kings, Chemosh and Molek are both described as the 'dung' of the Moabites.

(our bibles have politely been translated as 'detestable' instead of 'dung')

In 2 Kings, Jehu destroys the temple of Baal and turns the site into a loo

("...and made it a latrine to this day.")

Baal's name (which simply means 'Lord' is extended to Baal Zebub (Beelzebub), which means 'Lord of the flies' - no prizes for guessing what that meant.

Words will never hurt me

King Eglon had filled the land of Israel with these 'detestable' idols, and it certainly seemed as though the Israelites were worshiping them.
And detestable is the word - Molek, for instance, was a god who demanded child-sacrifices.

Ehud went forth into this, armed with the double-edged sword which he described to Eglon as 'a message (literally translated: a 'word') of God'.

He stabbed the king and all the dung came out. The double edged sword cut away the idols from the land of Israel.

And, while we consider how deliberately strange descriptions are used - this is how the writer of Hebrews describes the Scriptures:

"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

Sticks and Stones

It is no surprise then, that this powerful Word has been sought to be stopped many times in history.
William Tyndale, (a pupil at my alma mater), translated the Bible into English when it was illegal to do so, as it weakened the hold the Catholic church had over the people.
Many who supported the publication of the English Bible were killed.

Anyone found with a copy of Tyndale's Bible was burned along with the book.

There are many martyrs dotted throughout history, crucified, stoned, and burned at the stake.
Today is the anniversary of the martyrdom of Cranmer, a left-handed man, who was burned at the stake on the 21st March 1556, twenty years after Tyndale's death.

He should have been burned months earlier with Latimer and Ridley, but had recanted his faith and submitted to the pope, declaring that only through the Catholic Church could one be saved, signing numerous documents to this effect. He was right-handed, so signed with his right hand.

Despite this, Queen Mary decided to make an example of him and rescheduled his execution. He was allowed, being penitent of his Protestantism, to preach one last time.
But the sermon he preached begged forgiveness from God for being so weak as to deny him. He said that his right hand would burn first, that which had signed away his faith in the Word.

He was dragged from the pulpit to the pyre and burned. 

He shouted out: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God."

Then, true to his word, he thrust his hand into the flames and watched it wither away.

Thus, all idolatry and cowardice cut away by the Word, he died a left-handed man.

That's the end of my story remix. I told you so that you may know how cheap they hold their bodies whose eyes are fixed on God's glory.

Responding to Depression - Eliphaz, Bildad and other Evangelicals

I'm not being fussy...

I should be up front from the off - I have been accused in the past, probably rightly, of being overly persnickety about the songs we sing. I'm the slightly tedious person who thinks people should be taught what is meant by 'Ebenezer' before they avow to raise theirs.

That's by the by. What I'm saying is that this objection is different. If you disagree with the pedantic zealots who want to over analyse to the nth degree, then this article is still for you.
The lyrics I want to focus on, from the song 'Trust and Obey' aren't just objectionable - they're a severe lie that oppresses the most vulnerable people in our congregations:

"Not a doubt nor a fear, not a sigh nor a tear

Can abide while we trust and obey"

It sounds so beautiful, doesn't it? It's like Revelation 21...except sooner!
I sigh and weep daily - and now there's an answer - a solution before Christ returns!: I need to obey more. I need to trust more.

Oh the sweet bliss of an impossible imperative placed over the tragic disposition of depression!

I don't feel I need particularly to labour the point: It's a fairly obvious lie, once pointed out. Aside from Jesus's tears and sighs in Gethsemene during the ultimate act of obedience, and aside from the disciples pharisaic question, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" ; we know that suffering comes upon the righteous while the wicked prosper.

Crushing the weak

I know and have known many brothers and sisters who suffer from depression, who are too ashamed to admit it to other Christians let alone their church leaders.
It is, in our minds, an 'unchristian' illness - a sign of weak faith.

Having beef with precious old hymns like 'Trust and Obey" may seem like pedantry, but it contains an attitude that must be mortified within the Church.

Bildad says to repent and be cured.
Eliphaz says he brings it upon himself.
Zophar says it should be worse.

Maybe you, like me, have heard sermons like this:

"Now, when we are told to take 'joy' in our sufferings, it doesn't mean that we should be happy when we suffer (*Christian chuckle*). It means that underlying our sadness and suffering should be a happiness in the gospel."

Now that; that is a profound description of how the depressed man experiences despair.

I can be with my the people I love most in the world, drinking a pint in a sunny beer garden, surrounded by beautiful St Andrews... yet underlying that happiness is a dark despondency.

What irony it is that the most conservative amongst us have the tendency to point us to a 'base emotion'!
Fear not, Rowling has the actual answer.

Escaping Azkaban

"They don't need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they're trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought."

This is J.K. Rowling's description of the wizard prison, Azkaban, in her third installment in the Harry Potter series. It could not be a more perfect analogy for depression:
The guards, dementors, as they're called, feasted upon happiness, crippling their prisoners.

One person, though, escaped from this prison of thought.
Sirrius Black explained how he escaped - "I knew I was innocent... that wasn't a happy thought, so the dementors couldn't suck it out of me... but it kept me sane and knowing who I am."

Where happiness could not be found, clinging to a Truth gave sanity...and even hope.

Our trials do not ebb and flow, (praise God!), along with our trust and obedience.
Our hope comes not from our own thoughts or actions, but the Truths, contained in the Word, which the Spirit whispers and shouts to our souls. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness (how much less indeed is my trust and obedience!)

Now raise your Ebenezer!

Two years ago, I was sent a copy of  John Piper's 'When the Darkness will not lift'. The note inside read:

"At my darkest moments...this book pointed me to truths that I couldn't even see.
For when we feel lost in darkness, the truth is, we're never alone... and we're never lost."
When you have no hope - look to Truth!

And now let me tell you what it means to raise your Ebenezer:

In 1Samuel 7, the Israelites, having forsaken their idols, are fighting against mighty Philistine armies. They sacrifice in obedience to God, and "the LORD thundered with a mighty sound against the Philistines and threw them into confusion."

Then Samuel takes a stone and 'set[s] it up' and calls it 'Ebenezer', which means 'stone of help'. 

He explains the name: "Til now the Lord has helped us."

So, if you are depressed - raise your Ebenezer - 'til now He has helped you. 2000 years ago he was pierced, crushed and hung on a cross - in love for you.

And He says to His people "Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you."

There is your Truth. It is a greater gift than any happiness I could possibly offer.

And of course, I am not saying that there is no happiness to be found in looking to the cross. It is a fountain of delight. But when drought dries up all happiness from our thoughts, the dry fountain remains a beautiful statue albeit pierced with inexplicable holes.

It will spout again. One day there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain. You will smile again. Until then, the dying Saviour says 'I love you', and the risen Saviour says 'Hope in me.'

Til now, the Lord has helped us.