While Ezra prayed and confessed, weeping and falling facedown before the house of God, an extremely large assembly of Israelite men, women, and children gathered around him. The people also wept bitterly. ~Ezra 10:1
Most of the time seeing your name in print can be fun.
I was a senior at a Christian college. For the most part, the rules seemed fair, even to the most free-spirited among my friends. However, one rule ticked me off. In fact, it was a rule I broke.
A couple of times each semester there were weekends where students were blocked from leaving campus. There were reasons—special meetings and activities. But for us claustrophobics, our lovely school became a federal prison four times a year. So in my senior year, right after my last class on a Friday afternoon before one of these black-out weekends, I got in my 1965 Chevy and slipped through the gate. A week later, one of the school’s several newspapers picked up the story. Some clever investigative reporter—a sophomore, probably—wrote all about it. “If Wolgemuth can leave campus, why can’t we?” was exactly what he printed.
I was furious. And I was embarrassed.
Ezra had a problem. During the time when the Jewish men were captives, they fell in love with non-Jewish women. They knew the rules, and they knew they were breaking them—no innocence here.
This disobedience put Ezra, God’s man, on his face before the Lord. His open confession on behalf of his people became contagious, and many people joined him. In fact, they promised to do an incredibly painful thing: to allow their wives and children to return to their own homeland. Imagine the trauma of having to say goodbye.
After prayer, Ezra ordered the scribes to do a striking thing. He made a list of those who had broken the law and printed it. Right there in black-and-white were the names of those who had sinned. And not only was this list distributed among the people, but it’s right here in our Bibles thousands of years later. Pretty embarrassing stuff, wouldn’t you say?
At the end of all time, God will open a book. In this book is recorded everything you and I have done—the things everyone already knows about and those things that have only survived in the corners of our private memories. There they will be in black-and-white. Once again, embarrassing stuff, wouldn’t you say?
But there’s good news about expecting to see this rancid material in print. “If we confess our sins”—even the ones printed in this book—“[God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Stamped across this mention of your name and mine will be these words: “Forgiven because of Jesus.” No more shame. Take this. Confess it. Believe it. And don’t worry about the school newspaper or the nightly network newsfeed. Your name is there all right, but in His mercy, Christ took your blame.