Ring Lord

[Brad Fox]

Ring Lord

 

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It seems that now is the time of the Ring.  With J.R.R. Tolkien’s phenomenal books and now the movie versions of the same, people are thinking more about the power of rings.  But this is not new stuff.  One thousand years before Christ, his great, great, great … uncle Joseph received a ring from the Pharaoh of Egypt.  It made him second in power only to the king himself.  Pharaoh stipulated that Joseph was to be in charge of his palace and that all his people were to submit to him.  Only with respect to the throne was Pharaoh to be greater than Joseph. 

 

Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of his entire land by placing a signet ring upon his finger.  So most of the power of Pharaoh was passed to Joseph with a ring that authenticated his authority to act on Pharaoh’s behalf.  All Joseph had to do was to emboss a wax seal or clay tablet with this ring, and his order had the weight of Pharaoh behind it.  So ancient rings carried an aura of power, given from one person to another. 

 

People in my generation saw a particularly moving example of ring power when the hero of the Oscar-winning movie Ben Hur confronted the man who sent him to a slave ship galley.  Walking into the Roman tribune Messala’s private quarters after years of slavery, he announced his restoration to society by imprinting his noble adoptive father’s ring into wax, as a symbol of his wealth and power.  Their friendly childhood competition now became a fight to the finish, culminating in a most memorable, deadly chariot race.

 

https://youtu.be/v9ptgdxHYro

However, the “ring” that most impressed me was the one given to Zerubbabel, recounted in the Old Testament book of Haggai.  Zerubbabel was a Jewish leader who returned to Israel with the exiled Hebrews in 539 B.C.  He, more than any other human, was given the responsibility by God to rebuild the city and temple of Jerusalem, which had been decimated by the conquering Babylonians some 70 years earlier. 

http://truthworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Jerusalem-Destroye...

Zerubbabel came by his leadership rightfully, owing to the fact that he was a direct descendant of King David, whom God had promised would always have a relative on the throne of Israel.  On the other hand, this was not a time for kingdoms; the Israelite nation had been wiped clean from the land as punishment for hundreds of years of personal and corporate disobedience to the Lord.  The returning exiles were like bomb survivors, shell-shocked by the experience of living for 3 generations in a pagan, foreign land as slaves.  They had lost their identity and pretty much everything else.  They were barely holding on to their faith and were shamed by the maltreatment their disobedience had invited.

 

So Zerubbabel didn’t have an easy time inspiring and leading the exiles to begin and, especially, to maintain the rebuilding process.  Dissension broke out, complaints about the rebuilding were registered, and subversive spies tried to derail the process.  At one point, it got so bad that the rebuilding effort was stopped cold for a period of 16 years!  Most leaders would have moved on, but Zerubbabel accepted the Lord’s encouragement through the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, and got the people working again.  God was very pleased with the second effort of Zerubbabel; so much so that speaking through Haggai, he told him that “I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel… and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you.”

Nice touch!  In Zerubbabel’s case, God didn’t just transfer His authority by giving him an impressive piece of jewelry, he imparted His favor and power by naming Zerubbabel as His “signet.”  Rings can be lost, taken away, stolen, etc.  But the favor God imparted upon Zerubbabel was integrated into his life and character, and that was his to keep forever.

 

It’s kind of a nice story, don’t you think?  I could end it here, and you might be somewhat satisfied.  But then you’d miss the best part…

 

You see, Zerubbabel had a grandpa who was very much unlike him.  His name was Jehoiachin, and he had briefly been the king of Israel in its declining years.  He had more power and authority than Zerubbabel could have ever dreamed of.  When he talked, people listened, at the risk of losing their lives.  There was no question of Jehoiachin’s power; it was absolute.  His subjects did as they were told; no bickering or whining then!

 

But Jehoiachin had a penchant for disobedience.  Jeremiah, at God’s direction, had proclaimed to the king that:

 

“But your eyes and your heart
    are set only on dishonest gain, 
on shedding innocent blood 
    and on oppression and extortion.”

 

God was beyond disappointed with Jehoiachin.  He removed him and his family from the throne and had them carried off into exile by the Babylonians after only a 3-month reign.  God expressed his disgust with Jehoiachin by stating:

 

“As surely as I live,” declares the Lord,

“even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah,

were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off.”

 

God sums up His condemnation of Jehoiachin by saying:

 

“Record this man as if childless, 
    a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper,
    none will sit on the throne of David
    or rule anymore in Judah.”

 

Irony.

 

A man cast away eternally from the love, protection and guidance of God.  His family included.  Pretty grim legacy, don’t you think?

 

Yet, several generations later, God is proclaiming that Zerubbabel, Jehoiachin’s great-grandson, is worthy of being His own signet ring.  His own symbol of strength and leadership.  His own living symbol of love and support.

 

When I talk to youth who come from homes where God is not revered; youth who may feel disqualified from God’s blessings, I often think of Zerubbabel.  Here was a guy who had everything going against him.  He was a leader, but only nominally so.  People could chose to follow him or not.  And the people he was trying to bless with his leadership and vision didn’t really want to be led.  They just wanted to be left alone to lick their wounds and recuperate from exile; to forget the pain of slavery and disobedience to God.  One might say Zerubbabel was disqualified even before he started his life’s work.

 

But his heart was to serve his people, and bless God in doing so.  And so God removed the curse he had brought upon grandpa Jehoiachin; not only removed it, but reversed it.  Jehoiachin was to be removed, as one removes a signet ring.  But Zerubbabel was to be made into God’s own signet ring; a representation of all the power and authority, and especially love, that God had for His people, whom He had never forgotten.

 

So the message of the story is that no matter where we come from, bad circumstances or cursed families, God is watching and is willing to bless us if we will be authentic, sacrificial, and loving representatives of Him to His world.  We are never, never beyond the love and help of God.  We are never disqualified.  Jesus made sure of that with His death and resurrection.

 

So that we can be His signet ring.  A ring of the Lord's