The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.
2 Kings 17:24 (NIV)

Sitting on a shelf in our living room is a giant wooden mallet. It weighs a ton. The wood, over a century and a half old, feels hard as cement. I recently inherited the mallet. It belonged to my great-grandfather, who brought it with him from the Netherlands when he immigrated to the United States in the 1880s.

One of the things that I love about history is the context it often provides to my present. My great-grandfather came to the U.S. by himself as a young man. The story I’ve been able to piece together is that he was unhappy about his widowed mother marrying a much older man who had once been her teacher. So, he ran away to America and hammered out a new life for himself in Iowa. Here I am, almost 150 years later, holding the mallet with which he did so. God blessed him and the family to which he gave birth.

Similarly, I love the stories of what we know as the Old Testament precisely because they add both context and layers of meaning to the familiar stories of the New. Today’s chapter is a perfect example.

It’s the end of the line for the Kingdom of Israel. The Assyrian Empire conquers the capital city of Samaria. The Assyrians forced almost 30,000 citizens of Israel to march between 500 and 1,200 miles into foreign territory. They were scattered and resettled in different cities and regions. Then, the Assyrians marched a hodge-podge of other conquered people groups into what had been the area around Israel’s capital of Samaria and made them settle there. This was the way ancient empires tried to ensure that conquered people groups didn’t rise up in rebellion.

Remember what I always say about the Great Story: everything is connected. Let me share the connections I made as I meditated on the chapter this morning.

First, the Assyrian exile was not a random event. God had predicted it way back when He made His covenant with the Hebrew people through Moses in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 4:25-31 and 29:22-28 God warns that when His people fail to be faithful to Him and worship other gods, they will go into exile and be scattered among the nations. The Assyrian exile fulfills what God long ago predicted.

Next, fast-forward to John 4. Jesus is sitting at a well in Samaria and begins talking to a woman about living water.

Samaria, the region where the Jewish religion didn’t look the same.
Samaria, the region that good, religious Jews subsequently avoided.
Samaria, the people whom good, religious Jews subsequently hated.
Samaria, the outcasts Jesus famously went out of His way to reach.

Why? Because they weren’t Hebrews to begin with. They were foreigners. Assyrian exiles from other lands. They were forced to settle in Samaria. Over generations, they assimilated. They intermarried with local Hebrews. Over those same generations, they eventually adopted the God of Israel. But, they also retained some funky ways of worship. And to good pure-blood Hebrews, the Samaritans would always be mud-blood half-breeds.

Today’s chapter gives us the back story. But wait, there’s one more connection.

In Acts 8, Jesus’ disciple Philip returns to Samaria. A few years earlier, Philip and the other disciples wondered what on earth Jesus was doing, taking them through Samaria. And, they couldn’t understand why on earth Jesus was talking to a mud-blood Samaritan woman. Now Philip returns to share with the Samaritans about Jesus, the risen Christ. Philip and his message are received with joy.

As I sat in the quiet this morning and made these connections, I couldn’t help but marvel at the Great Story.

God makes a covenant with the Hebrew people, knowing that they’ll one day break the covenant and be forced into exile. Even then, He promises a redemptive return. Sure enough, the exile happens. With that exile, entire non-Hebrew people groups are forced into the Story. But God has a plan of redemption for them, as well. Jesus carries out the plan. Despite the political and social fallout, He includes Samaria in His miraculous ministry tour. In the end, the Samaritans embrace Jesus’ message and become among the first believers.

I observe that in our current times, many people feel anxious and outcast. It’s easy to feel that we don’t fit. Life isn’t working out the way we thought or hoped. Others hate us, and we’re not sure why. We find ourselves hammering out lives but feeling like things aren’t coming together like we thought they would.

Today’s chapter reminds me that we’re not alone. As the Sage of Ecclesiastes reminds us, “there is nothing new under the sun.” The people of Israel marching off to Assyria felt that. The exiles from Babylon who eventually became Samaritans felt that. Yet, all along, God had a plan of redemption for them in the Great Story.

And that same plan of redemption applies to my story as well. My job is to keep faithfully hammering out my life as best I can as God tells me to. I can trust God’s promises – and the redemption Jesus provided through His death and resurrection.

And now, I have a heavy old mallet that speaks to me of God’s faithfulness through the generations – and reminds me to keep hammering away.

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