Ezra has not gone and taken a foreign wife. He has not participated in the grievous evil that some had actually gone out and done, but he includes himself. Why does he do this? Because there is a sense of solidarity with the community of faith. When we are confessing the sins of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we do not separate ourselves from those sins. We are actually among the people who are committing those sins. There is a sense of solidarity, not only in the benefits and the privileges of being God's people, but also in the liabilities of being God's people. Do you think that someone in our midst who is a part of this body can sin and fall into sin without the rest of us being affected, without the rest of us mourning, without the rest of us taking upon ourselves some measure of responsibility and ownership for our own sins and our own hypocrisies? This is exactly what Ezra is doing.
Lo, to the person who can sit there and listen to a brother or sister confess sin and not be moved and realize that you are in the same boat as him or as her. Lo, to the brother or sister that sits there in judgment when they hear the weakness and the failures of another brother or sister. That is absolute utter and complete hypocrisy. We all belong in the same place. We have all come from the same place. We would all be heading to exactly the same place if it were not for the grace of God in Jesus Christ. So there is a sense of solidarity—compassionate solidarity.1
Brian Borgman
6 saying:“O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.