"Shilo, when I was young
I used to call you name . . ."
 
Vintage Neil Diamond, the song "Shilo" first aired during my high school years. The enigmatic lyrics fascinated me. The enigmatic name reminded me of a place just 20 miles from my home, which I visited often as a child.
 
We called it, simply, Shiloh. Walking among the serene wooded hills, laughing and playing in the peach orchard near the original site of a church called Shiloh Meetinghouse, my friends and I could not imagine the battle fought April 6-7, 1862. How puzzling, how contradictory, that in this peaceful place nearly 24,000 people died in one of the bloodiest and costliest conflicts of the Civil War.

"When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came . . ."

How puzzling, how contradictory, that the name Shiloh may mean "peaceable" or "rest" - yet may also mean "a conqueror." How interesting that Neil Diamond, the man who sang of "Shilo," is Jewish. In ancient times, the tent where the Jewish people worshiped God rested for decades in an obscure mountain village named Shiloh. In the tent, was a small rectangular gold box - an ark.
 
One day God's people took the ark from the tent and carried it into battle. Since the ark's presence indicated God's presence, they expected victory.
 
They were defeated. The ark was taken. The victors, the Philistines, thought they had conquered the God who lived at Shiloh. But wherever the ark went, the Philistines and their gods were ravaged. Beaten, they returned that little ark to Shiloh with gifts to the unconquerable God.
 
Centuries later, an army marched into a garden called Gethsemane. A battalion of troops - perhaps 600 in all - plus numerous religious leaders, came to conquer one Jewish man.
 
They left that garden thinking they'd won the battle. They'd suffered no casualties, except one slashed-off ear that Jesus healed on the spot. Almost effortlessly, they'd taken Jesus.
 
Yet during the confrontation in the garden, Jesus - not the soldiers - asked the questions. "Whom do you seek?" he inquired. "Jesus of Nazareth," they answered.
 
Jesus announced, "I AM." When he called himself a name reserved for God alone, everyone who stood before him fell backward.
 
Further, Jesus gave the commands. He told a hostile army not to take anyone but himself prisoner - and they didn't. He told his followers to put up their swords - and they did.
 
That night, people seeking to subdue Jesus answered his questions, took his orders, and fell before him. Then, they seized him, thinking they had overpowered him.
 
Long before the ark rested in a place named Shiloh, Genesis 49:10 promised: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples" (NASU).
 
An enigmatic name anticipates an enigmatic king - peaceable, yet suffering; seemingly conquered, but never for one second overcome.
 
The army in the garden didn't know: This Conqueror let them take him. It was part of his strategy for an astonishing, come-from-the-dead victory.
 
How puzzling! The enigmatic God identifies himself with people, to the point that he became one. How contradictory! Any time Shiloh lets us win, we lose.
 
Ah but when we surrender to the king who died in our behalf and rose again, we enter his rest. We enjoy his presence. We reign with him. We win.
 
"Shilo, when I was young
I used to call you name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
Come today"