Humbled and Torn: Reading the Bible for All Its Worth ~ 2 Chronicles 34-35

The ancient historian wrote: Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one

years. ² He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left. ³ In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. (2 Chron. 34:1-3a). So Josiah was a follower of God and a reader of Scripture who rediscovered the book of Deuteronomy. And he’s the perfect person for us to consider as we conclude our Immerse series on the Pentateuch. Josiah’s story reminds us that . . .

          1.    You’re always following someone (the past impacts the present).

It’s interesting that in the Old Testament the Lord is never merely “my” God but the God “of our ancestors” because ancestors matter. And this reality exists both positively and negatively in the life of Josiah (actually in the life of anyone). There is a two-pronged reality illustrated in our readings time and time again: 1. The past matters and impacts us; 2. Our present is often determined by which past we follow.

Josiah, it turns out, was fated to follow God in a broken context – he didn’t choose that context it was given to him. His grandfather Manasseh ruled for 55 years in Judah, and led a terrible life. He dedicated himself to removing God’s Word from Judah and replacing the worship of God with idols (2 Chron. 33:3). He even sacrificed some of his own children to false gods (2 Chron. 33:6) and slaughtered so many innocent people that the Bible says he filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to another (2 Kings 21:16). Add to this the brief reign of Josiah’s father, Amon, who followed in Manasseh’s footsteps, and was assassinated in his second year as king by the palace servants, and you have a truly soap-opera-esque dysfunctional family.

And this was the reason Josiah came to the throne at the early age of 8. He had no godly model to follow in his immediate family. He faced an unpredictable and volatile political climate in his world and his nation was spinning out of control, headed for the judgment of God. Likewise, our failures, our inability to read scripture rightly or even to forget about it, can leave a negative legacy on the next generation. Our poor treatment of the environment, our political chaos, our racism and sexism, our refusal to love our neighbors well, will impact the next generation. What kind of church will they inherit from us? What kind of world will they receive? Our following will impact them. Josiah will acknowledge a wrath that occurs “because our ancestors did not keep the word of the Lord.” (2 Chron. 34:21) “Keep” means more than read but to hear and obey, even protect. Our negative spirituality and sinfulness does more than harm us; it will be the air the next generation breathes – the

second-hand smoke that can cause severe damage to those who have never smoked, no matter how healthy they choose to be. And Josiah’s reform, despite his own faithfulness, was critically impacted by the unfaithfulness of his ancestors before him. Their sinfulness was a barrier and a legacy that his own reform could not ultimately overcome. Judah will still be destroyed. Their past choices have serious consequences that can’t be so easily undone. So we must do more than encourage the younger generation to follow well. If we refuse to follow well – what sorts of disaster will we leave?

          2.    Are you a David or a Huldah? (Are we being good models in the present?)

However, the past is not the ONLY thing that determines Josiah’s life or ours. It’s also true that our present spiritual lives are ours to choose and that we can decide who to emulate. You don’t have to go the way of your most recent ancestors. Despite Josiah’s horrific family tree, the passage tells us “he did what was right in the Lord’s sight,” v. 2a.  But Josiah didn’t do that merely on his own. The text repeatedly tells us that he “followed the ways of his ancestor David,” vss. 2-3. He didn’t take his cues from his immediate family but chose to model himself on David’s life. He rose above the spiritual emptiness at home. He didn’t succumb to the idolatrous choices of his nation. He rose above peer pressure and swam against the current of his day by setting a simple personal priority at the core of who he was: to live a life in love with God (2 Chronicles 34:310)! Later, when Josiah encounters the book of Deuteronomy that had been lost he knew that he needed help listening to God’s word and

following the right path. He didn’t imagine that he could read it alone. In vs. 13 he commands his personal secretary to talk to the prophetess Huldah: “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all of Judah.” This male king sought the instruction of a woman. So Josiah doesn’t imagine that he alone can interpret the Bible and doesn’t believe that the Scriptures are for him alone but “for the people.” I’ve heard from many of you that this series has been transformative in part because we read the Bible together. We need to be sure and tell the younger generation that they need never follow alone. To the adults in the room I ask, “Are you a David or a Huldah for someone?”  What example are you providing for the younger generation? Reading the Bible well demands good models.

We need to tell 8-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and 20-year-olds that they can follow God. That they can do it well. And we need to give them good models to follow. Are you living a followable life? The eight-year-olds are watching. So are the twelve-year-olds and the eighteen-year-olds. (Helen needs some volunteers.) At every stage of Josiah’s life—he needed good models to help live a life pleasing to God. But, what does a good model look like?

          3.    Good models are “torn” readers – weeping and celebrating with humility.

After the book of the law is rediscovered and read to Josiah he has two responses, which bring about a revival. First, in vs. 19 we are told that he “tore his robes” as a sign of his deep sorrow over his own sin and the sin of others. Like Josiah, everyone who reads the Bible well should tear his or her own clothes. The problem is that I meet many Christians who want to rend and tear other people’s clothes rather than their own. You are responsible for your own clothes – stopping messing with others. But Josiah did more than tear his clothes. Chronicles also tells us in great detail how he instituted one of the biggest reforms in Judah’s history. And he did so by re-engaging the most powerful ritual in Israel’s salvation: Passover, the redemptive story of God liberating his people. And so in Josiah’s story we find a critical way of reading the Bible that stands in the tension between weeping and celebrating.

When you read Scripture you should find yourself pulled in two directions. Weeping, on the one hand, cognizant of your failures, your sin. Celebrating, on the other hand, because God has acted on our behalf to redeem us despite that sinfulness. When you allow yourselves to be torn by both realities you will become humble reader of Scripture (2 Chron. 34:27).

Martin Luther understood this tension as our need to maintain both law and gospel. Luther writes, “The distinction between law and gospel is the highest art in Christendom . . . Virtually the whole of the Scriptures and the understanding of the whole of theology depends upon the true understanding of the law and the gospel.” Luther’s Commentary on Galatians (1535)

According to Martin Luther, Christians always do everything, including Bible reading, “simultaneously righteous and sinful.” Luther argued that reading the Bible correctly, getting the Christian life right happened when you acquired a properly “torn” orientation – knowingly a sinner saved by grace.

So, on the one hand, proper Bible reading should always have us reaching for our clothes – to rend and tear them.  Friends, if your Bible reading doesn’t expose your lack, doesn’t reveal your brokenness, doesn’t uncover your sin, then you are not reading it as it was intended. We are about to enter the season of Lent. What might it mean for us to wear torn clothes? Perhaps, you could wear black or have a black ribbon or bracelet – not to speak to others but to remind you of your own sin, your own need for grace. For Luther this is because the law tells us what we ought to do but can’t; while the gospel (here, signaled by Passover) tells us what God has done for us. The law shows us that we need to be forgiven; the gospel points to the fact that we have been forgiven. When we keep both of these perspectives intact – an amazing thing will happen - we will recognize that we have received a great gift that we are not worthy of and yet never have to earn. And such people live humble lives with a certain lightness of being. And when you find such a person, read the Bible with them, follow their ways. Because they understand that to read it rightly you must read it torn.