Reading: 2 Chronicles 35-36, Psalm 80
Hey, we reached the end of the Old Testament! When I was a young adult starting to read the Bible the “One Year Bible” reading plan was popular. This broke the Old and New Testaments into bits and organized them into daily readings. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, I have found that it is sort of like reading The Lord of the Rings three volumes concurrently. You can piece the story together that way, but it will much more confusing than just reading the book straight through. The Bible is, of course, a much different kind of book. However, it is a book expressing a story. My argument is that it is expressing The Story, and that it is better than we think it is. Partly because we have been reading it all out of order and cut into pieces. Also because we don’t take the time to figure out why the books of Kings and Chronicles both exist, or why the story of Hezekiah is told three times. It is my hope that having considered these things, we will begin reading the Gospel according to St. Matthew tomorrow with a different set of eyes. The New Testament authors were deeply steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures. Like the Chronicler, they wrote what they wrote with the assumed backdrop of the whole story.
The last book of the Scriptures in the years leading up to birth of Christ was Chronicles. I believe it was the last book written, and that it’s theology is expressed throughout the Hebrew Bible and is the belief system that the first Christians saw Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of. The closing story in Chronicles is the celebration of the Passover by king Josiah. Like Hezekiah and Solomon before him, he provides the sacrifice for the people before the Temple. He has the priests put the Ark, God’s throne, back in the Temple where it belongs, so that the Atonement may take place. It is the high point of the book. Finally, after generations of ups and downs, a king comes on the scene who will usher in a new era. But then he goes off to fight Egypt and dies in battle. The last few kings of Judah are footnotes to the Chronicler. For him, the story of the kingdom of Judah ended with Josiah. He also takes little note of the years of exile and the conquest of Babylon by Persia, the further displacement of the people of Israel by repeated conquest and new peoples moving into the land. Instead he makes only two points, both of them connected to the Temple. First, it is destroyed:
The Lord sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.
No Remedy. What was the only remedy the Chronicler knew about? The Day of Atonement is the only real remedy for the human problem given in the Hebrew Scriptures. When the people are exiled and the Temple destroyed, the possibility of this remedy is ended. Not that they had been doing it anyway, but now there is no means. Until, that is:
Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever among you if all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.
Let him go up. What is the Chronicler doing ending his book here? It seems clear that he is living after the completion of the second temple… but maybe he doesn’t see that as the real temple. He is looking for a temple like that of Solomon, commanded by God and dedicated by a king. A king like Solomon, who passes the test that Adam failed. Who brings the sacrifice for the people himself. Who pulls together all the hopes of the prophets and the story of Israel and fulfills the promises of God to make all things new. Who will go up? Who can ascend the hill of Zion and take the place of the King? The one who stand before the Temple and makes Atonement for his people. Who will that be? That is the question. Tomorrow, Matthew will give us his answer.