Scripture: 2 Chronicles 30
Sermon: Adding More Chairs to the Table
Topics: Passover, bent rules, inclusion, communion
Preached: January 20, 2002
Rev. Mike Abma
Context of 2 Chronicles 30
I have had the luxury of reading and playing with this chapter all week. In order that our reading of this chapter is as profitable as it can be, let me first say a few words to get us into the time and space of this passage.
A couple of weeks ago I preached from 2 Chronicles 28 when King Ahaz was king of Judah. King Ahaz was, according to Chronicles, the absolute worst king of Judah. After King Ahaz came King Hezekiah, who, according to Chronicles, is one of the best kings of Judah, along with David and Solomon.
Our passage tonight takes place early in King Hezekiah’s reign.
The Assyrian Empire had just recently crushed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The line of kings in the Northern Kingdom had come to an end. But for the writers of Chronicles, this provides a ray of hope. You see, not since the days of Solomon had there been only one king of all Israel.
In the book of Kings, most of the space used to tell the story of Hezekiah tells of the political and military maneuvers he makes to avoid being swallowed by the Assyrian empire like his northern neighbors.
The writers of 1 and 2 Chronicles, however, spend a lot more time describing Hezekiah’s moral and religious reforms.
Chapter 29, the chapter just before the chapter we are about to read, describes Hezekiah’s purification of the Temple. Once the Temple was cleaned and purified, it was ready to host the Passover.
This is where we pick up the story in chapter 30. This chapter is basically structured around the preparations made for celebrating Passover (1-12) and then the actual celebrations (13-27). What I will point out as we read this passage are the different times Hezekiah bends to the rules in this Passover celebration.
Preparations 1-12
30:1 Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel.
2. The king and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month.
[Bent Rule No. 1: Changed the Time
Normally Passover was celebrated starting the evening of the 14th day of the first month. This was, in the words of Exodus 12, the appointed time. Celebrating Passover a full month later was a significant bending of the rules and the writers of 2 Chronicles know this because they will remind us again and again that this Passover is being celebrated in the second month.
Our text goes on to give 2 reasons for the month delay.
3: They had not been able to celebrate it at the regular time because not enough priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem.
[The reason why there were not enough priests ready and the people were not yet in Jerusalem is because the cleaning and purification of the Temple took until the 16th day of the 1st month according to 2 Chronicles 29: 17. But rather than wait to celebrate the Passover next year, they decided to celebrate right away.]
4. The plan seemed right to both the king and the whole assembly.
5. They decided to send a proclamation throughout Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, calling the people to come to Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel. It had not been celebrated in large numbers according to what was written.
[In other words, it was high time they had a real, full, Passover celebration}
6. At the king’s command, couriers (runners) went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king and from his officials, which read:
“People of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that he may return to you who are left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.
[Remember this is right after Assyria destroyed Samaria and swallowed the Northern Kingdom. Although Assyria had carried off thousands of prisoners and sent in thousands of settlers from other nations, there were still many Israelites in the land.]
7. Do not be like your fathers and brothers, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their fathers, so that he made them an object of horror, as you see.
8. Do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were: submit to the Lord. Come to the sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.
9. If you return to the Lord, then your brothers and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to this land, for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.”
10. The couriers went from town to town in Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun, but the people scorned and ridiculed them.
11. Nevertheless, some people of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem.
12. Also in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity of mind (one heart) to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the word of the Lord.
[The phrase “unity of mind” occurs in only one other place in Chronicles and that is in 1 Chronicles 12:38 where it says all Israel was of one mind to make David king.]
CELEBRATIONS 13-27
13. A very large crowd of people assembled in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the second month.
14. The removed the altars in Jerusalem and cleared away the incense altars and threw them into the Kidron Valley.
[This is a reference to the previous King Ahaz. In 2 Chronicles 28:14, Ahaz is described as putting up altars to various idols on every street corner in Jerusalem. These are the altars that are getting removed here.
Before we continue, perhaps it would be best to remind you that Passover actually included two different feasts:
1. Sacrifice and eating of the Passover Lamb on the 14th of the first month. That is Passover proper.
2. Next 7 days after that was the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Our passage continues with describing the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. ]
Passover
15. They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites were ashamed and consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings to the temple of the Lord.
[because they could get the Temple purified and themselves consecrated quickly enough that this whole Passover is a month late – thus the shame.]
16. Then they took up their regular positions as prescribed in the Law of Moses the man of God. The priests sprinkled the blood handed to them by the Levites.
17. Since many in the crowd had not consecrated themselves, the Levites had to kill the Passover lambs for all those who were not ceremonially clean and could not consecrate their lambs to the Lord.
18. Although most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written.
[Bent Rule No. 2: Extended the Participants
Normally the head of each household made sure he was ceremonially clean
so that he could both slaughter the lamb and eat of it. Clearly in this case,
the Northerners who were not all ceremonially clean, were not allowed to
slaughter the lamb but were allowed to eat it, even though this clearly went
against the regulations in Leviticus 7:19-21 that only those who were
ceremonially clean could participate in the Passover.]
But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on seeking God – the Lord, the God of his fathers – even if he is not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.
20. And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.
Feast of Unleavened Bread
21. The Israelites who were present in Jerusalem celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great rejoicing, while the Leveites and priests sang to the Lord every day accompanied by the Lord’s instruments of praise (literally “powerful instruments”).
22. Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites, who showed good understanding of the service of the Lord.
[In other words, the Levites weren’t very good at performing their duties at the beginning but slowly got better as the week went on. ]
For the seven days they ate their assigned portions and offered fellowship offerings and praised the Lord, the God of their fathers.
Extended Feast
23. The whole assembly then agreed to celebrate the festival seven more
days; so for another seven days they celebrated joyfully.
24. Hezekiah king of Judah provided a thousand bulls and seven
thousand sheep and goats for the assembly, and the officials provided
them with a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats. A
great number of priests consecrated themselves.
[Bent Rule No. 3 Extended the Time
The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread was to last 7 days. There was
no provision in the Law to tack another week onto it. But clearly this was
such a roaring success that no one wanted to go home.]
25. The entire assembly of Judah rejoiced, along with the priests and Levites and all who had assembled from Israel, including the aliens who had come from Israel and those who lived in Judah.
[Bent Rule No. 4 Extended the Guest List
According to Exodus 12, the only people allowed to participate in the
Passover and Feast of Unleavened bread were Israelites and the circumcised
slaves who happened to be part of an Israelite household. Foreigners,
temporary residents and workers were not allowed. But clearly these aliens,
these Non-Israelites, joined in the celebrations.
26. There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem.
27. The priests and Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling.
SERMON
I have taken some time walking through this passage so that I can first briefly summarize how the Old Testament Passover resonates with the New Testament Lord’s Supper, and then note a few principles that seem to govern both celebrations.
A. Passover and the Lord’s Supper
First of all, there are clear links between Passover and the Lord’s Supper.
We know that the Lord’s Supper was instituted by Jesus on the night of his betrayal and arrest which was during the Passover feast.
As baptism resonates with Israel going through the Red Sea, so too,
communion resonates with Passover. In Passover, a lamb is sacrificed reminding the Israelite that the Lord delivered them from death into life, from the bondage of Egypt into the freedom of the Promised Land.
So too, the Lord’s Supper places before us Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. When we hold the bread and the wine in our hands, we know that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we are delivered from death to eternal life, from the bondage of sin to the freedom of his reign.
As the people of old gathered at the Temple,
we now gather around the risen Christ, who is the new temple,
and we gather by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the presence of God.
Because of these close links, perhaps some of the principles of inclusion that allowed for bending the rules of Passover in 2 Chronicles should be the same principles that bend some of our rules as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper:
B. Principle of Inclusion over against Exclusion
Who should celebrate communion and who shouldn’t?
2 Chronicles keeps bending the rules in order to open the feast wider and wider, first to the northerners who weren’t even purified, and then to the aliens and foreigners.
If we set this passage beside 1 Corinthians 11, that same principle of inclusion over exclusion comes out. The problem in the church of Corinth was not too much inclusion but too much exclusion. Paul was upset that certain people, especially the lowly poor, were being kept from the table by the influential rich.
I know in our Reformed we have a long tradition of guarding the table to make sure people who participate in communion can properly discern the body. But discerning the body in 1 Corinthians 11 is about more than seeing in the bread and the wine the body and blood of Jesus. It is also about seeing in the person sitting next to us a brother or sister in Christ. It is about seeing the full body of Christ – even in the Methodist brother or the Catholic sister sitting next to us.
Clearly the whole impetus in 2 Chronicles 30 was to bend the rules to include as many people as possible.
The way Jesus spoke, as in his parable of the Wedding Feast, he seemed to be speaking the same language of inclusion.
B. Worship as a Means as Well as a Goal on the way to Unity
When to celebrate communion and when not to?
We have generally been quite cautious about celebrating the Lord’s Supper when members of different churches are together for conferences or dialogues.
In these ecumenical settings, we often see communion as the goal that may come at the end of a long road of perilous doctrinal dialogue. The result is that we have ecclesiastical fellowship (table fellowship) with relatively few denominations.
But perhaps we should see Communion as both a goal and a means to that goal.
Last weekend, N.T. Wright was here at the Worship Symposium.
He was asked a question about whether he thought communion at services of various denominations was appropriate.
His answer was that if the only time we are ready to celebrate communion is when we have complete agreement with a brother and sister in Christ, we are narrowing down the times we celebrate communion. He then went on to say that it is precisely through shared worship services and shared communion services that many differences are bridges and the body of Christ is evident.
Lord’s Supper becomes a meaning of achieving unity, not simply the reward at the end of long inter-church dialogues.
C. Anticipatory Nature of Communion
2 Chronicles was written by exiles who had returned to a devastated land. They hoped and dreamed of a restored and united Israel. Chronicles is filled with stories of the past, like 2 Chronicles 30, that carried hope into the future.
In a way, the Lord’s Supper does the very same thing.
There is an anticipatory nature to communion, after all. Yes, Christ is the lamb, sacrificed for the forgiveness of our sins once and for all. This we celebrate at communion.
But there is also an anticipatory quality. We celebrate the feast in hungry anticipation of the great wedding feast of the lamb when Christians from all nations will taste of God’s goodness.
It is with the principles of inclusion, unity, and anticipation that we sing and say and pray the words:
As grain from many fields has been gathered into one loaf
And grapes from many hills into one cup,
So gather your people together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom.
Amen.
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