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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our midweek Lenten sermon series “Snapshots of Repentance”, which began on Ash Wednesday, continues tonight with the “snapshot” of Josiah, whose “snapshot” was chosen for Maundy Thursday in part because Josiah kept a Passover unlike many others. All such Passovers pointed to and ultimately were fulfilled both in the Supper that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself kept on this night and in the Sacrament of the Altar that He on this night instituted for us to keep until we together keep the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end.
As some of you may remember from our Midweek Bible Study more than one year ago or you may otherwise know, Josiah was the last godly-king of David’s line before the people of Judah were exiled to Babylon. Josiah apparently was raised by a faithful mother and given good counsel during his reign. As you heard when I read the text a few moments ago (confer 2 Kings 22:1-23:25), under King Josiah, apparently with Assyrian power fading to the north, foreign gods were removed from Judah and parts of Israel, a Book of the Law was rediscovered in the house of the Lord, and the Passover was kept like none other since the days of Samuel the prophet.
Like kings before him (for example, Jehoash, in 2 Kings 12:4-16), Josiah was collecting money for repairing the house of the Lord, and apparently either in the treasury box used for that collection or in the carrying out the work that the collection funded, perhaps in a cornerstone of a building, a Book of the Law was found. The “book” may have been a scroll (or scrolls) containing part (or all) of what we call Deuteronomy, or perhaps it was a collection of all five of the books of Moses, maybe even, as one commentator speculates (Kretzmann), in Moses’s own handwriting. From the “book”, Shaphan the secretary read, perhaps a chapter dealing with curses (such as exile) for breaking the covenant (Leviticus 26 or Deuteronomy 28), to King Josiah, who already at least should have known its contents.
The Book of the Law found in the time of Josiah may or may not have been the same as the Book of the Covenant that we heard about in tonight’s Old Testament Reading (Exodus 24:3‑11), but the covenant the Israelites made with God under Moses applied equally to the people under Josiah and also, at least in its moral code, to each one of us still today. The Israelites under Moses had said that they would obediently do all that the Lord had spoken, and the people under Josiah similarly said they would walk after the Lord, keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all their hearts and all their souls, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in the Book. And, for example, at our Confirmations, we vow to live according to the Word of God, and in faith, word, and deed, to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death. Like the Israelites under Moses and the people under Josiah, we may have trouble especially with the First Commandment, that to have no other gods but to fear, love and trust in the God above all things. When we do not keep that Commandment as we should, we also do not use His Name as we should, or regard His Word and Sacraments as we should. Our wrong worship may not lead us directly to sexual immorality and child sacrifice, as it did for the Israelites under Moses and the people under Josiah, but we all still sin in those and other ways, for we all are sinful by nature, and so, on account of our actual sin and sinful natures, we all truly deserve nothing but temporal death and eternal torment.
The prophetess Huldah privately confirmed for King Josiah what the disastrous consequences of his and his people’s sin would be. But, she also recognized that Josiah had a repentant heart (confer 2 Kings 22:18-19). For, when the king had heard the words of the Law, he was inwardly humbled, and so he outwardly tore his clothes and wept. Josiah not only recognized the Lord’s righteous anger over his and his people’s sin, but apparently he also trusted in the Lord’s mercy and grace. Like Josiah, we hear God’s law and are inwardly humbled, even if we do not always show such outward signs of repentance. And, out of the depths we cry to the Lord, as we did in tonight’s Psalm (Psalm 130), for with the Lord there is forgiveness that we may trust in Him; there is steadfast love (or “mercy”) and plentiful redemption.
Like Moses and others before him (such as Joshua, Samuel, and Jehoiada), Josiah mediated a covenant, if only a covenant “renewal”, between God and the people. But, of course, the greatest mediator was the God-man Jesus Christ, Who not only mediated the covenant (or “testament”) in His own blood, but Who also, by shedding that blood on the cross, paid the price for our breaking God’s Commandments. Unlike Josiah’s exceptional Passover that sacrificed thousands of lambs, Jesus’s fulfillment sacrificed Himself, once and for all (Hebrews 10:10), as the one spotless Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36). Ultimately betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, tried by the Sanhedrin, beaten and crucified under Pontius Pilate, He was once slain but rose again and now lives and reigns as our eternal King. As He Himself said in the Gospel Reading (Mark 14:12-26), He poured out His blood for many (meaning “all”). And, as Moses and others representing the people ate and drank in the presence of God, so do we eat and drink in the presence of God here; by way of bread and wine we participate, as tonight’s Epistle Reading put it (1 Corinthians 10:16‑17), in both the Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ. So, we repentant baptized believers here receive forgiveness, life, and salvation.
So forgiven, we bring forth the fruits of faith according to our vocations. Josiah’s faithful mother raised her son in the faith. Josiah himself exercised his authority as king, including encouraging the true worship of God and “discouraging” all false worship. Other spiritual and secular leaders also similarly fulfilled their vocations, including voluntarily and joyfully giving what was needed for the worship of their community. We do likewise: parents and leaders, clergy and laity, serving in all the roles that God gives us, and, of what He has entrusted to our care, giving what is needed for the worship of our community. God showed mercy to Josiah, forgiving his sin and essentially putting off until later the people’s exile, but that did not mean the rest of Josiah’s life was without hardship: he died, for example, in battle. And, soon after, the people, many of whom perhaps had never really been reconverted under Josiah, returned to open idolatry and later were exiled. Josiah’s reign has been described as the last merciful visitation of God before the exile, as is then also said about the proclamation of the Gospel in our time’s being the last merciful visitation of God before our Lord’s final coming (Kretzmann). So, with repentance and faith, we live each day in God’s forgiveness of sins, extending His forgiveness and our own out to all with whom God brings us into contact.
Like the “snapshots of repentance” before his, Josiah’s has been an example of both repentance and forgiveness of sins, an example that not only instructs us about our repentance over our sin, but also comforts us as we receive God’s forgiveness for our own sin. This year’s midweek Lenten sermon series concludes tomorrow night with the high priest’s atonement for sin. But, yet tonight, we participate in the atoning sacrifice that Christ made for us, by way of the meal that He this night instituted for us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +