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By: Michael Kornelis You may listen to this devotion in audio form via podcast here.
Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” He said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.””
- 2 Kings 20:14-15
The histories of ancient kings and their civilizations are like social media accounts. The pictures they post are carefully curated. And if and when a certain photo is less than flattering it is heavily filtered and edited. So, just as we are skeptical of the glamour of social media influencers, wondering whether or not it’s all a veneer, so too we wonder if the ancient pharaohs and kings of the bygone world are really as magnificent as they make themselves out to be. In contrast the histories of Israel that we find in the Bible are shockingly unflattering. Again, if Kings and Chronicles were social media accounts they post every picture, even and especially the poorly lit, awkwardly posed, and altogether unattractive pictures.
I think though that unfortunately we tend to filter and edit these crude photos, these raw stories, that are precisely meant to be gritty and gross. We filter them, we tend to edit out the endings. But the Bible posts those pictures. Noah’s story for instance ends with drunken debauchery, Gideon’s story ends in overt idolatry, even Hezekiah of whom the scriptures say, ‘before and after him there was no king in Israel like him’, even Hezekiah faltered at the end. Hezekiah who tore down the pagan altars, who alone in the wide world withstood the onslaught of the Assyrian masses, who prayed and was delivered from his disease and death, even he falters in the end.
The Babylonians come to pay homage to the Great Hezekiah and he proudly flaunts the wealth of his city, the silver and gold and spices and precious oils the armoury and all his treasures. So, though Hezekiah’s story begins with humility it ends with perhaps the two most spiritually lethal sins: pride and complacence. Isaiah the prophet tells Hezekiah that these Babylonians to whom he essentially gave a full inventory of the city’s wealth will be back to collect it for themselves, back to make eunuchs of his sons. Hezekiah’s response? Complacence. Relief. Glad that tragedy will not come in his day. Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”And sure enough this complacency breeds a string of kings that are unparalleled in their wickedness, kings who are said to be even more wicked and perverse than the Canaanites first driven out of the land.
And so, the lesson of Hezekiah is to avoid pride and complacency at the end of a day, at the end of a career, at the end of a life. Instead let us pray with St. Paul that we might “forget what lies behind and strain forward toward what lies ahead.” Like in a cross country race when the finish line is in sight let us run all the harder the course set before us looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.