2 Chronicles 30:1-27 - Homiletics

The celebration of the Passover, with its sacred suggestions.

The whole of this chapter is concerned with Hezekiah's call of priests, Levites, princes, and congregation of the people to observe and celebrate with himself the grand solemnity of the Passover. From the analogy of the precedent provided for individual cases of certain kinds of necessity ( Numbers 9:10 ), this celebration for the whole nation is fixed for the fourteenth day of the second month instead of the first. This was the fourth of the seven special occasions, of which description with detail is given us in Scripture—the first of all in Egypt ( Exodus 12:1-51 .), the first in the desert ( Numbers 9:1-23 .), and that of Joshua at Gilgal, after the circumcision of the people and when the manna ceased ( Joshua 5:1-15 .), being the three which preceded; and those that came after being the Passover celebrated by Josiah (ch. 35.), by Ezra on the return from the captivity at Babylon ( Ezra 6:1-22 .), and that ever-memorable one, the last of our blessed Lord's life on earth. The Passover was the first in time of the three great annual feasts which called together to Jerusalem all—yes, in happier times, all —from Dan even to Beersheba, the other two being the Feasts of Pentecost and of Tabernacles. It was also the first in the lifetime of the nation, and always the first in solemn significance. Not only the energy and earnestness, therefore, of Hezekiah in carrying through this celebration from first to last, but his Diviner wisdom and piety in determining and appointing it, may be noted, and dwelt upon in useful and suggestive detail as adapted to modern days. That great revival, for instance—one of the greatest the world and Church have ever seen—of modern Church-life, familiarly known to ourselves, was rooted in, and has grown up proportioned to, zealous attention to the sacraments, faith in them, and faithful observance of them. This goes to the root of all a nation's evil and malady! "If once" thought Hezekiah—"if but once a healthy breeze could pass over this erring and idolatrous, fevered and long-forlorn people, all might yet be well!" At his prayer, and as the reward of his effort, the breeze came, and swept over the land. It refreshed weary and parched wastes; and some signs of healthiness, mingled with some signs of suspiciousness, appeared. Perhaps all was too late; the disease too deep, and gone too far, too long! Nevertheless, it was none the less right on the part of Hezekiah to have tried the religious means, and used the highest of them. We may notice in them—not as matter of historic interest in the life of another nation merely—how, in virtue mainly of the presence of the Passover, they were fitted to touch all that was deepest, all that haply might "remain" ( Revelation 3:2 ) deepest and best in the hearts of the people. For instance, the Passover was undoubtedly—

I. THE VIVID MEMORIAL OF AN UNPRECEDENTED BIRTH OF A NATION , Nor can it be said that this was an instance of a "nation born in a day." It gives more point, and it is just and true, to remember, that now it may be said of it that it was a nation born in a night ! One supreme, extraordinary effort of faith and obedience ushered that nation out of darkness into light. It might, indeed, have been hoped that this would stamp it for ever with the corresponding native and hereditary grand qualities. There are senses in which it may be said that the nation had received in yet earlier ages its existence. Certainly the promise and the earnest of this had been fact. The germ of its existence had been in Abraham, and God's covenant with him. It showed to view in distinctness and separateness at the time and in the fact of its compact corporate descent into Egypt. There was a semblance of truth to support this, and there would have been real truth in it, if a family could be called a nation. "Israel" went into Egypt "three score and ten souls" ( Genesis 46:27 ); Israel came out of Egypt a nation born, that night of the Passover—a vast separate nation, a peculiar people. Hezekiah's celebration of the Passover, therefore, at this time suggested to every feeling and instinct of honest national love and pride that king, priests, and people should live worthily of their origin, raise the fortunes and restore the glory of the nation that had so greatly declined (verse 6).

II. THE VIVID MEMORIAL OF THE GREAT DELIVERANCE WHICH GOD WROUGHT FOR HIS PEOPLE , FROM SORE BONDAGE , UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES OF AN EXTRAORDINARY NATURE . The power and the pity of God were alike demonstrated by the rescue of the hosts of Israel from the midst of Egypt. His pity heard their groanings, his power subdued their oppressors. Of such things as these the people needed at this time the teaching and the inspiriting influences. Every observance of the Passover was a commemoration and rehearsal of this great deliverance, and suggested the long and thick succession of Divine interpositions during a period of now nearly eight centuries.

III. BOTH THE OUTCOME AND THE FOUNDATION OF A COVENANT . The Passover marked a foregoing faith and obedience on the part of Moses, Aaron, and all the houses of the rescued, and it inferred an unending continuance of the same, so often as they should be called for on special occasions, as well as for the rule of every day's life. Upon these conditions being met on the one side, God's great deliverance and his continued protection took effect on the other side. Upon this practical aspect it is evident that Hezekiah laid great stress (verses 7-9). The remembrance of the saving of all the firstborn of the Hebrews, by the side of the slaying of all the firstborn of the Egyptians, both man and beast, was fitted to be a most powerful incentive of loyalty to him who had thus bought a people to himself most significantly. This was an inevitable memory of the sprinkled blood of the Paschal lamb in every celebration.

IV. THE FORESHADOWING OF THE ONE ETERNAL SACRIFICE . For the devout Hebrew, the Israelite who was "an Israelite indeed," even in these most degenerate days of the nation, the Passover must have taken a leading share among all other sacrifices, in teaching and shadowing forth "the good things to come;" the "better hope;" the "better covenant;" the "better sacrifices" ( Hebrews 7:19 , Hebrews 7:22 ; Hebrews 8:6 ; Hebrews 9:23 ). The "foreshadowing" itself was indeed plain and powerful, which used such a designation for the central fact of all the observances of the Passover, as "my sacrifice" ( Exodus 23:18 ; Exodus 34:25 ); and nothing can be deducted from our estimate of the meaning of such passages, and generally of the typical virtue of the whole celebration, when we remember the language of St. Paul respecting "Christ our Passover" ( 1 Corinthians 5:7 ). The faith of the people of Israel and their sacrament were looking forward to this Passover, as our faith and our sacrament look back to it, and of a truth ever upward! The suggestions that St. Paul awakes within us by the fulness of the last-quoted verse, as well as the time and all the circumstance of the death of Christ, compel us indeed to see in the entire features and services of the completed Passover the type of our One sacrifice and our second sacrament! The peace offering, the thank offering, the solemn dedication of ourselves, as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," the unbroken "unity of the body " ( Exodus 12:46 ; John 19:36 ), the "keeping of the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth," and all the sacred, unbounded eucharistic enjoyments of that feast,—in a word, the need of deliverance, the Deliverer, and our joyful acknowledgment of the same, are all outlined for us in the Hebrew's Passover, and according to the measure of his faith and illumination were once all outlined for him, even in Hezekiah's time and celebration.