2 Kings: 11 - Easter Vigil 2023 #

Look! the Baalim. See them there across the land, see their pollution of it. See the priests of Baal stoking the fire at the altar of Baal, see the people wailing out to the mute eared Baal, who never was and never will be. Look! see the children took up, dashed against the rocks, look! their bodies passed into the fire and consumed by the flame. Why, oh people, when God yearns for you? Will not the prophet lads lead you to Elisha? For luck, for wealth, for fine foods and jewels and for comfort against your neighbor do you take up your own children, flesh from your flesh, and feed them into the maw of a dead god. How many of the People of God looked on powerless as Baal’s pretend appetite was sated? Were they paralyzed by their smallness against a madness so massive? Who can say but God? And are we so different? God pity us, perhaps we are, perhaps we are not. Were not all of these children of God and did not The Breath rush in and out of them?

Look! Ahaziah of Judah, son of Jehoram kin slayer, does Ahaziah not rot now in the heat of the day and look, oh people, Athaliah, mother of Ahaziah daughter of wicked Ahab, daughter of evil Jezebel, does she not see the tree bloom from between her son’s corpse ribs, bearing its fruit of rule? Ahab had seventy sons and Athaliah slew them, save one. Jehosheba, daughter of wicked Ahab, daughter of evil Jezebel, wife of Priest Jehoiada, took up Joash, Ahaziah’s son, rightful king, a babe, and hid him in the inmost of the temple. Beneath the roof beams of Baal’s house ruin makes its home but in God’s house Joash grew seven years, secured by his kin, the line of David preserved as God had promised. In that seventh year Priest Jehoiada took the commanders of the army and the sentries into the temple and made with them a pact and swore with them a vow, showed them Joash the rightful king. Look! David’s spears are in their hands, these warriors, David’s shields are rested on their thongs. With these killing tools they circle round the boy, keeping the secret that preserves him. But, then, look!, the boy is led from God’s house, the Priest ushering him outward. With oil Joash’s head is anointed, a crown they rest there and with the signs of kingship that were stored in God’s house they make the boy known to the people. “Long live the king!” rings out, from the warriors and is took up by the masses. How uneasy was Ahaziah’s seat! Hear her above the din, crying, “A plot, a plot!” How long were those words dry on her tongue when they killed her in the street? Priest Jehoiada and King Joash made before the people a pact with God to return as the People of God, was this pact uttered while Ahaziah drew in and drew out breath? She, like us, was a beloved Child of God. The People of God threw down Baal’s house, the altars they smashed, the idols — lifeless, unknowing and uncaring— they smashed and Mattan, Priest of Baal, they smashed and threw down also. He, too, was a beloved Child of God.

This is the tale of the Line of David drawn down to its finest point, God’s promise resting on the life of a single child king. And did he not keep his pact with God? And did he not wrongly allow worship of God in the high places and with images? Was he not, like us, a child of God, a child of murder and adultery and idolatry and greed and tenderness and joy and humility and piety? And was not Joash the ancestor of God, that pure Child who sinned not at all and drank the cup of human vice down to its lees, that all might be saved? Look! Was He not, like us, a Child of God?