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Happy Thanksgiving Eve my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Normally today would be one of the busiest travel days of the year and most families would be in preparation mode for one of the most important friends & family reunion days of the year… tomorrow, Thanksgiving day. But this is COVID Thanksgiving year, and it will be very different for many, many people… how about you? Other than delicious food, Thanksgiving is known for drawing us to reflection about our families, our heritage, our family legacies, right? Picture books, family stories, gathering around the table, family traditions… and lots of Giving THANKS! Despite COVID, I hope all of us find lots of time to thank God, for . . . we all have so much to thank Him for, don’t we, so what’s at the top of your THANKFUL list?
Thanksgiving provides parents and grandparents good reason to gather the family and explain WHY… why their family is who they are / why they cherish certain family values / why they live where they live / why understanding family heritage and roots is so important.
While it may not have been exactly like our modern day “Thanksgiving”, let’s join a very similar gathering held about 2700 years ago in Jerusalem. The gathering that day changed history for that great city and generations of people who honor that special event. It’s recorded for us in 2 Chronicles 29:1-11. At age 25 Hezekiah has just become king of Judah in Jerusalem. From the time of his youth, he had lived in what I call the ‘Shame Shadow’ of his father wicked king Ahaz!
You’ll recall Ahaz had set about to undo all the good of his father king Jotham and grandfather king Uzziah. A few verses summarize the darkness and dysfunction of the 16 year reign of king Ahaz. (2 Chronicles 28:19-27).
Sadly, in our world today there are millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people who live in the ‘Shame Shadow’ of their parents or grandparents. Every person grows up in the ‘shadow’ of their family. We all carry with us the reputation of our family, whether good or bad.
Sadly, we humans live too often in the world of ‘assume’. We assume many things about the character of someone based on what we’ve heard or observed about their family, right? The “Shame Shadow” is where kids live when one or both parents or siblings are alcoholics, or drug addicts, or addicted to gambling or lying or stealing or cheating or bullying or other shameful behavior. Millions of kids live in the “Shame Shadow” of a single parent home because the other parent is in prison or has abandoned the family. Millions of kids are foster kids because their parents are simply so dysfunctional they can’t care for their own children.
May I ask a difficult but important question: have you or someone you love lived in the family ‘Shame Shadow’? How did it affect you or them? The “Shame Shadow” is where Hezekiah grew up as his father king Ahaz did almost everything wrong for his family and the people of Jerusalem when he was king. But here’s an important life truth: No one need live in the “Shame Shadow” one day longer than they want. Anyone can leave the ‘shame shadow’ and start a new personal and even family legacy at ANYTIME, with God’s help!
Come, join me as we watch newly appointed Hezekiah step OUT from his ‘shame shadow’ and begin leading the people of Jerusalem to leave their ‘shame shadows’ and start a new legacy. The record of that special day 2700 years ago is found in 2 Chronicles 29:3 “In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened the doors of the temple of the LORD and repaired them. He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side of the temple and said: ‘Listen to me Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the Temple of the LORD God. Remove all the defilement… Our fathers were unfaithful: they did evil in the eyes of the LORD and forsook Him. They turned their faces away from the LORD’s temple and turned their backs on Him. They shut the doors of the temple and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel.”
Do you see something very significant happening here? The new leader is being very honest with the people about the reality of their shared ‘shame shadow’! They all knew what Ahaz and those who shared in his leadership team had done. It would have been politically correct to simply not talk about it and move on, but here’s another very important life and leadership principle: moving out from under the ‘shame shadow’ requires honesty about what caused the ‘shame shadow’! Look closely at your family heritage. Are there some shameful things that have cast a ‘shame shadow’ in your family but as you gather for your family Thanksgiving, is there an unwritten expectation that no one will talk about those shameful things? That is dangerous. Millions of families live with a ‘shame shadow’ that everyone avoids, yet they all carry the wounds of that shadow. Have you discovered this truth: family wounds don’t heal by ignoring them or pretending the wounds don’t exist!
Courageous Hezekiah knew the only and best way to leave the ‘shame shadow’ behind for himself, and all the people of Jerusalem, was to acknowledge the painful reality of what caused it. His own father, king Ahaz, and those who had followed his terrible leadership, had caused the ‘shame shadow’ for the people of the nation of Judah for almost 20 years, but on this day, only 30 days into his leadership era, young king Hezekiah was taking action to destroy the ‘shame shadow’!
Notice Hezekiah also did not minimize the damage of the ‘shame shadow‘. Listen to what he said next on that historic day: “Therefore the anger of the LORD has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; He has made them an object of horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity.” (2 Chron. 29:8,9) Hezekiah is showing remarkable courageous leadership by both acknowledging the cause of the ‘shame shadow’ and the drastic, horrific effects on the people, their society and their city.
Now look around where you live in our world. What has contributed to the level of crime in your city, or the homeless population, or number of high school drop outs, or level of alcoholism or drug addiction or the number of divorces or children born to unwed women? Why do churches or businesses close in your town? How would you describe the spiritual condition of your town? Is it possible God has removed His hand of blessing from your city? Is it possible He no longer protects your city from all the ravages of the dark kingdom? On this Thanksgiving Eve can we honestly look at the society in which we each live, through the lenses of what king Hezekiah said that historic day? And if you do that, what do you see?
Finally, look at one more thing that happened that day in Jerusalem. King Hezekiah said: “Now I intend to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, so that His fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the LORD has chosen you to stand before Him and serve Him, to minister before Him and to burn incense. Then the Levites set to work…” (2 Chron. 29:10) What do you notice in this, my friends?
For almost a full year we’ve been daily lambasted with political rhetoric flowing out to the world from America. Political leaders have blamed and accused and condemned each other. Finally the voters flocked to the poles or mailed in their ballots, but the accusations, the political rhetoric continues, now three weeks after the election! Can you see the contrast with what Hezekiah was doing in leading the people out of the ‘shame shadow’? Do you see Hezekiah’s focused intention on charting a new course for himself and his family, and all the people touched by his leadership? Do you see how Hezekiah rallied the respected spiritual leaders, the Levites, to join him? Do you see it’s far more than rhetoric… they got to work cleaning up the mess left by the ‘shame shadow’ in their city!
If you’d like to be inspired, read through the rest of this chapter of 2 Chronicles 29. It is a blueprint for escaping the ‘shame shadow’ and establishing a new, God honoring, personal and family legacy. Can you envision how this blueprint could be applied in our day, in your culture, to any setting of people… a family, a church, a business, a school, a community even a whole nation?
And finally there is this summary statement: “So the service of the Temple of the LORD was reestablished. Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for His people, because it was accomplished so quickly.” (2 Chron. 29:36)The “Shame Shadow” of Jerusalem had been dissipated, replaced by a new, glorious, God honoring, era in which everyone would flourish as a people of God!
The next years, as we will see over the next few days, were simply amazing in Jerusalem. The glory years of peace, prosperity, and the great joy of living, had returned to the people of Judah! All because one man was honest and courageous enough to take a stand and leave behind the ‘shame shadow’! How might our world change as millions of people chose to do the same this Thanksgiving weekend? What about you, or your family?
Lord God, I’m asking that You would move mightily, powerfully, in the lives of those who are living or have lived in a ‘shame shadow’ and want to be free. Give them guidance and power please…
Click to read today’s chapter: 2 Chronicles 29. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
NEW FEATURE: Click here to listen to a dramatized reading of 2 Chronicles 29.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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