Utumishi Blog

The theme of 2 Chronicles is ‘Christmas hangs by a thread’. The promise of a great forever king from David’s line (1 Chron. 17:11-14) is under serious threat. Ahaziah is on the throne and all his brothers have already been killed (v1). We’re down to one man. More bad news: He’s a evil king like his father (ch. 21) and an unwise king like his grandfather (v5 cf. ch. 18). God is sovereign over his hospital visit to Joram (v6-7) so that he intersects with Jehu (a.k.a. the Terminator) as he blazes through Israel destroying everyone in his way (v8-9). Jehu terminates Ahaziah and then the evil queen mother Athaliah – a forerunner for Herod the Great – seeks to terminate ‘all the royal family of the house of Judah’ (v10). From house to house and from room to room her hitmen go. Blood. Screams. Massacre. If she finishes the job there will be no Christmas. No chance of a king from David’s line. No Joseph, no manger, shepherds or wise men. And she gets very close. One baby away. ‘But…’ (v11). Jehosheba becomes (as Ralph Davis calls her) ‘the lady who saved Christmas’ as she smuggles one of the royal sons away and hides him in a broom cupboard.

We could spend time learning from Jehosheba (God has his servants in the right place at the right time; God uses women at strategic points in salvation history; she is a woman of faith and courage; she married well). But what about the Christmas that is saved? Let’s just look at the Christ child at the end of the chapter. Can you see three things as you look at him?

• Humanness – ‘Joash the son of Ahaziah’ (v11) He’s of the Davidic line and he’s also of the Adamic line. He goes back to 1 Chronicles 1:1: ‘Adam’. Ever since Genesis 3:15 we’ve been looking for one born of woman to crush the serpent – not a superhero from the planet Krypton but a man like us. At Christmas we are given a fully human Christ, born of woman, the second Adam. In the early Church the most common heresy was not denying Christ’s deity but his humanity. Very easily people slipped into thinking of Jesus as superhero who floated two inches above the ground, who never really fully became flesh like us but just seemed to. Today, too, in our context we can easily slip into thinking of Jesus as a mighty spirit, just another name for God (e.g. praying ‘Father Lord Jesus’), and forget his humanness, forget that he was (and still is right now) just as flesh-and-blood as the person sitting next to you. Baby Joash (and baby Jesus) got thirsty, tired, hungry, had to have their nappies changed, got coughs and colds and fevers. Do we believe that? For some religions it would be blasphemy to talk about God like that but we glory in a God who really did fully take on our flesh, who fully and irrevocably connected himself to us.
• Helplessness – ‘Jehosheba… stole him away… and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom… so that Athaliah did not put him to death’ (v11). The Christ child is completely defenceless. He can’t fight, he can’t even run. He has to be picked up carried out of harm’s way. It he hadn’t been he would have died like all his brothers. There is huge vulnerability here. And he’s put with his nurse – why? – presumably because he is still breast-feeding, still needing nappies changed, still completely dependent. Unable to do anything, even feed and dress himself. I think our tendency (certainly mine in the past) has been to tell people – “But remember, Jesus isn’t a baby anymore – he’s the risen conquering king, mighty God, sitting on the throne of heaven.” We fear that non-Christians will see the baby in the manger at Christmas and go away thinking that Christianity is sweet and sentimental and irrelevant after 26 December – what is needed is a strong God who controls the universe and demands obedience. But now I’m changing my mind. Don’t most people already have a view of God as big and strong and mighty, in control and demanding obedience? Don’t they need to see the radical God of the manger? The God who would willingly be small and weak and helpless? That’s where you find the gospel – that’s where you find the distinctively Christian God isn’t it – the God who be naked, weak and helpless (on a Cross) for us.

• Hidden-ness – ‘Jehosheba… hid him from Athaliah… And he remained… for six years, hidden… while Athaliah reigned over the land’ (v11-12). The Christ lives. The David line has not been cut off. There is still a Christmas. But only a handful of people know it. Most of Israel assumes that it’s all over – no more Davidic kings, no hope, just keep your head down and get used to living in a dictatorship. The Christ is hidden. A few hundred years later another Christ is hidden away in Egypt from a latter day Athaliah. Then he spends most of his life hidden from history in the carpenter’s shop. Even when he launches his public ministry he is keen to keep his identity as Christ secret and is frequently hiding himself away from public view. He even rejoices that he is hidden from the wise and revealed only by the Father to children. Finally his glory is fully revealed on the Cross, though no-one recognises it as such at the time. Then he ascends and is hidden away in heaven till the day when – like Joash (2 Chron. 23) – he will suddenly appear in the temple (Malachi 3:1). Beware of showy, flashy, visible, tangible Christs/Christianities. We are still in the days of the hidden Christ who is seen only as we look into the craddle of the Scriptures and see Him lying there.