If you've been following along as we read through 2 Chronicles you know that Israel and Judah's kings were not always godly, and many times very ungodly. Judah had a better record than Israel, but not by that much. Kings like Ahaz did terrible things, including actually shutting up the Temple, purposefully keeping the people from worshipping Yahweh (2 Chronicles 28:24).The people went along with these bad kings and themselves abandoned God.
So along comes Hezekiah. One of the very first things Hezekiah did when he became king - within the first month - was re-open the Temple. He re-organized the priests, restarted the sacrifices and started up the feasts once again.
One of the feasts reinstated was Passover. I find an interesting verse in chapter 30. It says that "the Levites had to slaughter the Passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to consecrate it to the LORD. For a majority of the people ... had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise than as prescribed. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, "May the good Lord pardon everyone who seeks his heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary's rules of cleanness."
Basically the people had been away from God so long they didn't know or were not used to the prescribed preparations for the Passover - yet the king, and the Lord, wanted them to celebrate anyway.
Do you sometimes feel so far away from the Lord, so dirty in sin, so unprepared to enter His presence that you simply don't? We need to remember that we don't come to God clean, we come to be cleaned. It doesn't matter what you have done, how long it has been, or how strange it might feel. Come before Him and worship. He is a good God and longs to draw close to you and show you His forgiveness and love.
Pastor Tom
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