Hezekiah falls ill. Isaiah shows up and like all good friends predicts Hezekiah's demise. Talk about needing a lesson in bedside manners! "Hi Hezekiah, you look awful! I guess this is the end." Gee whiz, with friends like that, who needs Babylon breathing down your neck threatening to over throw your kingdom. Hezekiah turned away from the gloom and doom of Isaiah (I dare say I would do the same), offered a prayer to God, and wept bitterly. God heard the prayer, saw Hezekiah's honest grief, and changed God's mind.
Did you catch that? God changed God's mind. There is a strand within Christian theology that says everything is pre-planned or predestined/pre-ordained. I don't know what those who hold onto that line of thought do with this passage. It is almost as if Hezekiah's repentance (see last post) caused God to repent/turn around. God changed God's mind within Genesis a number of times. God initially tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit or they will die. Only to just kick them out of the garden after they ate the fruit...a good lesson for all parents about trying to enforce the most extreme punishment. God changed God's mind about the flood when God smelled the sacrifice Noah made, realizing that even a flood would not fully solve the problem with human brokenness.
Of course, it really should not surprise us too much that God can change God's mind. After all, that is what being in a relationship is all about. It is not much of a relationship if you have no impact on the other person and the other person has an impact upon you.
Hezekiah is saved and in the very next chapter he is putting on an open house for the Babylonians. "Come on in fellas! Let me show you around. Here is where I keep the gold. Here is where I keep all my secret plans. Go ahead. I am feeling great since my near-death experience." And somewhere God boinked God's head.
I am sure I have my Hezekiah-moments too. Just when things turn on a dime, go great, and the very next day my decisions act as if yesterday was a million years ago. How frequently we forget, sometimes in the blink of an eye.
Lent asks us to be honest about those places where our relationship with God is on rocky ground. Where are those places where we cry out to God, sense God's presence, only in the next moment to break God's heart? That is not an easy question. But at the heart of Lent is the truth of denial by Peter, betrayal by Judas, and the desertion by everyone else. And yet, God would not allow that brokenness to be the last word. Easter brings a joy that surges and stirs our soul. When that is the promise that awaits us at the end of the 40 days, we can be honest about the rocky ground in our life because the trace of God's grace that rises with the sun on Easter morning truly is good news.
Blessings and peace!
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