Abijah and Asa

2 Chronicles 13-16

            Abijah also gets a much more favorable review than he gets in Kings. Just before battle with Israel, he makes a moving speech about faithfulness to the Lord. It’s rather unexpected from a king about 1 Kings 15:3 says, “He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been.” About that, the Chronicler has nothing to say.

            On the other hand, the Chronicler must have known about Abijah’s idolatry, because he reports that Abijah’s son, Asa, had to remove the altars to Baal and the high places. Asa is portrayed as a faithful king until his old age. For whatever reason, Asa’s nerve failed him in the 36^th year of his reign and he made an alliance with a foreign power. The Lord’s prophet confronted Asa, and Asa was angry.

            It was a fairly minor stumble, but it did make me think that a lot of these kings seemed to stumble or fall into idolatry later in their reigns. We usually think of people as sowing their wild oats in their youth and growing into maturity and faithfulness in older age. Sometimes I wonder if the pressures of the world around them just got too great for them. Then that makes me worry. I’m getting older, and, to be honest, I’m not sure faith is getting any easier. Young or old, it’s important to attend to Word and Sacrament so that faith may flourish all life long.