Sunday Bible Study: Josiah, and the idea of a spiritual spring cleaning

March 17, 2019April 4, 2020 Travis Mewhirter

As a part of my New Years Resolution, I’m reading The Bible this year. And, each Sunday, I’m reflecting on what I’ve read, which often coincides — funny how The Bible works like that — with something happening in my life. This isn’t meant to proselytize or to thump The Bible. Writing just helps me understand what I’ve read, so that’s what I’m doing.

The first day of spring, I believe, is on Wednesday. At least, that’s what my calendar says. I don’t know if we still do Groundhog Day or not, where a shadow will inform us whether winter will continue for another few weeks or if spring will come early.

Kind of beside the point, anyway. The point, really, is this: The weather is changing. Spring is alas upon us, whether a groundhog declares it so or not. And thus a lot of people will begin mentioning the term “spring cleaning”, the annual ritual of opening the windows, airing the house, cleaning out everything that accumulated over winter, starting a season fresh.

It’s an apt metaphor for what I read this morning, in Second Kings, the majority of which is, metaphorically, quite cold when it comes to the faith of the men and women throughout the book. If you haven’t read it, I’ll save you some time and give you a quick summary: One king turns away from God, worships other gods, does evil in the eyes of the Lord; God gets ticked and things go wrong. Repeat the cycle. Occasionally, there’s a half-decent king in there who attempts to bring things back but it’s short-lived, and then another king reverses the goodwill done by his predecessor. Imagine the Lannisters in Game of Thrones – when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.

Such is Second Kings.

But then, in Chapter 22, just three chapters left in the book, there comes an 8-year-old named Josiah. He had been preceded by the likes of two awful men named Manasseh and Amon, who, to quote Chapter 21, “did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also elected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshipped them. He built altars in the temple of the Lord…He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger.”

So when Josiah takes over, at the precocious age of 8, he goes about a spring cleaning of sorts.

In Chapter 23 it states, “The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord – to follow the Lord and keep His commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the Lord.”

Everything that Manasseh had erected – the shrines, the altars, idols to false gods – he tore down. He cleaned out everything that wasn’t for God, making room, both metaphorically and literally speaking, for God.

What I love about that story is this: We do not have to go to such extreme measures as Josiah. We do not have to win the hearts of a nation, sway them from the gods and idols our fathers had them believe and buy into something else, and then tear down altars and shrines and build them back up to what is correct in the eyes of God.

We don’t have to renovate an entire country.

We can do a spiritual spring cleaning, so to speak, on our own. We can read the Bible. We can go to church. We can gather with a friend or two or three and do a little Bible study. We can journal and reflect. We can take a walk, meditate, give our minds and souls space to breathe, so we can see where and how we can make room for God.

There’s an image in the Book of Mormon — I read the Book of Mormon last year, so a lot of parallels I make between faiths will be with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — that I actually love. It’s written early in the book, in First Nephi, and the protagonist, Nephi, receives a vision in which “I also beheld a straight and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood; and it also led by the head of the fountain, unto a large and spacious field, as if it had been a world.”

The rod of iron, in this case, is the word of God, and the tree the tree of life. The point is this: We’re never far from the rod, or God. No matter how far we stray, no matter – to continue the metaphor – how dirty our lives have gotten and how badly our souls need that spring cleaning, it’s right there. Easy to find.

Josiah’s spring cleaning was difficult in a physical sense. I have lots of friends and family who are reluctant to turn to God for totally justifiable reasons. For us, our challenge is more mental and spiritual than it was physical for Josiah.

But that doesn’t mean it’s far. It’s the simple opening of a book. Asking a question. Praying. Doesn’t matter if you’ve missed church for 20 days or 20 years. God – or the iron rod, if you like the image – is just an arm’s length away. Less than that, even.

It took Josiah years for his work to be finished.

Our spring cleaning can be done in a second.