“And when he prayed, the LORD listened to him and was moved by his request. So the LORD brought Manasseh back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh finally realized that the LORD alone is God.”
If you want to know what God’s grace looks like, look no further than King Manasseh.
Saturday morning, in the quiet darkness of the early hours, with the distant sound of traffic outside my window and Mao Mao, our Bengal cat, curled up in a chair beside me, I was reading with growing perplexity and increasing incredulity how someone, raised by someone so good, could turn out someone so bad.
The someone in question was King Manasseh. If there were a “Most Wanted” poster tacked up in some heavenly post office, Manasseh would be public enemy Number One. This son of Hezekiah (one of God’s greats) was wickedness on steroids. Chronicles provides his list of ignominy.
He rebuilt the pagan shrines his father, Hezekiah, had broken down.
He constructed altars for the images of Baal.
He set up obscene Asherah poles throughout his land.
He sacrificed his own sons (plural) in the fire.
He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft.
He consulted mediums and psychics (hmm, it didn’t go well when Saul tried that)
Manasseh was so wickedly brash that he set up a carved idol in God’s Temple.
Talk about spitting in God’s face.
Well, as Paul reminds us, “God is not mocked.” And when it came to Manasseh, God said, “Enough is enough!”
I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.” 2 Chronicles 33:13-15 NLT
When a foreign king puts a ring through your nose and drags you away, and you can no longer wake up and smell the coffee . . . yeah, that will humble you. It did Manasseh.
Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. 2 Chronicles 33:11-13 NLT
As I was reading this passage, which I have read many a time before, the Lord was opening my eyes afresh to what his grace looks like and what his grace can do. Too often I operate as judge and jury: “That person is too far gone!”, “I hope they get what’s coming to them!” and forget that the same grace that changed Manasseh, changed me.
Manasseh is the Old Testament prodigal son.
Manasseh is the Old Testament flashing neon sign, “Jesus saves!”
Manasseh is God’s reminder that no matter how far you have wandered, He still welcomes you back.
Manasseh is every lost soul’s hope that God’s grace is indeed greater than all our sin.
Manasseh is encouragement for every time we know that we’ve blown it.
Manasseh is holy hope for every parent with a wayward child.
Manasseh is God’s picture of his grace.
Reading the account of Manasseh, the man of wickedness who threw his own sons in the fire to placate some imagined deity, I’m sitting comfortably at my desk, shaking my head: “How can you do that!?”
My injustice awakened this early morning, and with mounting rage, I think,
“A hook in your nose. Serves you right, idiot! Give it to him, God!”
And God does, but ultimately, not the judgement he deserves, but the grace he doesn’t.
Manasseh is my reminder of how God wants me to respond to the idiocy I see — and at times experience. My heart should cry: “Give it to them God! Give them grace! Open their eyes! Awaken their hearts! Turn them around! And show them your favor, that they may know you are Lord! God, you did it for me. Do it for them.”
That’s what grace looks like.