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2 Chronicles 34:29-33

29 Then the king sent word and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 30 The king went up to the house of the Lord, with all the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites, all the people both great and small; he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. 31 The king stood in his place and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. 32 Then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin pledge themselves to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem acted according to the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors. 33 Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel and made all who were in Israel serve the Lord their God. All his days they did not turn away from following the Lord the God of their ancestors.

American Reformations: The Great Awakening

Somewhere in a small town in the Midwest, three local churches--Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian--worked together to sponsor a community- wide revival. After the revival had concluded, the three pastors met for lunch, and were discussing the results with one another. The Methodist minister said, "The revival worked out great for us. We gained 4 new members, Hallelujah!" The Baptist preacher said, "Amen, brother, but we did better than that. We gained 6 new members, Praise the Lord!" The Presbyterian pastor said, "Well, we did even better than that! Thanks be to God, we finally got rid of our 10 biggest troublemakers!"

Today I’m going to talk about the 18th century revival movement in America known as the Great Awakening. But to get there, first we need to go back in time almost 3,000 years to Ancient Israel, or more specifically the Kingdom of Judah, and to our scripture passage from 2nd Chronicles. The King in today’s scripture passage is Josiah, who was probably the first great reformer in Judeo-Christian tradition. 2nd Chronicles tells how King Josiah discovered an ancient book of the law (probably the book of Deuteronomy) while making repairs to the temple in Jerusalem. He had the book read aloud in the presence of all his citizens, who then made a commitment to honor its commandments all of their days. This revival became a reformation when Josiah restructured the worship of the temple, the laws of the land, and his own royal court according to the newly rediscovered scriptures.

Fast forward about 700 years, and Josiah’s reforms have been so successful they are now the permanent law of the land in Jerusalem and Israel. They are followed strictly to the letter, even though many of the religious and government leaders seem to have forgotten what the laws were for in the first place. Worse yet, they have interpreted the laws with even more laws, so that it’s hard for anyone to be “righteous” in the eyes of God. Into this situation comes a carpenter’s son from Nazareth, who brings the people back to the “spirit” of the law, forgives them for their transgressions, and begins to draw crowds numbering in the thousands. The revival movement of Jesus spreads across the Mediterranean world, and in just a few short centuries becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire, known as Christianity.

Fast forward another 1,000 years plus change, and Christianity has spread all across Europe, but by now it’s just about as legalistic and spiritually dead as Jerusalem had been in the time of Jesus (or Josiah). The Medieval Roman Catholic Church sells indulgences (slips of paper forgiving people in advance for sins they are interested in potentially committing) in order to fund the building of lavish cathedrals and monasteries. The scriptures have effectively been lost again to all but the educated few who can still read Latin. Into this situation come the great 16th century reformers—John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others. They translate the Bible into the languages of the people, and they restructure their communities and their churches according to Biblical principles. Their movement is known (rather appropriately) as “The Reformation” and it spreads like wildfire all across Europe, giving birth to the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment in the process.

And the people of God lived happily ever after. The end. Roll the credits. Go home.

I’m just kidding, please don’t go home yet. But if you’ve been around here in October before—or as we call it, Reformation Heritage Month—you probably know that this is usually where we end the story. Because our church, like all Presbyterian and Reformed churches, is a product of the 16th century Reformation, and we like to think that after that one we finally got the message. No more reforms needed. We figured it all out, and we are no longer in danger of spiritually falling asleep again, or making the same mistakes as those who went before us.

But of course, that isn’t true. Even the 16th century Reformers knew this—that’s why one of their mottoes (and consequently our mottoes) was Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda Secundum Verbum Dei: The church reformed, and always to be reformed according to the Word of God.

So this week, and for the next two weeks, we’re actually going to continue the story, as Reformed, Protestant Christianity came across the Atlantic to America, and continued to be formed and reformed in almost every century, right down to the present time—but always according to the Word of God, and thanks to faithful men and women who answered God’s call.