Scripture Daily

Context No. 1114 of 4322 · 2 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

2 Maccabees 3:14-21: in context

14So having appointed a day, he entered in to direct the inquiry concerning these matters; and there was no small distress throughout the whole city. 15The priests, prostrating themselves before the altar in their priestly garments, and called toward heaven upon him who gave the law concerning deposits, that he should preserve these treasures safe for those who had deposited them. 16Whoever saw the appearance of the high priest was wounded in mind; for his countenance and the change of his color betrayed the distress of his soul. 17For a terror and a shuddering of the body had come over the man, by which the pain that was in his heart was plainly shown to those who looked at him. 18Those who were in the houses rushed out in crowds to make a universal supplication, because the place was about to come into dishonor. 19The women, girded with sackcloth under their breasts, thronged the streets. The virgins who were kept indoors ran together, some to the gates, others to the walls, and some looked out through the windows. 20All, stretching out their hands toward heaven, made their solemn supplication. 21Then it was pitiful to see the multitude prostrating themselves all mixed together, and the anxiety of the high priest in his great distress.

Heliodorus, the king's agent, has come to Jerusalem to seize the temple treasury, and on the appointed day he moves to carry it out. The whole city is thrown into distress. The priests prostrate themselves before the altar in their vestments, crying to God, who gave the law about deposits, to keep the entrusted treasures safe. The high priest's face is so drained and stricken that anyone who saw it was wounded at heart. People pour out of their houses to make common supplication; women in sackcloth throng the streets; secluded young women run to the gates and walls, and all of them stretch out their hands to heaven, pleading.

The scene is one of a whole community driven to prayer by a common threat. When the temple was in danger, no one stayed home indifferent; priests, elders, ordinary people, women, even the young women normally kept indoors, everyone poured out and lifted their hands to heaven together. The crisis stripped away the usual separations and united the entire city in a single desperate cry to God. There is something to learn from that picture of corporate, urgent prayer. We are often prayerful in private and about our own concerns, but here a shared danger produces a shared plea, the whole people of God crying out with one voice for something they all held sacred. And the striking detail is the high priest's stricken face, so visibly anguished that others were wounded just to see it; his distress was not hidden behind a composed religious mask but written openly on him, and it drew the whole city into the prayer. Sometimes God moves a community to pray as one only when something they all treasure is under threat, and the honest, visible anguish of its leaders draws everyone to their knees together.

Does a threat to what I hold sacred drive me to urgent, honest prayer, and am I willing to join my cry with the whole community's rather than praying only in private for my own concerns?

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