Like everyone else I enjoy getting gifts from friends and family. But I've realised over the past few years that I actually enjoy giving gifts even more. Partly that's because I have so much, I often don't need the things I'm given. We're downsizing at the moment in preparation for moving house, so I need even less things. But it's actually more than that. It's that I enjoy seeing the looks of pleasure on the other person's face when I get it right and give them something they really like. 

Is that something you experience? Do you enjoy giving gifts as much as you enjoy receiving them? I wonder, does it depend on the occasion or the recipient? It's always fun to give gifts to our grandchildren and see the look of delight on their faces. When someone receives some honour you might give them a gift as part of your joining in their joy. Or sometimes it's the other way around. When our son, Paul, was finally awarded his PhD he gave the framed certificate to Di as a gift because he knew it'd brought her joy to know he'd finally got there.

In our two passages today we read of people who give with great joy, one group to the Temple in Jerusalem and to those who look after it and the other to fellow Christians who are in financial difficulty because of their faith, again, in Jerusalem.

 In the passage from 2 Chronicles the situation is this. Solomon's Temple that we heard about last week, where David launched his Mega Temple Building Appeal to allow it to be built, has now fallen into disrepair. The regular sacrifices have been forgotten, or overlooked, because of poor leadership from above, because of kings who ignored God and worshipped idols. In fact the whole nation has turned away from worship of the LORD, of Yahweh, to the worship of pagan gods, of Baal and Asherah. But now Hezekiah has become king and he's begun to reform the nation. He gets the Levites together and consecrates them as priests. They proceed to purify the temple and reconsecrate it to the LORD. they
Hezekiah sends messages to all of Judah and Israel, to Manasseh and Ephraim; that is to the far-flung outposts of the nation, inviting them to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

It's interesting that the response to this invitation is overwhelming. People flock to Jerusalem. They're excited! It seems their worship of pagan Gods was really the result of the influence of the king, not their own inclination. They've just been waiting for a good king to come along and take them back to their origins.

This is often the way, isn't it, even today? Leaders can wield great influence over their followers for either good or evil. That's why it's so important to choose the right person to lead your parish when a vacancy arises. (those who have ears...)

So Hezekiah calls them together to celebrate the Passover. This involves a seven day celebration of the festival of unleavened bread, which they carry out with great rejoicing. But did you notice? When the seven days are over they decide to celebrate for another seven days. That gives us an idea of the joy that was overflowing in the city that fortnight, doesn't it?

Of course for that sort of festival with that many people, there was one drawback. It meant a huge amount of food was required. So where did it come from?

Well, the principle we saw last week with the gifts for the Temple applied here as well. Hezekiah, as king provides a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep and goats. The other leaders of the nations, simply described as the officials, provided another thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats. So it was some party!

Then when it was finished they all went out into the countryside and began destroying the pagan sacred sites and the Asherah poles.

Then it was back to normal life '? with one exception. Now that the Temple was restored, it needed to be provided for. The Levites who were busy looking after the worship in the Temple needed to eat. The animals for the sacrifices needed to be provided. So how was this to happen? There's a parallel with our world here, isn't there? If everyone's busy earning a living, who's going to do the ministry of the Church? If there are few volunteers available then you need to free someone up to do it for you don't you? Or in our case you need to free up several people by providing them with the wherewithal to live. So you need to raise money.

So, what do we read? '4He [Hezekiah] commanded the people who lived in Jerusalem to give the portion due to the priests and the Levites, so that they might devote themselves to the law of the LORD.'