Are all the walls in your home plumb? Carpenters know the value of a plumb bob and line. After plumb lines came levels with bubbles to show whether a wall or surface was “plumb,” or level. Now there are laser levels. Are the walls of our lives plumb? Do we align with God’s purposes for our lives?
When Isaiah looked at Shebna, the palace administrator, he saw a man who was crooked, and off somehow. Shebna was a “legend in his own mind.” He thought himself so important that he was making big plans to secure his lasting legacy. He would make a name for himself and put it on his beautiful grave on the heights. All who saw his tomb would say, “Now that is living!” But Isaiah prophesied that God would depose Shebna and replace him with Eliakim son of Hilkiah. As a good steward, Hilkiah would be given the key of the house of David to open and shut doors. On his strong shoulders God would build a lasting, living legacy.
Repeatedly, in scripture we see God replacing the proud person with someone humbler. Samuel spoke for God when he replaced Saul with the humble shepherd boy David. In Esther’s time, prideful Haman plotted to kill Mordecai and the Jews but was forced instead to honor Mordecai. God is not mocked. Think of the bold and braggadocios people in our world, who are firmly focused on their own names and legacies. History tells us that those who honor themselves often end up with dishonor in the end. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote about it in his poem Ozymandias. In the desert he remembered a broken statue to Pharaoh Ramesses II, who had thought himself mighty. Instead his frowning statue was broken in two with his head buried in the sand. Only the legs and pedestal of the ostentatious effigy remain. The final stanza reads:
“And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’”
In the line of David, there came a humble servant King named Jesus. Less than a week after he rode in Jerusalem on a donkey, the world mocked him and crucified him, but the Lord turned the tables. In place of Caesar and Pontius Pilate, we see that Jesus uniquely possesses the name above every other name. He holds the keys to the Kingdom of God. When he opens a door, no one can shut it. One day every knee will bow and mocking tongues will have to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. All of history and all of the future rest on his mighty shoulders. All hail King Jesus! He has placed before us, his church a door which no one can shut. Let us walk humbly through that door into the future he has planned for us.
