Zechariah 12-13

Zechariah 12-13

Sometimes they strew his way,And his sweet praises sing;Resounding all the dayHosannas to their King.Then 'Crucify!Is all their breath,And for his deathThey thirst and cry.

These very sobering words come from Samuel Crossman's beautiful hymn 'My song is love unknown'; I can remember when I first encountered this hymn at an evening church service about 12 years ago, and it's remained my favourite ever since. And it was this verse in particular that left me feeling quite choked, as it not only conjured up dramatic images of the events leading up to that first Easter, with the crowds lining the streets to welcome their King Jesus into Jerusalem, before, days later, demanding his crucifixion, but it also forced me to consider my own culpability: what might I have done? Surely I'd have recognized the Son of God, and been appalled by the crowds. What if I'd been questioned, as Peter was, about my association with Jesus? And more importantly, what about now, when the nations still cry, with increasing animosity, for his death, and banishment from all areas of life beyond the confines of private devotion—do I let my Hosannas resound, or am I often just as guilty of hammering in those nails? What about you?

Our passage tonight, from Zechariah, writing about 500 years before Jesus was born, helps to put us in the frame, and realise just how astonishing and groundbreaking that first Easter really was, and what Jesus' death and resurrection mean for us. I do apologise for having picked a rather difficult part of the Bible, full of language and imagery which is hard to understand, but I hope you'll bear with me, as I mean to focus on just two primary images from chapters 12 and 13, about which more in a moment. But first, look down at those chapters, and notice that phrase which is repeated again and again: 'On that day'.

On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations.On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness.On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile.On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem.On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be…great.On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David.On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land.On that day every prophet will be ashamed of their prophetic vision".

Can you imagine if you had been listening to Zechariah as he spoke these words from God? What day? When is this going to happen? Next week? Next year? Earlier in his prophecy, Zechariah proclaims the word of the Lord, who says 'I will remove the sin of this land in a single day' (Chapter 3, verse 9). It's an extraordinary promise from God to a people who would have known all too well about their sin, and all the many rituals and acts of cleansing they had to go through in order to be friends with the Almighty. But God's going to remove our sin in a single day? When will this be? Now, we mustn't skew what Zechariah is doing here: he's not simply referring to a specific day, or 24-hour period; he's referring to a bright new day—a new beginning in God's relationship with his people. And, of course, the dawning of that bright new day came when God himself stepped into worldly time and space in the form of Jesus Christ, to go through those pivotal moments surrounding that first Easter weekend when, yes, in a single day, our sins were indeed removed and laid on Jesus. That event was part of God's wonderful fulfilment of his promise to Zechariah, as we can now see.

They called 9/11 the 'day that changed the world'—commentators claimed that the world would never be the same again, and they were right; it sent shockwaves into subsequent history that are still chillingly palpable today. And there have been other such days that have set off ripples and consequences that have meant the world would never be the same again afterwards. But what about an event that could send shockwaves out to those who lived before it had happened? That's in a completely different league to 9/11. It serves to highlight just how important this day is: by predicting the life, death and resurrection of Jesus 500 years before it happened (and of course, this goes alongside many other Old Testament prophecies pointing to Jesus), God wants to ensure this Red Letter Day is an enormous headline in human history, for everyone to see. Can I say, if you're here tonight as someone who is not yet a believer, and still asking questions, please do give time to thinking through Jesus' death and resurrection, because nothing could be more important, as we shall see now as we look at what God tells us about them.

So, to the two images—two snapshots—of Zechariah's prophecy on which I want to focus. The first is this:

A flood of tears

God, in his words, tells Zechariah that there will be great mourning in Jerusalem. Look down at Chapter 12, verse 10 (God himself is speaking):

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

It's hard to imagine a more painful experience than that of a parent burying their own child and weeping for them, in a tragic reversal of the usual pattern of children burying their parents, but that's the comparison given here, so a flood of tears is hardly an exaggeration. Also referred to here, in the rather puzzling verse 11, is the death of the beloved King Josiah, killed near Hadad Rimmon about a hundred years earlier than Zechariah is writing (so not quite in living memory, but probably a well-known event to the Israelites)—this was a national calamity (think of the day Princess Diana died and you might get an idea) because he was such a good king, and the nation was grief-stricken. Such will be the grief of Jerusalem on that day. But what adds even greater poignancy to the death that they are lamenting is that God says they will be responsible for that death—look down at verse 10: 'They will look on me, the one they have pierced.' And who is the 'me' in that sentence, well quite amazingly, it's God himself speaking. God himself should be pierced at the hands of those whom he made and loved. No wonder they should weep so bitterly for their own terrible actions—and God makes it quite clear that they are all responsible; that all of Israel should face up to their own guilt in what's happened, every one of them:

The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives, the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives, and all the rest of the clans and their wives.

And so it was that early Christians understood what had happened to Jesus to be the fulfillment of this prophecy: the man who was miraculously born of a Virgin, who led a blameless life, who performed miracles and said and did things that only God could say and do—the Son of God himself—was pierced by those six inch nails in his hands, and the spear in his side. And as Samuel Crossman's hymn reminds us, if we'd been there, we'd have called 'Crucify' with the crowds, and we'd have driven in the nails, in an effort to rid him from our lives.

But it doesn't end there, and indeed the weeping was not, and is not, sparked by the very action of smashing Jesus to that cross and brutally rejecting him. No, the prophecy says that 'they will look on him, the one they have pierced', and on the third day, Jesus was gloriously, wondrously and miraculously raised and seen, and they had to look on the very wounds they had inflicted on a man they could not dispose of. And it's the resurrection that brings about the spirit of grace and supplication, promised by God there at the start of verse 10. Because he lives, and was seen and witnessed by many hundreds, with compelling evidence; and because after he ascended in to heaven, he poured out his spirit to be with us, we can believe that he truly was God, and truly died for our sake, and we can cry in supplication to God for mercy, weeping bitterly for the sins we have committed, and the way we have shut him out of our lives and gone our own way, and he lovingly and freely gives us his abundant and sufficient grace.

The shockwaves sent back to Zechariah's time were to be a great encouragement to the people to trust in their awesome and loving God who cares for them, and who would save them through Jesus. The shockwaves to us two thousand years later are just the same, and just as vital. But Zechariah's prophecy is apocalyptic—not just referring to Jesus' first coming, but also to his second coming, hence the 'day' not simply being that first Easter Day. And so the message to us today, with the wonderful gift of the New Testament at our fingertips, and Christ's spirit with us, is to mourn for our sins now—because how much better to look on him, the one we've pierced, now, and mourn for having wasted part of our lives rejecting him, than it will be to see him later on at a time that no one can predict. For make no mistake, he is alive, and we will all—every single one of us—look on him when he comes again. Revelation Chapter 1, verse 7 says:

Look, he is coming with the clouds,and "every eye will see him,even those who pierced him.

And on that day, the weeping will be unrelieved, it will be too late, and people will say 'if only I'd taken Jesus Christ seriously earlier on'. We've already seen the dawning of the new day fulfilled in Christ's death and resurrection, so we should trust fully that Jesus' own promise of his second coming will also be fulfilled.

Soon it will be too late, but now it is such good news, because after the flood of tears for our sins, comes our second image, and it's this:

A Fountain of cleansing

Look at Chapter 3 verse 1:

On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.

The problem with the relationship between us and God is that he is holy, meaning he is completely clean and undefiled, and nothing defiled and unclean can touch him or be with him. And that's why, in Old Testament times, God's people had constantly to go through a complicated process of ritual washing, day after day, week after week, to make them clean and able to be friends with the holy God, because people are inherently sinful, which makes them unclean. And after their ritual cleansing, it wouldn't be long before they transgressed again. We all go on sinning—it's in our nature and we can't help ourselves. And that makes this promise from God so brilliant: this idea of a fountain which cleanses us of all sin and impurity, the clear implication being that we would be able to have a relationship with our Father in heaven, the living God, the creator of the universe. That is truly exciting. But the price has to be paid—God is a God of justice, and sin cannot go unpunished, and in the same way that the Old Testament cleansing rituals would often involve a sacrifice of blood, so too must the sins of the world be paid for with blood. That's why, at a stroke, in a single day, when God himself as a man, was killed, and his blood shed at the hands of those whom he would save—you and me—the sins of the world were paid for in full: 'it is finished' he cried, meaning the debt is paid in full. It was as if, when Jesus was hanging there on the cross, his arms were like a funnel, into which the moral dustbins of the world were emptied—every single sin and wrongdoing, every evil thought, every lie, absolutely anything that would separate us from God—was poured out on Jesus, and consequently the blood that he shed for us was poured out as a cleansing fountain on us, and we are completely clean and undefiled because of him. There is no greater news.

And what is more, our passage goes on to say, having done this work for us, God will continue to work in our lives to bring about change and godly living. In verse 2 of chapter 3, God talks about banishing the idols from the land, and the prophets and the spirit of impurity. So God knows that we will continue to sin—the fountain of cleansing, though making us holy in God's eyes again, does not mean that sin is no more—that will only be fulfilled on that day when Christ returns to Earth. But God does promise something of a clean-up act, by being committed to bringing the influence of false prophets—false teachers—to an end. Let me explain: Israel was dogged by false prophets at the time Zechariah was writing: people who were teaching and promoting ungodly practices, or worshiping other gods, and causing people to go astray from the one True God. And this is still so painfully true of the world today; they're everywhere, if you think about it. And the link between false prophets and false living—the idolatry, and spirit of impurity—is made apparent in these verses. The two form something of a vicious circle: teaching that goes against the truth of God's word in the Bible will inevitably lead to living that goes against God's word, which in turn leads to more false teaching. It's a degenerative spiral.

So the warning, here, is to trust and obey God's word; trust and obey God's word, however hard this can be sometimes, and however persuasive the false prophets of our time may be. And since Jesus is alive, and his spirit dwells within us, he is committed to helping us and removing this spirit of impurity. If he wasn't raised, his death was merely an accident: 'If Christ had not been raised, our faith is useless' St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. But make no mistake, Jesus is alive, and he is coming again soon, and in the meantime, he will make good on these promises.

The message, therefore, this Easter is to change course in our lives, and to fix our attention on Jesus, on his death, his resurrection, and his promised imminent return. I want to leave you with a transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. The conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10th October, 1995:

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a Collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

When you're in a ship, the lighthouse or land is a stubborn fact that must be taken into account. We can't just plough on as if it isn't there. And this new day, which dawned with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, all for your sake and mine, is an immovable fact that we cannot ignore. We cannot ignore it because he is alive, and he calls on us to change course and trust in his saving grace, before we all meet him face to face. How much better to do this now with a flood of tears for your sin, and a fountain of cleansing to wish it away forever.