Let Your Hands Be Strong
Sept 14, 2008 Zech 8:9-17
Intro:
Can you recall a time when you wanted to quit? Throw in the towel, pack up your stuff, and walk away? The situation was hard, you were tired, you felt like you’d had enough, taken enough, worked hard enough, and you were ready to just say, “enough!” I’m finished, I’m done, I’m walking away, it just isn’t worth it anymore.
I’ll tell you about a time like that for me. It was many years ago, before I got married, when I was living with Brian Whittle and we were two young college guys. I was working part-time in ministry here, and had (in addition) taken the job of shoveling the snow here at the church to make a little more money so I could afford to pay Brian my share of the rent and groceries.
It was one of those bitter winter nights. It had been snowing for a couple of days non-stop – that wet, heavy, kind of snow – and was now about a foot deep. If you’ve never noticed, we actually have a lot of sidewalk around this church… (insert snow weight calculation here??)
I remember the biting wind that makes your ears hurt so you have to keep your toque on but then your head gets too hot because of all the physical exertion of moving snow. I remember the weight of the snow on the shovel. I remember a bunch of other things waiting to be done at home. And so I shoveled a thin path, done poorly, and even at that was physically exhausted and fed up. And ready to just say enough! This isn’t worth it!!
Now, Brian my roommate had come with me to help. Yes, out of the goodness of his heart, voluntarily, I don’t even think I asked him, but he also had a shovel and was plowing through some snow at the other end. Isn’t he wonderful? And when I had had enough, I went and got him and said “there. I’m done. It’s good enough, let’s get out of here.” And the volunteer shoveler said to the paid shoveler, “What? There’s no way you could have finished that side already.” And he walked over to the part that I’d done poorly, took a look, and then taught me a very very valuable lesson.
“Steve,” he said, “you are not done.”
“Come on,” I replied, “it’s good enough, let’s get out of here.”
“We’re not leaving.” And since he had driven, I was stuck. Then he said, “you are the guy who is always talking about the pursuit of excellence. And you want to leave this sidewalk looking like that??”
Now I’d never imagined that my desire to pursue excellence applied to shoveling snow. That wasn’t in my dream of pursuing excellence. I only wanted to pursue excellence in the things I liked, and probably that were easy for me. Surely that didn’t apply when something was this hard, right??
Brian didn’t say anything else, he just started shoveling. The parts that I was supposed to be shoveling… and he did it properly. With excellence. Alongside me, side by side, shovel by shovel. When I wanted to quit, he wouldn’t let me.
Background to Zech 8:
It seems our friends the Israelites have come to a similar point. If you’ve been with us over the summer you’ve heard about how they have just returned from more than 50 years in slavery in Babylon, and they came back and everything was destroyed. They started rebuilding, and for the first 18 years or so had concentrated on rebuilding their own homes and farms and industries, and then the time had come for them to come together to start rebuilding some of the common areas of the city, the public parts, most importantly the temple where the people would come to worship God. That project had begun about 2 years ago, with volunteer labor and with funds freely given. And this was done with great sacrifice – to work on the temple meant that people would have to leave their own homes and lives, which were not yet finished or established, leave them vulnerable to enemies, and go for weeks or months to work on the temple in Jerusalem. And after two years of this kind of sacrifice, it seems like there was starting to be some of the “enough…” sentiment. And so our passage today finds God speaking clearly and directly to a people who may very well have been feeling like quitting…
Zech 8:9-17 (NLT)
“9 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Be strong and finish the task! Ever since the laying of the foundation of the Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, you have heard what the prophets have been saying about completing the building. 10 Before the work on the Temple began, there were no jobs and no money to hire people or animals. No traveler was safe from the enemy, for there were enemies on all sides. I had turned everyone against each other.
11 “But now I will not treat the remnant of my people as I treated them before, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 12 For I am planting seeds of peace and prosperity among you. The grapevines will be heavy with fruit. The earth will produce its crops, and the heavens will release the dew. Once more I will cause the remnant in Judah and Israel to inherit these blessings. 13 Among the other nations, Judah and Israel became symbols of a cursed nation. But no longer! Now I will rescue you and make you both a symbol and a source of blessing. So don’t be afraid. Be strong, and get on with rebuilding the Temple!
14 “For this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: I was determined to punish you when your ancestors angered me, and I did not change my mind, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 15 But now I am determined to bless Jerusalem and the people of Judah. So don’t be afraid. 16 But this is what you must do: Tell the truth to each other. Render verdicts in your courts that are just and that lead to peace. 17 Don’t scheme against each other. Stop your love of telling lies that you swear are the truth. I hate all these things, says the Lord.”
“Let Your Hands Be Strong” (vs 9 and 13):
The key image in the passage is translated simply “be strong” in the version we are using. The text actually says, “let your hands be strong”, a little more visual. And the passage gives us a little more context, there were no jobs and no money and no safety. There was uncertainty and fear, which always lead people to a desire to retreat and protect themselves and turn inward and defensive, and which make it really hard to call people to a greater vision and ask them for deep personal sacrifice, especially when they very well might be putting everything they have worked so hard for 18 years to build in jeopardy. One commentator says, “The harsh conditions made even survival challenging. To do anything beyond meeting life’s basic necessities would require sacrifices of time and financial resources reaching almost heroic levels.” (Klien, New American Commentary on Zechariah, p. 240).
Yet the people have been sacrificing, for 2 whole years. I can only imagine how hard that had been, how people had gone without, how they had been attacked by enemies and suffered loss while away working on the temple. And I can understand wanting to quit.
But now comes the voice of God. The Word of the Lord, the God of the angel armies, comes and speaks to His people and says, “Be strong and finish the task!” Or, “let your hands be strong”. It is God saying I know it is hard, I know your hands are tired from lifting boulder after boulder, clearing away rubble, laying stone after stone, rebuilding day after day, sacrificing at “heroic” levels, and wanting to quit, pack it in, go home and give up. I understand. And I’m here to encourage you to finish, to stick with it, to keep at it…
On What Basis? vs 11-15
I imagine the people responding as I might – why should we? This is so hard… why keep at it? So God gives them some reasons, some promises, which I can sum up with these words: strengthen your hands, because everything is different now that I am back.
It typical Old Testament fashion, God says this with some amazing images. “I am planting seeds of peace and prosperity”. Seeds take time to grow and bear fruit, but God has planted them. Peace and prosperity are about to grow. “The grapevines will be heavy with fruit” – grapevines grew on the hills, they take a long time to grow and a lot of care that can be easily destroyed, and God is promising the safety for them to get to that point over time and promising that the labour and care invested in them will be worthwhile. “The earth will produce its crops”, these are the crops grown in the valleys and plains, and between the grapevines on the hills and these crops in the valleys, the message is that everywhere – everywhere! – there will be restoration and prosperity and a return to a land of peace. It may take a little longer, but the promise and vision of God is that it is coming. That is why God says, “So don’t be afraid. Be strong, and get on with rebuilding the Temple!” Because God has decided that everything is different now because God is back… “I was determined to punish you and I did… now I am determined to bless you…”
Getting Practical: vs. 16-17
The last two verses get really practical. God has determined to bless, so what should the people do (in addition to continuing to work on the temple)? “Tell the truth to each other. Render verdicts in your courts that are just and that lead to peace. 17 Don’t scheme against each other. Stop your love of telling lies that you swear are the truth.” Sounds very close to chapter 7, and it is. This isn’t always easy – telling the truth to each other, making decisions that are “just and lead to peace”, not “scheming” about how to get advantage for ourselves. The theme is once again building strong, good relationships with one another where we put each other first. Where we put love first.
So what is here for us?
So that is what Scripture says. Written 2500 years ago to a group of people in a particular place and time, facing a particular issue of rebuilding the temple. We aren’t in a desperate place, trying to rebuild a temple from a pile of rubble. What does it say to us?
I think it has a lot to say to us. Starting with the commands in those last two verses. Those certainly still apply; telling the truth. That is still hard to do today – the truth is often the hardest thing to say, putting us at risk in our relationships or even in our schools or workplaces. It is often much easier to avoid the truth so we don’t put ourselves in a vulnerable place. It is still hard to make decisions that lead to peace. It is still hard to “stop scheming” because we all deep down believe that we’ve got to “look out for ourselves”, grab everything we can, scheme as much as we can so that we can have the most. God tells us not to do these things, because He knows that those things will trample on the “seeds of peace” that He has sown, and they will rob us of the freedom and join that come from living in truth and peace and an absence of trying to manipulate or scheme.
But I think there is another, perhaps more powerful message for us: “Be strong, and finish the task.” It is hard to build a community of people seeking first the Kingdom of God. It is hard to be the kind of church God desires us to be. It is hard because it is filled with people like me, and like you, and sometimes we get upset and frustrated at each other and want to just say “enough!” It is too hard, too much, too uncomfortable. Why not just give up? Put the snow shovel back in the shed, and go home.
It is hard to be the church sometimes because life is just plain hard – for us like it was for the Israelites. Our struggles are of a different nature – most of us are not struggling with basic physical necessities but lots are struggling with basic emotional necessities, like being loved unconditionally in a safe and healthy way, like needing to be needed and significant and important. And we sometimes get to points in our lives where it is hard and we feel like giving up. Now the Word of God comes to us this morning from the book of Zechariah and says, loud and clear, “let your hands be strong”… “stick with it”… “finish the task.”
And what I love about the passage and the Kingdom of God is that it never says “just go and do that on your own”. God, like Brian Whittle, grabs that shovel and gets to work right beside us. He says, “I am determined to bless you”, “I have sown seeds of peace and prosperity”, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”, “I will send you the Holy Spirit”, even if it looks tough, let’s do this together. Be strong, and finish the task.
Conclusion:
I started with a personal story from many years ago, let me finish with a personal one from last Monday. I take Monday off, because after Sunday mornings I feel pretty drained and in need of a “Sabbath”. And last week was our Rally Sunday, kicking off our fall ministries, celebrating what God did over the summer, and with lots of other things going on I got to Monday and was even more drained than usual.
I was walking through the grocery store Monday afternoon, pushing a cart, and I felt this physical wave of tiredness come over me. This is normal, I feel it every week, the official name is “post-adrenal let down” and I know how to respond. I stopped the cart and pretended to look at something on the grocery store shelf, let that wave of tiredness come, and then suddenly knew something else: it was the very presence of God with me. Speaking softly and gently, and saying simply, “I am here… you are not alone… I will give you strength…” It didn’t change the tiredness, didn’t fix everything wrong in my world, didn’t suddenly fill me with energy and exuberance, in fact I had to stop and pretend to look at something several more times. It did something better. It proved to me that God is with me, and I can trust Him for the strength I need to “be strong… and finish the task”.
I know some of you are facing challenges, much bigger than mine. And some of you maybe feel like giving up – on the situation, on the relationship, maybe even on life itself. What I experienced in the Costco aisle on Monday afternoon is no isolated miracle – all I did was listen – and the promise I heard from God is for you also.
The “Lord of the angel armies” speaks, and says “I am here… you are not alone… I will give you strength – I will strengthen your hands – to finish the task.”
