PBS once had an interesting program on fireworks – how they are made, how they work and so on. By way of contrast the newspaper was full of stories about communities and civic agencies canceling their fireworks shows on account of extreme fire hazard and fiscal concerns in a weak economy.
Maybe fireworks had their Independence Day origins when President John Adams, the second president of the U.S., said “Independence Day ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.” But sometimes the fireworks aren’t there. And there’s little to celebrate. But our lesson tells “What to do when the Fireworks Aren’t There.”
One could certainly list the things we aren’t celebrating this time around . . . a political campaign to become more volatile as the November election draws near, the sliding value of the Dollar worldwide, a war that is supposedly quieting down in one country only to be escalating in another and another, rising food and gasoline prices, a stock market slide. Terrible, catastrophic weather – floods, fires, and wind.
The nation of Israel to whom Zechariah is writing were like us in that they had less and less to celebrate. After their exile from Jerusalem to Babylon where they were captive for 70 years, the Jews finally returned to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. But they remained a province of Persia (now Iran) to the distant east and only a buffer zone away from the enemy Egypt. So far from the center of power, yet so close to the enemy, they were in a precarious position. They began to question their identity and faith. Was the God of a defeated nation like theirs a false god? Wasn’t loyalty to such a deity hard to defend? Was it worth the cost to remain Jewish?
But out of these questions came a new answer – the promise of the Messiah, the anointed one, a son of David. Through this promised one, God would be vindicated, and the glory of the nation would be restored. “Rejoice greatly O daughter Zion, Lo your king comes to you, triumphant and glorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey. And he shall command peace to the nations.” This Scripture reading represents a vision of the Messiah -- Hope and Celebration even when the fireworks weren’t there for Israel. Like many other prophecies, the Lord declared the event as though it were occurring as he spoke. The King would triumphantly enter the city to rule a vast empire in peace.
Yes, like the Jews in the time of the prophecy of Zechariah, we might be tempted to wallow in a national funk that drains our faith. The world is too dangerous. The economy is in a sinkhole. Our lives are chaotic and precarious. But this is a time to focus on God. He will save us, despite our troubles. This is the promise Zechariah gave to the people – and the promise God gives us now.
Oh yes, we could make a long list of why there aren’t any fireworks in our lives – why we aren’t celebrating. And yet there is always that glimmer of hope we have in Christ. The Christian life is a joyful life; a thankful life. Like a recent article in Time magazine that listed ten things you can like about $4.00 gasoline – for a few: Globalized jobs return home – it being too expensive to ship everything here. Urban sprawl ends – too far to commute; less traffic, less pollution, less obesity as people take to the streets on bikes and legs. Yes, there is always something good to be had in life, even when the fireworks aren’t there, because we have a good God.
The monk of an incredibly poor monastic order in a mountain wilderness was once asked if he’d ever felt despondent, weary, sorry for himself, odd man out, un-needed. How did he manage. He answered: “I have never found the time to give to self-pity. By the time I have thanked God for all He has given to the world and to me, it is time for me to get up from my knees and go about my business.” Will you also find time and reason to be thankful – to celebrate this time – not just from a patriotic standpoint, but a personal, spiritual one as well?
How? Well, Zechariah calls people who are down on their luck like Israel and us, “prisoners of hope.” Let’s take the first part of that phrase. There’s no denying that we’re prisoners and feel like it. After all, isn’t that what sinners are? Paul describes that kind of prison he felt in today’s second lesson when he says “the good that I would, I do not, and that which I would not, I do. Miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” Yes, sin makes us miserable, sin makes us prisoners in.
Around sunset one very hot summer’s eve 5 years ago when we (in the Army Chaplaincy) were in Iraq, about forty miles north of Baghdad, we saw the military police pull up in the building just next door, about as close as our parish hall is to the sanctuary. Out came two Iraqi Prisoners of War. Their hands were shackled behind them and they had gunny sacks tied over their heads. They were the first guests in this temporary holding place for them before being taken to Abu Ghiraib which wasn’t but a few miles away. During the night, and you were up at night because it was so hot, the M.P.’s had placed their captives in an enclosed, fenced in, back yard of this building. I didn’t see how they could rest, but during the night the enemy P.O.W.’s were laying in a fetal position on the dry lawn trying to sleep. But the headlights of the Humvee were shining on them all night long, for security purposes I assume. In the morning I walked over to the building and wanted to take a quick snapshot for the record, with my throwaway camera. As I got nearer however, I had some second thoughts about doing this and those thoughts were confirmed when an MP held up his hand and in a kind voice told me, it wasn’t permitted, that it was considered “Exploitation.” Exploitation, defined as “The utilization of another person for selfish purposes.”
This defines the prison of sin we sometimes live in and why we can’t always celebrate. Paul writes: “I see another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.” Yes, we are selfish – in big and small ways we exploit one another, especially those whom we love the most. There often develops fireworks of a different kind. Yes, the devil also exploits us and our sin driving us from celebration to despair. How the devil hates joy! How he wants to keep us in spiritual prison.
And where shall we go to find freedom and bring the celebration back in our lives when we have sinned in this way? For sometimes we do indeed lose our freedom, don’t we, when we sin? But, often, to somehow find our way back to celebration, we set up our own do’s and don’ts list as a way of dealing with those personal struggles. We become prisoners of war -- the war Paul is talking about. Luther once wrote “Does a more terrible evil exist than the unrest of a gnawing conscience? Indeed, none can believe what an effort is required again to comfort and raise up a despondent, fearful conscience. But when your conscience is terrified by the law and wrestles with the judgment of God, don’t consult your reason nor the Law, but rest upon grace alone and upon the word of consolation. Then act only as if you had never heard anything whatever about the law of God.”
Yes, this is the strange but delightful freedom under which the Christian lives. The big complaint of the early colonists of our fledgling country under the Revolutionary War was taxation without representation. Taxation was equal to exploitation – utilizing one other for selfish purposes. They went to war over it. Likewise, it is a taxing thing for us trying to find comfort in the law – what we should have done and ought to be doing. There is no freedom in that. Only in the blood stained cross of Christ is there freedom. Hear the words of Zechariah: “Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free; return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.”
Dear Christian, how is it your life is one of limitation rather than celebration? Zechariah reminds us of the hope that is ours. Focus again on the forgiveness of sins won for you by the death and resurrection of Christ. See him in Zechariah’s words as “the one who commands peace to the nations,” and let him bring that peace to your heart. The anguish that Christ experienced for you in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, reveals what the burden of sin that he took upon himself is able to do to a soul. He sweat tears of blood. Yet he bore that burden; he carried the burden of a sin and guilt that were not his own and took responsibility for it. Then he rose again to start the celebration. “I know that my Redeemer liveth!” wrote Job even in his great suffering.
A century ago, for the anxious immigrant arriving in the New York harbor, their first perspective before reaching Ellis Island was a bit ominous. They would view first, the back of the statue of liberty as if being greeted with a cold shoulder. Indeed, of the 17 million who disembarked back then, some 300,000 were deported, likely medically or politically unfit to be an American. Yet, by way of contrast, in spite of our sinful maladies and unworthiness, Christ declares us fit, citizens of heaven. And oh, the fireworks that will be there.
Some years ago I read an engaging account about an escape from the then, communist land of Poland by two shipbuilders. They hid themselves in a large cargo box on one of the ships leaving for Canada and New York. After several weeks at sea in that dark wooden box sustained only by chocolate bars and water and vitamins, the men made it to freedom. Though they sorely missed their families and hoped to someday be reunited with them, their one impression was this: “We had no idea how wonderful it is to live in a free country; it is beyond our expectations.”
It is by God’s grace that we continue to live in this country with its great freedoms – God knows too many, and by his grace alone that we await the new celebration country where “the glory of God is its light and the lamp is the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.” Think of how excited we will be when the first rays of that city’s light reaches us. I’m sure, that having emerged finally from our status as “prisoners of hope,” reaching that safe shore we would say, “We had no idea how wonderful it is to live in such a free country as this. It is far, far beyond our expectations.” Why shouldn’t there be a celebration? Why shouldn’t there be in the name of Christian freedom, a little fireworks up there, in the heavens and yes, in our hearts as well. Amen.
