Opening: I’m Not The One Who Moved. I want to tell you my third favorite joke of all time (I may have told it to you before; I’m not sure I have or not; but in any case I am going to tell it to you now): An older couple was riding in their older car. It was one of those cars that has the bench-style seat in the front, the kind of seat that doesn’t have a gear box or anything else between the driver and the passenger (not individual bucket seats like we have today but one continuous bench seat). As they came to a stop light, the woman, who was riding in the passenger side of the bench seat, looked into the car next to them. In that car was a younger couple. This younger couple was sitting real close to each other (they must have had a bench seat car, too); the girl was pressed right up against the guy; the guy had his (non-driving) arm around the girl, pulling her in; their heads were touching, their cheeks together; they were smiling. Seeing this, the woman turned to her husband, who was behind the steering wheel, and she pointed at the young couple, and she said, “Do you remember when we used to ride in the car like that? Why don’t we ride like that anymore? Why is there now all this space between us?” (She was sitting at one end of the bench seat, he at the other, so there was all this space between them, and she wanted to know why.) At that, her husband looked at her from behind the steering wheel and said, “Well, I’m not the one who moved.” (He couldn’t be the one who moved, of course, because he was behind the wheel, the same place he had always been; it had to have been the wife, the one complaining about the space between them, who had moved.)
That is my third favorite joke not just because it is funny or clever but because it is true; it contains or reveals a truth. Space or distance can and often does develop in relationships. It develops suddenly sometimes, it develops slowly at other times (which is how I think it happened with that older couple). But it develops. What once was a close relationship is now not so close. Where once two were right up against each other, now they are on opposite sides of the seat; they have drifted apart; they may not even be in the same vehicle anymore; the relationship may be no longer. That happens in marital relationships, it happens in other family relationships (parent & child, brothers and sisters), it happens in friendships.
And it happens in the relationship with God. We were meant to be in relationship with God (that’s our reason for being, what we were made for). And we are. But sometimes space develops between us and God (and Jesus and the Holy Spirit). We find that we’re not as close to God as we once were. We find that we have drifted from God. We may even find that we’re not even with God anymore (not in the same vehicle, not in any real relationship). That can happen, and when it happens it is us who made it happen. It can’t be God. He’s behind the steering wheel; He can’t move. So if there is space between us, if distance has developed, if drift has occurred, if the relationship isn’t as close as it once was, it must be us who moved. And it is.
Fortunately (or blessedly), we can always move back. The good news is that any space between us and God can be eliminated. The good news is that relationship with God can always be repaired. God Himself gives us this good news in the opening verses of the prophecy of Zechariah.
Read Zechariah 1:1-6
Return To Me. That’s what Zechariah says in Zechariah 1:1-6. That’s what God says in Zechariah 1:1-6. Zechariah the prophet is actually recording God’s words here. He is simply relating a message he has heard from God to the people of his day. So this is God speaking. And what God says is Return to me (verse 3). The message God has for the people of Zechariah’s day, the message which is really the message of the book (this is the prologue of the book, so this is the message or theme of the book) is return to me…and I will return to you. The space between you and God, in other words, the space that you have created, can be eliminated. You who have moved away from God can move back to God. That’s what God says. That’s the message.
That message was delivered/God said this sometime in October or November of 520 BC. Zechariah, like his contemporary and partner Haggai, gives us some pretty specific dates for his messages, so we know this one was delivered around then (that’s rather unique; we don’t have that benefit with most of the other prophets). And we further know that it was delivered to what some call “the postexilic community” and others call “the restoration community” (those are “the people of Zechariah’s day”). This community was the Israelites who had returned to the land of Israel at the end of the Babylonian Captivity. As you know, God allowed the nation of Israel to fall into the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BC in order to wipe out idolatry from among them (they had become rampantly idolatrous; that needed to be stopped, and The Exile was the only way to stop it). The Babylonians destroyed everything, including The Temple, and carried most everybody away to Babylon (including Ezekiel and Daniel). 70 years later (give or take), Persia defeated Babylon (by God’s design) and allowed the Israelites to return and rebuild. They began to do so under the leadership of their governor Zerubbabel and their high priest Joshua (whom we will meet in the weeks to come). But they quickly stopped. They stopped because they encountered opposition (Ezra and Nehemiah give us that story) but they also stopped because they fell into what is apparently a spiritual lethargy (they just didn’t care about the spiritual/the walk with God that much) and/or a materialism (they cared a lot more about materialistic things, possessions and luxuries) (we get that from Haggai). These people had moved from God, in other words. They had drifted from God. They had allowed space to develop between themselves and God. They weren’t in close relationship with God anymore. They had done, in other words, the exact same thing their forefathers did. You see God describing that here in length. He spends a lot of time talking about these forefathers, that is, the idolatrous Israelites who experienced The Exile, and how they learned about moving from Him the hard way (that’s what we see in verses 2 and 4-6; that’s the main idea and reason for that discussion; God was telling these people, “You’re forefathers moved away from me, and look what happened; look what they learned.”). And what He wants these postexilic/restoration people to see is that they had done the very same thing. They had done it in a different way; they had become lethargic and materialistic rather than idolatrous, but they had done the same thing. They had moved away from God, distanced themselves from God, drifted from God, allowed space to develop between them and God, forsaken or lost their relationship with God. They were the last people on earth/in history you would think would do that (they were so small and frail; I would have thought they would have clung to God). But they did it.
And we often do the very same thing ourselves. We Christians often do the very same thing ourselves. We often do that without even realizing we are doing/have done that. Like that older woman in my story, we often move away from “the guy behind the wheel” absentmindedly over time. We often have a relationship with God that is shallow or nominal, so shallow or nominal that it can barely be considered a relationship, that it is not a real relationship. A preacher pointed this out to me in my college days. I was at his church service one Sunday morning (I must not have been preaching that day), and it was sometime in the fall, and he ended his message by saying this: “Most of you will spend more time watching football today than you will spend with God all week.” I thought about that and realized it was true. I realized I planned to go home and watch the 1 o’clock game (the 10 o’clock game here), then the 4 o’clock game, and then the Sunday night game (that would be interrupted by evening worship service, but I would still see a good chunk of it). That’s around 7 or 8 hours of football that afternoon (and it doesn’t even count the Monday night game or the Saturday college games). Was I planning on spending 7 or 8 hours in prayer, in worship, in Bible reading, in God’s presence, in relating to God? No, I wasn’t. I recently heard another preacher here in our area say this: “You’re not really a disciple if God doesn’t factor into your decisions about your time and your money.” In other words, if God is not a part of your decision-making process, if your decision-making about time or money or anything else does not include questions of, “What has God said? What does God want?”, then you’re not really a disciple (or not really functioning like a disciple). Understand that I am not point the finger at you here; I’m pointing it at myself. I genuinely wonder how much of a factor God is in my decision making; sometimes I’m not sure He’s much of a factor at all. I genuinely wonder if I spend the time with God that a real relationship requires. I genuinely wonder if I have the same zeal for the Lord that I have for football (or other things). Which item would I argue with more passion: that God is good or that the Patriots did not cheat by deflating their footballs in the 2014 playoff game against the Colts (Deflategate; deflated balls do not account for a 45-7 score)? I genuinely wonder if I love God more than or as much as I love the things of this world (as both James and John said you must do). I genuinely wonder if there is not a worldliness to me such as we find in these people (and I think there is); if I have not departed from God the way they did. So I’m not pointing the finger at you; I’m pointing it at myself. I am hoping, though, that you will point the finger at yourself (or at least consider doing so); I’m hoping you will wonder the same things I wonder; I’m hoping you will at least question whether or not you have departed from God, too.
That’s a terrible thing to do. If we have done it, that’s a terrible thing to do. That’s the first part of this message of Zechariah 1:1-6. Departing from God, allowing space to develop between us and God, drifting from God, forsaking God, losing God, distancing yourself or allowing yourself to be distanced from God, intentional or not, consciously or not, is a terrible thing to do. You see that here. But there is a second part of this message. There is something else to be seen here. That second part/something else is that we can come back to God. We can eliminate that space, that distance. We can forsake no more/forsake in reverse (I don’t know what the opposite of forsake is). We can restore and reestablish our relationship with God. We can return. God asks the people to do that here. He invites them to do that here. He says Return to me. And He not only says that but He attaches a promise to that. He says return to me…and I will return to you. Return to Me and you get Me. Return to Me and all will be good. Return to Me and all will be forgiven. Return to Me and we go back to the way things were before. That’s not what we’re used to. That’s not what I’m used to. I’m used to the breaking of relationships, to no return being allowed. Soon after Heather and I moved here, I bought and read Stephen King’s book Bag of Bones. I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember that the main character has a disagreement with another character, the guy who takes care of his property. And at one point in this argument, this guy tells the main character, “You and me’s quits.” I had never heard that terminology before, but I knew what it meant. “We’re done for good.” That’s what we expect (that’s what I expect, anyway). And if not that, if not “quits”, then I expect “grudge”. You’ve heard it said, “Home is the place where when you have to go there they have to take you in.” That comes from Robert Frost’s poem “The Death of the Hired Man”, and the people in that poem didn’t want to take the hired man in. You may have experienced something similar: folks who take you in or take you back because they have to, not because they want to, folks who take you back reluctantly, folks who take you back but never plan to let you forget or live down what you did.”
But that is not at all what God is describing here. God is describing the opposite of “quits”. God is describing allowing us to return with “absolutely no grudges/no reluctance”. God is describing here the same thing His only begotten, Jesus, would describe half a millennia later in His “Parable of the Prodigal Son”. We read part of that parable today, the part where the father is not only wanting but watching for the son who wasted a good chunk of his wealth to come home, the part where the father refuses to hear the repentance speech this son has prepared but instead puts sandals and a robe on his body and the signet ring (the family business ring) on his finger and slaughters the fattened calf (I have always wanted a piece of that) and throws a party (celebrates). That is there, here 500 years earlier. This is both the calling for a return and the allowing of a return. This is, “Home is the place where He wants to take you in.” This is forgiven and forgotten. This is free and easy. This is complete, total, full reconciliation and restoration. This is a far greater renewal and continuation of relationship than we ever imagined. Yes, we have departed (we all have in various ways to various degrees). But we can return. We really can return. This is not just a command but a possibility for us.
Closing: I Have Returned. When I was a child, I somehow or other heard a Gospel song that had a great deal of influence on me. I don’t count that song among the “Sweet Songs of The Faith”, the songs my mother and grandmother sang to me as an infant, the songs I credit for my belief in God; it came too late in my life for that. But it is close to those songs. It is called “I Have Returned”. That song tells the story of a person (man or woman depending on who is singing it) who has departed from God at some point in their life but has after a period of time come back to God. Every verse starts with that phrase “I have returned.” The first is, “I have returned to the God of my childhood.” The next is, “I have returned to the God of my mother.” The third is, “I have returned to the God of my father.” And the last is, “I have returned to the Yahweh of Judah.” Now I did not understand any of that as a kid. I didn’t understand that a person could depart from God as a kid; that simply did not compute for me then; I didn’t think that was possible. But I liked and was attracted to this idea of returning to God nonetheless; I didn’t know how a person could depart from God but I liked and was attracted to the idea of a person coming back to God. I liked it and I never forgot it; I remembered it all these years, despite the fact that I have never heard the song since I was 8 or so, have never heard it since the early 80s (or maybe even late 70s); I thought it was good; I thought it was glorious.
And it is good. It is glorious. It is glorious when a couple eliminates the space between them, whether it be in the car or on the couch or anywhere else such space may be. It is glorious when friends reconcile and renew their friendship. It is glorious when the prodigal son comes to his senses and comes back to the father’s house. It was glorious when the people of Zechariah’s day returned to God (which they did; Zechariah’s ministry was a success; his message in this prologue and in this book resulted in a revival among the people). And it is glorious when we today return to God as well. He may or may not be the God of your childhood, your mother, your father (as He is for me); that depends on your family and upbringing. But He is definitely the Yahweh of Judah. He is the father who is watching the horizon. He is the God who wants us to return and allows us to return and makes it possible for us to return.
So let us return to Him. I don’t know how you departed and for how long you’ve been departed from God. I don’t know how much space you’ve allowed to develop between you and God or what that space is like. I don’t know how far you’ve drifted. But I do know there is a need for all of us to return in one way or another, to eliminate that space, to reconcile and renew. I know Zechariah’s message is a message for us.
