Zechariah and the Messiah. WBC 11/7/9. Zech 7:23-13:2
A friend is wondering whether he should continue as pastor or not. Goes for a walk seeking the Lord’s guidance. Enters a clearing in woods to find a herd of sheep + shepherd! Guidance! Pastor = shepherd! Talks with shepherd, and in jest says ’if I can guess exactly how many sheep you have, will you give me one to start my collection?’ ’Yes!’ ’Well, I recon you have 437!’ ’Wow, how did you guess that!?’ ’Oh, I just have a head for crowds, numbers’ (thinks, ’wow, the Lord is really confirming this, here!’) Picks it up and traipses him over his shoulders to go home. Shepherd says ’If I can guess what you do for a living, can I have my sheep back?’ ’Sure’ (thinks: I’m pretty safe here... haven’t told him anything, not wearing purple or the like!) ’You’re a Baptist pastor!’ ’Wow! How did you know that!?’ ’Put my dog down, and I’ll tell you!’
We had our first sermon on Zechariah last Sun pm
- God speaking practically into the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem at the end of the Babylonian exile. When the Medes/Persians had come to power
o = approx 520BC
But there¡¦s much more to the book. Much that looks forward, prophetically, to things that are familiar to us
- (and much more. Looks forward prophetically to the very last days, as a layer on top of that)
THE PREVIEW
Maybe we¡¦re too familiar with these things. Maybe we miss the impact the words of Zechariah would have had on its readers.
- words like the preview of God¡¦s plan in 8:23
ZEC 8:20 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, 21 and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, `Let us go at once to entreat the LORD and seek the LORD Almighty. I myself am going.’ 22 And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the LORD Almighty and to entreat him."
ZEC 8:23 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, `Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’ "
Remember- this was written at a time when Jerusalem was rubble.
- No wall.
- A quick temple being ¡¥knocked up¡¦ and ¡¥put up¡¦ (in 4 years)
o Cf Solomon¡¦s one , Herod¡¦s one (63 years building
- Jews just a captivated little tribe in Babylon¡K obscured by Persia¡K and the Greek empire that was rising
Nothing would have seemed more hopelessly improbable than the fulfilment of these words!
But 550 years later
¡K there came to Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven- Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-
And they grabbed hold of the agreement of small group of Jews and cried out in distress ¡¥what must we do to be saved?¡¦ (acts 2;37)
- ¡K and then those 120 who were Jews dispersed to the ends of the earth and everywhere they went people grabbed them and pleaded ¡¥what must we do to be saved?¡¦
o the Greek culture and wisdom was eclipsed by it
o the Roman empire was eventually taken by it
o then the whole, then ¡¥modern¡¦, world
o and still today
And the answer today is the same as the early apostles gave when they were grasped.
„» ¡§take hold of Jesus who will take hold of you¡¨
- and HE is the ¡¥one Jew¡¦ being referred to in 8:23
o the saviour of the world and ALL who grasp Him
And Zechariah tell us how this can be.
- besides a whole load of other things that I can¡¦t go into
o (prophecies of Alexander the great (9:1-7, and how he spared Jerusalem 9:8)¡K the maccabean revolt of 160BC that restored this temple (9:11-17)
THE ARRIVAL
He prophecies the arrival of a king (9:9)
- a righteous one (none of them around at that time¡K ever)
- one who brings salvation with Him
- who is gentle¡K
ZEC 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
ZEC 9:10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Recognise it?
No one fulfils this but Jesus- and nothing will fulfil the end of the prophecy of Him ruling to the ends of the earth, and Him bringing peace expect
- the gospel going out
- Jesus coming again
SING: Hosanna, hosanna
But that¡¦s not the entirety of the story. Jesus¡¦ arrival into Jerusalem didn¡¦t fulfil God¡¦s plans on its won
THE REJECTION
Chapter 11 makes it clear that He must be rejected. And that there are consequences to this rejection. Let me simplify this complex passage for you
God knows that His chosen people are going to reject Him¡K and that, in doing so, they will bring slaughter on themselves
- they are marked for slaughter. But He still says
- 11:4 "Pasture the flock marked for slaughter.
ZEC 11:7 So I pastured the flock marked for slaughter, particularly the oppressed of the flock. Then I took two staffs and called one Favor and the other Union, and I pastured the flock. 8 In one month I got rid of the three shepherds.
But what God foreknew happened
The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them 9 and said, "I will not be your shepherd.
They rejected Jesus the messiah, and were left abandoned to the consequences of that rejection
¡§Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s flesh."¡¨
When the crowd answered ¡§we have no king but Caesar¡¨ they tore themselves out of God¡¦s loving, holding hands- and placed themselves under another shepherd
11:16 16 For I am going to raise up a shepherd over the land who will not care for the lost, or seek the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy, but will eat the meat of the choice sheep, tearing off their hoofs.
- And in the end, the Romans who they had placed themselves under¡K and fought against (!) destroyed them.
- In 66AD Jewish revolutionaries massacred the Roman Garrison in Jerusalem. Emperor Vespasian sent Titus against Jerusalem. He starved them out, and broke through wall after wall as people retreated to the temple. Sacrifices ceased on July 17th AD 70, as there was no one left to offer them¡K and finally the temple and all that system was destroyed. Burnt to the ground
ZEC 11:10 Then I took my staff called Favor and broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the nations. 11 It was revoked on that day, and so the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew it was the word of the LORD.
ZEC 11:14 Then I broke my second staff called Union, breaking the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
And the rejection is so clear and so prophetic. Like God had Ezekiel and Hosea act out the message with their lives- God tells Zechariah to be a shepherd
- and at the end of his employers rejecting him- they offer him a pathetic severance pay
ZEC 11:12 I told them, "If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it." So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.
ZEC 11:13 And the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter"--the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD to the potter.
Recognise it? Matthew quotes it in Mt 27:9 (along with Jeremiah¡¦s bit about buying a field which was probably the field where Judas later hung himself)
But the ¡¥rejection¡¦ of the Messiah is not the full story, either¡K.
THE PIERCING
There was a day when the lights went out for 3 hours
- when the whole of ¡¥GODLY¡¦ Jerusalem wept and mourned at the injustice of an event
- and the subject of the seeming injustice retorted:
- 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, `Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’
- when a handful of faithful followers gathered at the foot of a cross and looked upwards
ZEC 12:10 "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. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves
Seemingly a disastrous event and day- but no! As Isaiah 53 reminds us
ISA 53:10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
For in this Zechariah passage it tells us that GRACE and SUPPLICATION will surround this event, as well
- and this grace of God moved a whole city to look and mourn again, 50 days later- when (on the day of Pentecost) Jews and devout people from all over the earth looked on the one they had pierced and grabbed hold of His garment saying ¡¥God IS with you¡¦
As we must, to be saved. We must each turn our eyes to the man on the cross and look to Him alone to make us right with God
- not ANYTHING else
SING: Rock of Ages (Kendrick version SoF 1507)
THE FOUNTAIN
And listen to the next passage
ZEC 13:1 "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.
ZEC 13:2 "On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more," declares the LORD Almighty. "I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land.
The fulfilment of
- the clean water that God had said he would sprinkle on the people in Ezekiel 36:25
- the river flowing from the temple of Ezek 47
- the living water of Jn
- the streams of living water from Jn 7:37
- (although these also refer to the giving of the Spirit, made possible by what happened on the cross)
Jn 19:32 32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. 33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken," 37 and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."
Water AND blood flowed from His side. Why did John go to such effort to record this
o beside it (unknown to him, probably) proving death, medically
- blood ¡V to cleanse from sin. Heb 9:22 ¡§without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin¡¨
o the Jews had known this for hundreds of years
o now- here¡¦s the blood that brings US forgiveness
- and water- used to cleanse impurity. Used for centuries for the ceremonial purification of uncleanliness
o flows from here to clean us. Make us new.
ZEC 13:1 "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.
Here¡¦s the fountain- that flows from the veins of Immanuel. God with us.
- let¡¦s grab his garment, gaze on Him¡K and bathe in the fountain
SING: there is a fountain filled with blood
