June 4, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“The Lord was very angry with your ancestors. Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. Where are your ancestors now?” (Zechariah 1.2-5a)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

It is a definitive question, is it not? “Where are your ancestors now?”

Remember, mighty ones of God, Zechariah is given this question by God for himself and for the nation of Israel. Following the concept of “The Messianic Community,” this question can also be extended to the rest of the world. We dare not forget, mighty ones of God, that there was a concern for every human being who has lived, is living and will live on the face of this planet by God. Whether they were part of the covenant community of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or not, the influence of their identity as the “chosen” people of God was never meant to be exclusive. Nor was it meant, as Paul demonstrated more completely, to influence the rest of the world, the human community, to become as Jews in all their customs, traditions and ministry practices. This has always provoked me to thought concerning how influential the sin of arrogance and the need for self-affirmation creates a false image of God’s will. When Jesus taught His disciples (and that included the circle of followers which formed a community perimeter around them) to pray, He included a purposeful and positional proposition within that prayer. It said, “Abba, Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” It says it still today even though it is rarely referenced and espoused in contemporary Christian faith communities of worship, praise, discipleship and service. Take a moment and count how many times you remember saying, or even simply reciting, the Lord’s Prayer in your worship experiences. I dare say, you will probably discover that the infrequency of that prayer being uttered in worship coincides with that of the “institution of the Lord’s supper.” Do you know what it is I am referring to? How often have you heard the words of institution which Jesus designed for His disciples, their futures disciples and the disciples of generations since from the Upper Room to where we are now? How often is it an intentional call to worship in the time of communion to “Do this as a remembrance of Me, in remembrance of Me“? We even speak of “broken bread and broken body” more than “remembering what each means and doesn’t mean.” Both of these sacraments are instruction, discipling and foundational in our purpose and identity as members of the Body of Christ bound to worship in spirit and in truth. Before I wander further let me return to the purpose of that moment of accountability. The purpose was to remind us of the paradigm by which we must be defined as believers in God the Father, God the Son who is Jesus the Christ and God the Holy Spirit. All the “structural” markers to being of this or that religion, this or that denomination, this or that small group or fellowship community ought to be in accord with “What do we think it is in Heaven?” Seriously, you think the Godhead and the angels are overwhelmed by issues of food offered to idols or circumcision or genetics to define our hereditary ancestors? All those things have been laid to the side. There is a purpose in Jesus’ focus on “the greatest commandments” because they were the purest expression of God’s will to be done on earth. Why? Because they are the purest expressions of God’s will in Heaven. What are those great commands? Yes, “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and Him only.” But there was a second to be added in almost the same breath, “You should love the neighbor as you yourself are loved [by God and yourself.]” The major identity of what happens in heaven and should happen on earth is “love.” Love is the expression of authentic righteousness. To deny that expression as the perimeter of our identity in the world on earth as in the Kingdom of Heaven is to deny faith in God. To that God said to the Jewish community of faith served by Zechariah, “Where are those ancestors now?“

Consider two answers.

The first is that those ancestors are dead and entombed or at least buried. Ashes became scattered ashes following the will of the wind as it blew across the face of the planet. In their refusal to obey God’s word and will, they had emptied themselves of anything that truly spoke of life. They lived with hard hearts, hard heads, a stubborn will and the strength of their own resources (or God’s resources for which they took credit and ownership.) They did not accept that they abided by the Spirit of God who had breathed life into them and before that moment create the spark of life in the quickening of the body, mind and soul. They did not bind themselves to anything eternal except for that which might be passed along in some tangible resource or property to the next generation. Borrowing from a teaching of Jesus, “they did not lay up for themselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust nor thief could steal them.” In other words, they were left with nothing and became as nothing. Where did those ancestors go? Nowhere!

The second answer, and it may be more tragic than the first, is that they went somewhere but nowhere they fully intended nor desired. The valley of Hinnom just beyond the south wall of Jerusalem was a place of refuse; not refuge. Though there were some who lived in that Jerusalem dump as outcasts and undesirables according to the rulers of the land. Its burning pyres which consumed the trash and remains of life had once consumed babies sacrificed by their mothers to Molech. The elimination of a generation was an abomination to God. It should be to us as well as something similar rages across our nation and the world with the aborting of such “refuse” instead of being a “refuge” for future generations. Is it truly easier to dispense with the result of our bad decisions of desire to promote one’s urges, feelings and needs above all others? Did we think of God when we entered into the situation of bringing life into the world? Did we think about it when we discarded it to be consumed by the fire of our passion to be rid of it? Did the nation of Israel in Zechariah’s day consider well the decisions they were making when a new start and a new life was being afforded to them by the love, mercy and grace of God? What of the generations preceding them which caused their history to be steeped in exile, denial, contempt and unrighteousness? Where did they go? Where were they then? Were they in that tortuous waiting place of Purgatory dwelling in between nothing and everything? Were they already in Hell, Gehenna, being consumed by a neve-rending death and no possible plan for escape?

Regardless, the mention of the ancestors is the crushing reality that they are not in the present enjoying the opportunity to see God’s restoration of the nation of Israel nor will they likely have any knowledge of its occurrence. But it is a stark reminder to the current generation to not repeat the legacy that had been spiritually, politically and communally passed on to them. Is this a word for those of us today and the world in which we live? Isn’t it time we heed the word of the Lord and humble ourselves before Him, repenting of our obstinance and pressing forward in the promise which is offered to all who will believe in the God of our salvation?

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.