June 24, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there My house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’ declares the Lord Almighty. Proclaim further: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.’” (Zechariah 1.16-17)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

In the story “A Knight’s Tale,” Count Adhemar of Anjou taunts William Thatcher who is masquerading as the knight ‘Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein of Gelderland.’ As the Count finds William to be an inadequate and poor excuse for a knight, knocking him off his horse, he says “You have been weighed and measured and found wanting.” This, of course, serves as a motivation for William to succeed in meeting his lifelong dream of being a knight. In the end, William engages the Count in a joust before the King of England in London. After defeating him in the joust, William and his mates turn the phrase on Adhemar making his defeat complete. This is not, of course, the first time the phrase has been turned. We hear it in Daniel, chapter 5, as he interprets the vision of a hand writing on the wall. King Belshazzar has used the vessels taken from Jerusalem in the destruction of the First Temple which Solomon built. His actions have profaned the sacred vessels and has raised the ire of God against him. No one but Daniel was able to interpret the vision. As Daniel interprets it, he acknowledges that Belshazzar has blasphemed God and it is God’s hand which is doing the writing. The “writing on the wall,” a popular phrase of prophetic demise, said “The days of Belshazzar are numbered as he has been weighed and measured and found wanting. His kingdom will be divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.” Belshazzar was killed that night and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom. As a side note, I would think that those who stand against Israel now and profane its sacred position in the history of humanity should take notice and rethink their position and actions. Of course, I would say this to factions in Israel itself who ignore the sacred place where God has ordained a call for Israel to shepherd the world to the greener pastures of the Kingdom of God on earth. The basic lack of trust in God’s power to save His people at all levels is the invitation to curry God’s wrath upon themselves as much or more as they would desire it on other nations and foes. The argument that the atrocities rendered against Israel as a nation and a people are evidences of God’s absence of care and compassion fail at this point. Such atrocities have occurred sadly and horribly because of a weak lack of utter faith in God against all odds. I certainly do not intimate that no ill would ever happen to Israel as a nation and a people as long as they are in the world. But the promise of God is that they will not be devoured, overcome, eliminated and become absent in the annals of history past, present and future. With certainty, they are now being tested, weighed and measured, and time will tell if their decisions and actions against their enemies will be found wanting, an affront to the call to have faith, or not.

What we do know from the beginning of Zechariah is that God has declared a measuring line to be stretched over Jerusalem. A “measuring line” is a part of the tools used by builders, architects, draftsmen, bricklayers, surveyors and essentially “city planners.” The use of the phrase is symbolic of an initial building project or, as is the case in the days of Zechariah, a “Jerusalem makeover.” Who among us doesn’t enjoy a good makeover story. Having spent six years in Waco, Texas, I am familiar with Chip and Joanna Gaines and their home makeover shows. Watching them now as they work around the city provides familiar sights and fond memories. It is amazing how they are able to take something that has become old, dreary, impractical and transform it into a vibrant and purposeful living space. Following seventy years of desolation, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple itself was in need of such a transformation. The implementation by God of a “measuring line,” something we hear in Isaiah and Jeremiah and 1 Kings and Job and Ezekiel and Revelation to name a few, becomes the declaration of such a transformation and spiritual makeover. It is not limited to the building of walls, houses, streets, marketplaces and a Temple and making sure they are in order and set on a square (a square as well as a circle representing the completeness of God) but of the heart, mind, body and soul of God’s people. It is the sharing of the promise of God’s favor and blessing (God’s desire to choose Israel again) on Jerusalem and Israel to effect His purpose on the earth among all nations and all peoples. It is like an Old Testament “Great Commission” which is similar then in its application to the “Great Commission” which Jesus issues to His disciples and the future generations of the Church. The Church itself is set in line with the cornerstone which the “builders rejected,” that is the priests and leaders of Israel and the Temple, that is now set in place as the Chief Cornerstone. It begins to square the foundation of faith, that which we here in Jesus’ affirmation of Peter’s faith when he professed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, “Peter, upon this rock I will build My Church.” Perhaps Matthew stylized the use of “Church” in his rendering of the gospel remembrance. It certainly speaks to the measure of faith that will draw all people together who believe into one body of believers, ekklesia, who will represent the body of Christ of which Christ is the head.

With that, I would urge as all as mighty ones of God to measure our own faith in Christ and the call of God given to us through Him to be His people as He is our God. Do we fully trust in Him? Do we truly abide by His Word? Or have we wiggled the lines of demarcation between good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, right and wrong, in order to establish our own version of the Master’s Plan? We are being “weighed and measured” in the course of our own history. Shall we be found wanting having feigned being “knights of the realm of the Kingdom of God” putting on the full armor of God but unchanged in our hearts, mind, body and souls? Do we dare make a mockery of God’s promise to us in restoration, reconciliation and redemption? I pray not!

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.