August 6, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“The word of the Lord came to me…This will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God.” (Zechariah 6.9, 15b)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

We most certainly long for those “good old days.” In our memory, there are calm places, sweet places, good places, happy places and holy places where life just seemed right. They had control over us. We surrendered ourselves to them and we didn’t even know it. They became embedded into our mental and spiritual DNA. Rooted there, they created a sanctuary of thought we long for…especially in times of trouble. David had many such places in his life. David who became a warrior king anointed and appointed to lead Israel into the newness of life God desired for them to have was first a shepherd. He had many such opportunities to be in “sanctuary” with God. Across the open fields, rolling hills, craggy mountains, fertile valleys, dry stretches of parched ground in a season of lean as well as still waters where their slow rolling motion invited you to mentally and physically sink in to feel a wholeness that otherwise might not be imagined and realized. Yes, we all have such places in our minds that our hearts want to recreate and bring back to life. In some small part, we may actually attempt to do so but things are never quite the same as they were before. Why? There is something different because our memories of them filtered out what was unimportant in the moment. There were conflicts, challenges, distractions, annoyances, anxieties, worries and troubles which loomed just beyond the perimeter of our focus. We did all we could to keep them at a distance from our season of peace. In our time of sanctuary, we were “in the world but not of it.”

Zechariah was invited into one of those moments when the word of the Lord came to him. It came to him when the future that God was proposing began to loom just over the horizon. There was the sound of it coming. It did not come silently. It did not come unexpectedly. The word had already begun to trickle in like the first few raindrops of a storm. We can see it in the sky. We can feel the change of the air on our skin. So, it was for Zechariah as the announcement of the return of the exiles was exceeded by the sound of the returning exiles. I have no doubt they did not come quietly and somberly. They had to have come with praises, songs of joy, spiritual songs rising up out of the expectation of coming home. They had been gone seventy years. Some of them had no vision of home except for what was shared with them by parents, grandparents, other family and friends. Yet, they were caught up in the whole feel of expectation like rumbling thunder across the valley that follows the distant flash of lightning. Before we know it, the thunder rolls us up in its powerful swell. We shudder. Our skin prickles with the electricity of the moment. Then there is that lull of peace as the air in our lungs is restored. For Zechariah, the future was now. The exiles coming. The vision given. Now the command performance of consummation was announced: a time to renew, rebuild and rejoice.

Even now in this nation, we are caught up in the swell of those who are grasping for the “what was” as it washes over those who never knew anything but “what is.” The expectation of “what will be” is blended and folded together into a sense of chaos as if the will to live is in competition with the struggle to survive. Where is that peace that is longed for on one hand and expected on the other? We know of it today because we, as mighty ones of God, are able to look back to those moments and hear beyond them the gospel declaration: “Peace I give to you. My peace I AM sharing with you. Not as the world gives you peace is what I AM sharing with you now.” (John 14.27) We know it comes from the only One who is prophet, priest and king; Lord, Savior, Friend; Messiah, Christ and Son of God. But, how would others know that unless they are told? Yes, there has been preaching, teaching and efforts of discipleship conducted through the ages since Jesus was born, lived, died and was raised from the grave. Still, we have generations upon generations of people who have suffered under the guise of well-intentioned and not so well-intentioned individuals who purposed the gospel to promote themselves and their ideas. There are others who have struggled to “keep the faith” and “maintain the unity of the body of Christ.” For each of them, what does the future look like? It depends on how they experienced the past and in what had become sanctuary for them.

Imagine all of that angst coming to a head as the exiles stepped back into what had been sanctuary for them? What was no longer existed. Jerusalem was a broken city. The temple laid in ruins. It was more tragic for them because it had once held all their hope. It isn’t like our return home when our first experience with the past was how much bigger we thought it was. It never changed. We had changed. Not so for the exiles as they came down from the north and up to the south. Most had followed the paths by the Jordan River and now were ready to cross over to the other side. It is significant to me, and I pray this phrasing will give you pause to consider it, that there is a sense of full circle being experienced by those Hebrews who had left their exile in Babylon. They were crossing over perhaps in a similar place where they forefathers did in the days of another Joshua, son of Nun. He led them into the Promised Land which God had ordained to be their possession. Now, they were reenacting in a fashion what had been making it was what is. They question would be “What will it become?” The choice was theirs to be and to do. God anticipated it. God was preparing it for them. Now a new Joshua was being called to lead, guide and direct them in the paths they should go. The lynchpin was summed up without debate at the close of chapter 6: “This will happen if you diligently obey the  Lord your God.” Joshua of old heard the same call and responded to it in words that may be familiar to many of you: “As for me and my house, we will choose to serve the Lord our God.“

Mighty ones of God, we are standing now on the shores of our own Jordan River here in this country. The melding of what was and what is to become what will be continues to hinge on this singular truth which was given to Joshua. It ought to speak to us as it did to them: “This will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God.” Diligently! Not half-heartedly. Not casually. Not occasionally. Not when we feel like it. Diligently! Earnestly! Faithfully! Steadfastly! Purposefully! Intentionally! Unashamedly! Boldly! Confidently! With a servant’s heart, mind and soul following after the only One who knew all of this best: Jesus, Yeshua. If we desire for this nation to be great, not as it was great before but as it is meant to be great in the world, then it cannot be “of the world.” This nation can only be great in the world today following that truth: “This will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God.”

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 in order that others 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 so we would know we are Your people and 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.