Pastor
Steve Geiger Sixth
Sunday after Pentecost
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Zechariah 13:7-9
7 “Awake, O sword, against
my shepherd,
against the man who is close to me!”
declares the LORD Almighty.
“Strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered,
and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
8 In the whole land,”
declares the LORD,
“two-thirds will be struck down and perish;
yet one-third will be left in it.
9 This third I will bring
into the fire;
I will refine them like silver
and test them like gold.
They will call on my name
and I will answer them;
I will say, ‘They are my people,’
and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’”
The
LORD Cares for His People Zechariah
13:7-9
1.
He brings suffering on the One he loves
2.
He brings suffering on the ones he loves
Whistles. Bangs.
Reds, greens, blues, whites.
Already you may have seen colors and heard explosions in celebration of
this Fourth Day of July.
Tonight,
weather permitting, there will be more action.
Along the river, massive rockets fired into the air, filling the night
with colorful light. And parachutes. Perhaps there will be a new firework that
will become my favorite. But my
favorite as of now is the parachutes. A
high explosion. Then floating down on
air, parachutes with brightly colored glows swinging beneath. I’d like to try to catch the parachutes.
On
a day of such excitement, we think about our nation and the many blessings God
has given through our nation. God uses
government to care for us. How many
blessings do we have because of our government? Physical safety, a well-ordered economy, help for those less
fortunate, protection of our food supply.
When you go overseas, our government warns you of danger and may even
work to rescue you if you get kidnapped.
Our
government takes care of its people.
That’s what leaders do. They
take care of those under their authority.
How
blessed you are that you belong not only to a wonderful physical nation. You also, by faith in Jesus as your Savior,
belong to another country. Just as
human government cares for its people, so the ruler of heaven and earth who
also is king in the hearts of every Christian . . . so also this divine ruler
cares for his people.
Many
in Zechariah’s day may have wondered.
The group of Jews to which Zechariah was preaching had been set free
from captivity in Babylon not too many years before. Not everything was going well since they had returned. Their job was to rebuild the temple. Officials of the government now ruling them
tried to stand in their way. Men like Tattenai, governor of their state, and
Shethar-Bozenai, another Persian official, wrote a letter to the president of
their country, hoping with this approval to stop the temple work.
The
attempt of wicked men failed to stop the Israelites. The eye of Israel’s God was watching over his people. President Darius insisted that his officials
not only permit the temple’s reconstruction, but also support it.
This
makes sense to us. God, the president
of his people, stepping in to stop their enemies, a divine ruler caring for his
people.
What
may not make as much sense are the words Zechariah speaks to these
temple-rebuilding Jews, those words which reach our ears today: the Lord
announcing that he is going to care for his people by bringing suffering.
Imagine
a candidate for president running on that platform: you all will experience
great suffering under my presidency.
Would you vote for such a person?
God
announces great suffering to come.
Violence. Death. “‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
against the man who is close to me!’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
The
Lord was predicting that suffering would come on one who was close to him. Who is closer to the Father of all than his
Son, Jesus the Messiah? The Good
Shepherd, who would give up his life for the sheep.
Sure
enough. As the prophecy of Zechariah
continues, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered,” we hear
words that are spoken over five hundred years later by the Good Shepherd. The night before he died, Jesus told his
disciples, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is
written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be
scattered’” (Matthew 26:31). God was
going to bring great suffering and distress, striking the shepherd.
God
was going to do this? Wasn’t it wicked
men who put Christ to death? Wasn’t it
the forces of Satan who could claim the victory on the day the Shepherd died?
The
prophet Isaiah writes, “It was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to
suffer” (Isaiah 53:10). The writer to
the Hebrews continues the thought: “In bringing many sons to glory, it was
fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the
author of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10).
Isaiah
adds a thought that helps us understand: “The Lord makes his life a guilt
offering” (Isaiah 53:10). God struck
the shepherd because the shepherd deserved to be struck—not because of his own
guilt, but because God laid on the shepherd the guilt of us all.
Zechariah,
over five hundred years before the death of Jesus, comforts sinners by
promising that their Good Shepherd would be killed as their substitute. Comfort, as we reflect on all the reasons
God has to strike us. Are we tempted,
as no doubt our brothers and sisters in the faith facing opposition to build
the temple 2500 years ago . . . are we tempted to give up doing what is right
because people around us oppose us?
When members of your family or close friends disappoint you, are you
tempted to wonder whether patient but firm love, as God invites, is worth
it? When you work hard to share Jesus
with someone and resistance is all that is returned, are you tempted to stop
witnessing? When you are generous with
your gifts to the Lord and friends mock you for giving up the pleasure of a
certain purchase, do you wonder like the builders of the temple whether your
sacrifice is for a worthy goal?
When
opposition faces us, how many times don’t we feel that we have good reason to
give up doing the good work of the Lord?
Though the Lord tells us that our labor in the Lord is never in vain, do
we on the inside think God to be a liar, think ourselves justified in our
frustration and despair? We have sinned
against our God and deserve to be struck.
Or
maybe like others in Zechariah’s day, we take care of our earthly life while
overlooking God’s eternal priorities.
Listen to Haggai, a prophet who spoke to the same people at the same
time as Zechariah. Regarding their
obligation to build the Lord a temple, the Lord says through Haggai, “Is it
time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house
remains a ruin?” Could the Lord say the
same to us? Is it time for you to have
this thing and that thing, to use your money for this pleasure and that
pleasure, while so much spiritual work that needs to be done around the world
remains undone for lack of support?
Wrong to have paneled houses, and nice cars, and lots of toys? Not automatically. But it is absolutely wrong when the owners are seeking first
their own earthly kingdoms and the Lord’s kingdom is left behind.
Do
we see our wealth as belonging to the Lord?
Or do we treat what God has given as mine—this is mine—though it is not
. . . isn’t that a thief? Treating as
mine something that is not? Would a
death blow from God be deserved?
How
God has ever right, and yet as tremors shake our hearts when seeing how far
from God we can fall, when now we know that all is lost, death certain, pain
deserved . . . it is then that it makes sense that the death of another is good
news for us. “Jesus was delivered over
to death because of our sins” (Romans 4:25).
And though he suffered as our substitute, his suffering was not
defeat. Jesus said to his disciples,
“For it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock
will be scattered?’” The words that
come next? “But after I have risen, I
will go ahead of you into Galilee.”
(Matthew 26:31).
In
Isaiah, “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, he will see his offspring and
prolong his days,
and
the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10).
The
shepherd would be struck, but the sheep would be saved and the shepherd would
live again to see them. The sheep. You.
Forgiven. Rejoicing and at peace
in Jesus. Rescued from the wolf, Satan,
who would accuse you. Rescued as the
evidence against you was wiped away—Satan’s work destroyed forever. The shepherd killed in the process, but not
dead forever. The shepherd came back to
life.
Comfort
to you and to the audience of Zechariah, comfort by promising that the Good
Shepherd will be killed. The Lord
brings suffering on the One he loves, so that through that suffering he might
show love to you.
The
Lord also brings suffering on the ones he loves. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (Zechariah
13:7). Suffering for the
disciples. What trauma they experienced
on the days of Jesus’ death. They ran,
scared of arrest. They locked doors,
afraid for their lives. They shed tears
and spoke despairing words: “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to
redeem Israel.”
Suffering.
Now
it is true that for some the suffering brought by God has only judgment in
mind. We must understand that God is a
jealous God. He expects our love. He punishes sin. Zechariah speaks about a large number, a majority, who will be
struck down and will perish. Hell is
real. Hell will be populated. God wants us to know of this danger. How the devil would wish us to despair, to
doubt, to give up on our God and assume that in suffering we have reason to
surrender.
Because
the Lord loves you, because he wants to give you weapons to fight those
temptations that attack us all in times of suffering, he tells you about the
one-third. He speaks about his
children. He explains to you that
suffering is a part of the Christian life.
The
Lord brings his children into the fire and through the fire. He purifies us like silver. This I have never seen, silver heated so hot
that it is liquid and all the impurities separate. Perhaps you have never seen silver purified, but have you heard
of apostles purified?
Do
you remember those men trembling on the night before Jesus’ death and, it
seems, the nights after? Do you
remember men running from physical danger instead of standing, unafraid of
death and persecution? Do remember men
denying the Lord when opposition appeared instead of being confident that the
Lord’s way is always best, even when it seems your work for the Lord is in
vain? Do you remember?
And,
do you remember the apostles after the fire of suffering? The pain of seeing Jesus beaten. The shock of seeing Jesus die. The hurt of knowing their beloved friend was
lifeless in the tomb. Do you remember
the apostles after this fire of suffering?
When Jesus had risen and the disciples were preaching boldly and were
thrown into prison by the very religious leaders who had arrested Christ. When those men threatened Peter and John
with who knows what evil, Peter and John stood calmly and confidently and said,
“Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather
than God. For we cannot help speaking
about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20). These weren’t the same men.
When
God brings you through the fire, he pushes out impurity. He breaks those seemingly unbreakable loves
for things earthly and temporary. He
shows that you don’t need to hang on to anything physical, not even your life. He opens your eyes to the treasure of Christ
and having tested you, shows your faith in him to be pure gold.
Sure,
we can say that without sin there would need to be no suffering. But with sin present there is suffering, and
the Lord now brings to victory through it and over it. The Lord brings his children into and
through suffering so that through the fires of suffering we may see that our
flesh and our heart will fail, but the Lord is the strength of our heart and
our inheritance forever (Psalm 73:26).
So
strengthened and purified, now in time of trouble you call on the Lord, and he
will answer. He will not test you
beyond your ability to bear, but will provide a way out so you can stand up
under the test (1 Corinthians 10:13).
As
he purifies you by suffering, the Lord rejoices to say of you, “You are my
people.” Through suffering you rejoice
to say, “Yahweh—the Lord—is my
God.” You belong to him. He looks at you as his own.
Yes,
you belong to a nation. A blessed
nation. Today we thank God for
that. But you belong to another
kingdom, this one far more important and lasting.
This
kingdom includes all who trust in Jesus as Savior, those living on earth and
those already in heaven. The leader of
that kingdom is not afraid to tell his people that he would bring suffering on
the One he loves, Jesus, and that he will bring suffering on the ones he loves,
you. For Jesus, suffering brought us
eternal life. For us, suffering
purifies and strengthens.
The
God who brings suffering is the God who cares for his people.
Amen.