PsalterMark

Zechariah’s ministry was an encouragement in a time of uncertainty. He spoke to those exiles who had made it back to Jerusalem—and he speaks to us.

The exiles had many challenges. They weren’t able to worship as normal because the temple was a pile of rubble. Can you imagine being unable to worship with others like you were used to? The city was in ruins and sanitation was difficult. Although they had laws explaining the need to purify their hands disease was still rife. Can you imagine disease spreading indiscriminately amongst the population?

The leaders were struggling to organise the basics of life and were also distracted by the challenge of taking back control of their borders. Can you imagine being frustrated with your national leaders? The returned exiles were struggling with not seeing loved ones—those that had not made it back from exile. Can you imagine being cut-off from and unable to see people that you love?

The economy of the nation was in tatters. The very poorest in their society were the hardest hit. What a terrible injustice that would be. Things just weren’t how they used to be. It felt like life was on hold as they struggled with what a new normal might look like? Can you imagine this?

Perhaps in our time we can appreciate better some of the challenges faced by the exiles? Their challenges have some affinity with ours, but their situation was more precarious than ours. Zechariah’s ministry provided God’s word in answer to the questions raised by uncertainty. His answers are an antidote to the fear that so easily follows in the footsteps of uncertainty.

Zechariah’s sixth and seventh visions speak to questions we share with the exiles of old. The answers remind us that we too are exiles, though closer to the final stage of God’s plan for humankind.

Vision 6—Zechariah 5:1-4
The exile of the people of Judah to Babylon is a dramatic illustration of the fundamental problem that lies at the heart of God’s relationship with his people.

That problem is that God wants his people to live in wholesome healthy relationship with him—the only thing God expects in return is that his people will fear him.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:7, NIVUK

He instructed his people on how they can do this and gave them the choice. They could live in covenant faithfulness with him and know his blessing. Or they could break the covenant by ignoring his instruction and receive a curse instead of a blessing. This is all mapped out in the Book of Deuteronomy Chapter 28. There we see the promise of blessing put side-by-side with the ‘promise’ of a curse.

We know that the people and their rulers chose to disobey God’s instruction time-and again until the covenant reached breaking point. Whenever I hear the Abba song SOS it reminds me of this most tragic of relationship breakdowns. The love story of the bridegroom Yahweh and his bride Israel:

Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find?
I try to reach for you, but you have closed your mind.
Whatever happened to our love? I wish I understood.
It used to be so nice, it used to be so good.

The most tragic part of the story was that God left Jerusalem before the people were taken into exile. This is told in visionary language in the Book of Ezekiel. Here is a short snippet:

¹⁸ Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. ¹⁹ While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
Ezekiel 10:18-19, NIVUK

Ezekiel makes it clear that God left because of iniquity, wickedness, and idolatry. Old fashioned terms but central to the Bible’s central story and the reality of this broken world:

• • Iniquity is sin and the associated guilt of sin.
  • Wickedness is the fundamental commitment to evil that underlies some sin.
  • Idolatry is the looking for other God’s, whether ancient deities of the modern gods of money, sex, and power.

Zechariah’s visions 1-3 explore God’s return to Jerusalem—the undoing of Ezekiel’s depiction of God’s departure. Visions 4 and 5 are centred on Jerusalem. Visions 6 and 7 explain the outworking of God’s return to Jerusalem.

So why a flying scroll? Its huge size and the fact that it is flying implies this is God’s work. Other references to scrolls in the Prophets (Jeremiah 36 and Ezekiel 2-3) tell us this is God’s word. In the context of the Prophets this is a word that brings judgement to the nation and nations. To put it another way, this is a word of woe.

This flying scroll brings two judgements:

‘This is the curse that is going out over the whole land; for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished, and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely will be banished’. [v.3, NIVUK]

These sins might well be representative of sins as a whole but both seem to have been especially problematic to the exiles trying to rebuild. In these chaotic times there were those that would steal from their fellows and others who failed to keep their word. Times of uncertainty threaten societal cohesion, at a time when it is especially important that everyone works to support one another.

The dramatic judgement of banishment is rephrased and reframed a verse later:

The LORD Almighty declares, “I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in that house and destroy it completely, both its timbers and its stones.”’ [v.4, NIVUK]

What encouragement can be found in these harsh words? We are two quick to gloss over judgement. God’s judgement is a necessary part of his love for a broken world. Do we not want justice? Are there not deeds of evil that must be dealt with? Only God can ultimately deal with iniquity and wickedness. This is a comfort in times of trouble; that through God’s mighty hand justice arrives sooner or later. This is part of what it means to trust that God still rules this Earth. He will bring order and restoration, and this must necessarily include judgement.

In Christ we have a greater encouragement, for in him it is not yet too late to turn to him for forgiveness. Zechariah’s picture of God’s word is also a call to repentance. It is, after all, the only alternative to a broken house and banishment from God’s holy presence.

Vision 7—Zechariah 5:5-11
As we reach the seventh vision it is readily apparent that God is committed to return now that the people have reversed their exile. They have travelled from Babylon to Jerusalem. Now we see a journey in the opposite direction, from Jerusalem to Babylon. Initially it seems not only bizarre but makes little sense. Just a few details and connections, however, can make this imagery’s meaning and significance come to life.

Seeing the imagery at the end of the vision reveals the punchline. The basket is going from Jerusalem to Babylon. In the original Hebrew the word so often translated Babylon is Shinar, the plane on which the tower of Babel was built. Just as the exiles are rebuilding the temple there is a new Babel building project.

The basket is a parody of the ark through which God is portrayed as having returned to the Temple. The basket has a lid, like the ark, but this one is made of the basest metal, lead rather than the precious gold of the ark’s lid. This anti-ark is not carried by beautiful and powerful winged cherubim but two women that look like storks—a poor echo of the majesty of the real thing.

What does this anti ark contain? Well the original had God’s word – the torah or instruction. Here we have the opposite, wickedness equated to a woman. At first this sound like a patriarchal slur on women, but this is not the case. The Hebrew word for wickedness sounds very like Asherah—a woman named Asherah most likely means that this is a statue of the goddess Asherah. As the anti-ark it contains the heart of idolatrous religion just as the real ark contained the word of God, a God that cannot be portrayed as a physical object according to that law

The visons are reaching their climax of glorious hope—the beleaguered exiles have returned. They are promised that God too is returning to them and that wickedness will depart. They not only have an experience of an emerging new normal from the pain of exile but their hope as God’s people is alive again. They will once again know God with them, Immanuel. They will have wickedness, iniquity, and idolatry removed from them. This hope takes on its full nature only in Christ. For it happened in the single day of Christ’s resurrection (cf. Zechariah 3:9).

The exiles were comforted by the promise of God’s presence in the temple. We know of Jesus Christ, God with us, in a fuller sense. By his Spirit he no longer is confined to a temple but is with us his people.

Teresa of Avila put such hope this way:

Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you, all things are passing, God is unchanging. Patience gains all; nothing is lacking to those who have God: God alone is sufficient.