Zechariah Part Two Deep Dive

SACRED SPACE | JAMES WEEKS

Z 2:7-12 “Shout and be glad, Daughter Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,” declares the Lord. “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem. Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.”

In many ways, this prophetic declaration in Zechariah 2 is a microcosm of the whole story of the Bible. It certainly captures the essence of the theme which pervades every page of the book: God’s desire is to create a world in which He can dwell in relationship with people. It is God’s pursuing and abiding presence which thematically unites all of Scripture. It begins in the very first pages of Genesis where God starts by ordering the cosmos to serve as a sacred space where He can rule over a Creation which facilitates union with humankind. On the seventh day, we are told in Genesis 2:2 that God rested from His creative work. We tend to picture this moment as God kicking back in a hammock somewhere in the heavens with a cold drink. The picture the Genesis story is painting of the seventh-day rest is not so much about God taking a day off, but rather about God assuming His place as Lord of Creation, or taking up control of all He has made. On a side note, this is where the truly redemptive power of practicing the Sabbath as a part of a weekly rhythm of following Jesus is found. Sabbath for us today is less about taking a day off than about leaning into the God who is in control. By resting from our work, we are embracing our own finitude and frailty, and placing our trust in the One who holds all things together (Colossians 1:17).

In Genesis 3, we are confronted with the first act of rebellion against God, resulting in judgement and exile.

G 3:3 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

In some deep sense, rebellion and sin against God is a violation of our intended creative purpose. If we were created to dwell in God’s presence, the neglect of that purpose catastrophically results in fracture of that relationship with God and separation from His presence. The story, however, does not end in Chapter 3 (nor does it begin there, for that matter). Rather, the narrative picks up and begins to slowly reveal God’s plan to resolve this issue two-fold: Firstly, how the union between God and humankind will be restored, and secondly, how Creation itself, which was designed to facilitate that union, will be remade.

Before we see this tension resolved, first we make our way through the drama of the Exodus, and Wilderness period. Sinai, covenant, and Torah. The violence, victory, and chaos of the Canaanite conquests. Tabernacle, Temple, and the presence of God. And then Israel’s inevitable spiritual decline, resulting in exile and destruction of the Temple. The Prophetic Writings gather up all of this preceding narrative and condense it into a weighty, final chapter before making way for the climactic revelation of God’s decisive redemptive act.

It’s here you begin to feel the weight of longing the prophetic writings hope to convey. It lands on you; the cycle of sin and judgement going round and round like a broken record, and the prophetic voice of Zechariah, longing for the day when God will intervene once and for all. Zechariah brings together the deepest, visceral longings of the people of God, broken by their sins, aching for God to respond with grace and healing. The prophet poetically captures in words the mutually felt dissonance between God and His people. After all, this is not the way Creation was meant to be. This is not how humankind was meant to be. God must act. Pay close attention to Zechariah 3:8, 6:12-13, and 9:9; these are the prophetic glimpses into God’s action plan.

Z 9:9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah foretold a day when a King would once again sit on David’s throne. He would come to restore peace and justice and would rebuild the Temple; the sacred space between God and humankind. Zechariah and the Minor prophets cause us, the readers, to hold our breath, waiting to see how the story will resolve. Read forward a few pages and here we see the crescendo; the climax in the grand narrative of Scripture.

JOHN 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

God is building His new Temple; a church with Christ as the cornerstone. His building project is multiethnic, multiracial, and multigenerational. It reaches out beyond the span of history past, present, and future. It is diverse, colourful, and creative, and it stands a monument to Jesus’ triumph over the powers of darkness. You and I, as living stones, are being built together into this magnificent structure; a sacred space for creature and Creator; a temple of the living God. This means that you and I, as the Church, are a preview of what the world will ultimately become.

Zechariah Part Two Deep Dive

SACRED SPACE | JAMES WEEKS

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