Zechariah sees the angels whose role it is to patrol the
earth in a glen of myrtle trees and asks another angel who these are. The angels make their report that there is
peace on earth. The prophet is outraged
at this report. Jerusalem is in ruins
and yet the rest of the earth is at peace, how can the Lord tolerate such a
situation? The Lord responds that the
prophet does well to be outraged and reassures Him that the Lord has not
forgotten His city, nation and people.
He may have used these other nations as judgment against His people but
they went too far, they carried out not only His vengeance against the sin of
the people but their own as well and this will not be either forgiven or
forgotten. The time is coming for the
restoration of Israel.
Jesus, on the other hand, tells of the time that is soon
coming when the nation will be scattered and the temple desecrated with the
abomination of desolation. Here we sit
two thousand years later and there is the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim temple, on
the site where Jesus speaks in this reading.
They have dealt with the loss of the temple now far longer than anyone
could ever have imagined and yet still the faithful await the coming of the Son
of Man but they missed Him when He was here.
The promise we have is that He is indeed coming to restore the new
Jerusalem which will come down from above.
When, no one knows but we wait not by sitting and praying alone but by
being obedient to the first commandment given to mankind in Genesis, be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with the knowledge of God. He has restored the broken image by taking on
flesh and giving us His Spirit, we have work to do.
The church at Philadelphia is the only one of the seven
churches in the Revelation that is not criticized. They are commended for their faithful
endurance and patience even though they have no power. They are insignificant in the eyes of the
world but they are commended by the Lord.
Those who persecute them will bow before them and they will be saved in
the day of judgment. In Luke 18 the Lord
asks whether, when He returns, He will find faith on earth. He asks us the same thing today. Faith leads to action, moving forward without
power but also without fear in extending the kingdom of God. Would He find us faithful if He came today?
No comments:
Post a Comment