Waiting can give you weak hands and feeble knees. Life can do that to most of us from time to
time and we can lose our hope. We are
called to speak encouragement to one another as we wait, not in judgment but in
love. We need to be reminded to lift up
our eyes to see Him rather than being cast down at what happens here on
earth. Our hope comes from the Lord and
we know that He will not disappoint, He will come again in glory and His
kingdom shall have no end. Everything
that is incomplete will be made whole, from people to creation. All the earth will worship its creator and
joy and singing will be heard everywhere.
We can’t begin to imagine what this will look like, we have only seen
the fallen creation, what we have made of what the Lord created. Our imaginations cannot conceive of
perfection. Ask Him to show you His
vision that you might have greater longing for it.
Zechariah’s lips are opened as his wife, Elizabeth’s womb is
opened, and the words that come forth from him are highest praise. He speaks as a prophet and that begins with
pointing not forwards, but backwards.
All prophecy is based in promise and all prophecy is based in the
past. We look for a renewed creation and
the Jews looked for the restoration of the kingdom. What was old is made new. Prophecy knows that there was once a time
when things were as God intended them to be and looks forward to the
restoration of all things. Zechariah is
standing on the promises of God to restore the nation while remembering that He
has done that once already. The “new
thing” of prophecy is the “how” it is fulfilled. Zechariah’s prophetic voice agrees with the
words of Gabriel concerning his son as forerunner to prepare the way of the
Lord. His prophecy is simple agreement
with the prophets and the prophetic word of the angel to him and he rejoices as
though it were already fulfilled because he has seen this child of promise and
prophecy. That was enough to know the
rest would be fulfilled. Sometimes we
rejoice in fulfillment and with God we can rejoice in knowing His promises are
always fulfilled.
“I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright
morning star.” That pretty well sums up
all the prophetic images of Jesus we have seen the past couple of days doesn’t
it? Isaiah referred to the Messiah as
the root of David and Zechariah today refers to Him as the bright morning star. The next verse bids us, “Come,” using the
images Isaiah used in chapter 55 of his prophecy and using images Jesus used as
well when He offered water to the Samaritan woman in John 4 and to the people
of Israel in John 7. The lectionary
itself omits verses 18-20 from this reading which include the warning, “if anyone
takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his
share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this
book.” How could they do that? Primarily because they have omitted passages
from the readings that they didn’t like. Sometimes the omissions are not
theologically and agenda driven but sometimes they are. If we start to remove things we don’t like,
we have less reason to be thankful. I
rejoice knowing that whatever my sins may be, Jesus is the perfect
righteousness of God and I am greatly forgiven.
I have no reason to diminish the work of the cross. Let us never deny Him the opportunity to be
praised and exalted.
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