Scripture: Zechariah 9: 1-12
Sermon: A Word to All Prisoners of Hope
Topics: hope, prisoners, future, money, might, pride
Preached: March 28, 2010
Rev. Mike Abma
ZECHARIAH 9: 1-12
The word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach
and will rest upon Damascus.
For to the Lord belongs the capital* of Aram,*
as do all the tribes of Israel;
2Hamath also, which borders on it,
Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise.
3Tyre has built itself a rampart,
and heaped up silver like dust,
and gold like the dirt of the streets.
4But now, the Lord will strip it of its possessions
and hurl its wealth into the sea,
and it shall be devoured by fire.
5Ashkelon shall see it and be afraid;
Gaza too, and shall writhe in anguish;
Ekron also, because its hopes are withered.
The king shall perish from Gaza;
Ashkelon shall be uninhabited;
6a mongrel people shall settle in Ashdod,
and I will make an end of the pride of Philistia.
7I will take away its blood from its mouth,
and its abominations from between its teeth;
it too shall be a remnant for our God;
it shall be like a clan in Judah,
and Ekron shall be like the Jebusites.
8Then I will encamp at my house as a guard,
so that no one shall march to and fro;
no oppressor shall again overrun them,
for now I have seen with my own eyes.
9Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10He* will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the warhorse from Jerusalem;
and the battle-bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION PALM/PASSION SUNDAY
Palm Sunday is a bit of an odd Sunday, in a way.
We aren’t sure whether to be happy or sad,
triumphant or contrite,
whether to rejoice or to be reflective.
It is fun to see the kids coming in waving palm branches at the beginning of the service. All the while, we’re singing All Glory Laud and Honor, and by the time we get to stanza 3, and the descant kicks in, well, our hearts lift up, and there is almost a festive mood.
But it isn’t only Palm Sunday. It is also Passion Sunday.
There is no escaping the painful reality that, in entering Jerusalem,
Jesus was on the final leg of his cruel and terrifying road to the cross.
That is why we sang the more reflective song, “Into Jerusalem Jesus Rode” to
begin the service.
So that is the oddness of this Sunday.
We hear the: “Hosanna, hosanna” one moment,
and we know the “Crucify, Crucify” is right around the corner.
Here is heart-lifting triumph and heart-breaking tragedy
all closely packed together.
In a way, perhaps this Sunday is more honest than most.
It recognizes and affirms the whole range of emotions that live in our hearts.
Sure, there are many of us
who come to church ready to praise the Lord.
Rejoice in the Lord always; let me say it again, Rejoice.
Then there are those of us who find rejoicing more difficult.
Worries weigh us down.
Perhaps our own heart has been broken or bruised lately.
Perhaps we are facing our own looming darkness.
We may want to rejoice, may even try,
but it is hard.
There is so much in the world,
so much in our world,
that we wish and pray was different, better, brighter.
ZECHARIAH
In many ways, this mix of emotions was true in Zechariah’s time as well.
On the one hand, the returned exiles were happy to be home in Jerusalem.
They were ready to rebuild the city and the Temple.
But on the other hand, there was an under-current of grief.
Nothing they did or attempted to do came close to the way things once were.
Jerusalem remained mainly a heap of rubble and a pile of ruins.
Of the two prophets of this age, Haggai was more a doer, and Zechariah was more a dreamer. Zechariah kept dreaming about the way things would look… one day.
He kept calling all the exiles home because God still loved them,
and God had big plans for them.
Jerusalem and Judah were not the only places in a rebuilding mode.
Their neighbors were rebuilding as well, each in their own way,
each with their own vision of the future.
Zechariah 9 starts by mentioning the Arameans,
whose largest cities were Damascus and Hadrach.
The Arameans, or Syrians, were an old military power.
Damascus was the political and military center for this region of the Persian Empire. So how would the Arameans rebuild?
By once again wielding military and political power in the region.
We know the language of power.
We still try rebuild things that way.
When Iraq was invaded, the hope was held out that
this military intervention
and this establishment of democratic political structures
would make all the difference.
In fact, people spoke of a New World Order being created,
all by power, all by might.
So we were told.
Then there were Jerusalem’s other neighbors to the north, the Phonecians.
They lived on the Mediterranean Sea.
They were sea-farers, traders, craftsmen.
Tyre and Sidon were their big cities — they were the economic capitals of their day.
How were they going to rebuild?
By building a strong economy.
By heaping up silver and piling up gold.
We know this language too.
When people talk about rebuilding and renewing our country,
what do most people mean by that?
Isn’t it true that for many, rebuilding means jobs, jobs, jobs.
It means an economic revival.
It means being healthy financially.
It means money.
A third neighbor mentioned by Zechariah are the Philistines — the cities of Askelon, Gaza, Ekron, Ashdod. How were they going to rebuild? How were they going to regain their former glory? Well, they were going to emphasize their pride as a people – their cultural and national pride.
Again, we know this language.
After the First World War, when the country of Germany lay in ruins, how did Adolph Hitler rise to power? Well, he was a genius at stoking up national pride. He convinced his fellow citizens that they were not losers but winners — in fact, they were the greatest race on planet earth.
So here are these 3 nations — Aram, Phonecia, and Philistia,
all representing different visions for the future,
and different ways to build that future:
by might, by money, and by pride.
To all of these, Zechariah, the dreamer, says no.
These neighboring rebuilding projects have no real future.
We only have a future
when our hopes and dreams
are tied to the real King, the real Messiah.
His kingdom is going to be great — stretching from sea to sea.
His reign is going to be broad — even Philistia, Phonecia, and Aram
will belong to the Him.
The way Zechariah describes this coming King
is opposite to the dreams of neighboring nations.
This King is triumphant — not because of military power, but because he will be able to bring peace, real peace.
This King is victorious , or some translations have righteous. In other words, here is a King who will reign with justice, not by greed or wealth.
Lastly, this King is humble, not proud.
Real Peace, Real Justice, Real Humility.
See, your King comes to you riding on a donkey.
Our future, our hopes, our dreams, are found in him!
HOLY WEEK
I spent part of this past week reading through all of Zechariah.
Sure, we may be most familiar with this Palm Sunday reference.
But what struck me is how many Passion Week references are in Zechariah.
In Zechariah 11, we read about Israel rejecting her shepherd for 30 pieces of silver.
How can’t we think of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus?
In Zechariah 13, we read about the shepherd being struck, and the sheep scattering. These are the very words Jesus quotes to his disciples at the end of the Last Supper, when he tells them they will all desert him.
In Zechariah 12, there is a passage about Jerusalem weeping in repentance
as they look at the one they have pierced…..
The one they have pierced….
and that piercing opens a fountain which washes them from their sin.
This week, this Holy Week,
is a time to ride with this King into Jerusalem;
to ride with this powerless, penniless man as he clip-clops into Jerusalem on a donkey to die a shameful criminal’s death.
Here is Zechariah’s vision of hope being fulfilled.
While we were yet sinners,
while we were yet broken-down people
whose lives lay in ruins,
King Jesus rode into town to die for us.
He rode into town
to go toe-to-toe
with death, and darkness, and the devil himself.
He rode into town
to disarm sin
to defang evil
and even to take the sting out of death.
PRISONERS OF HOPE
Zechariah called his listeners “prisoners of hope.”
Prisoners of hope.
I have grown to really love that phrase – and no, this is not a reference to students at that other college/University down the I-96.
Prisoners of hope means that hope has a deep hold on us.
We know this world could be, should be, so much better than it is.
Peace should brilliantly shine on everyone;
Justice should flow like a swollen spring river;
And everyone, everyone should know they are Loved.
But the world isn’t like that.
It should be, but it isn’t.
And so we are prisoners of that hope —
we keep longing and yearning for that day
when our King will coming riding back
to make all things new,
all things glorious,
all things drenched in his shalom, his righteousness, his love.
We are prisoners of this hope.
No matter how much death, or darkness, or the devil threaten,
we will not give up on this hope — for one day…one day, it will prevail.
Every once in a while, we see signs of it prevailing.
When I was a graduate student in Toronto in the mid 1980’s, one of the great evils in the world was Apartheid — a form of institutionalized racism in the country of South Africa. We all hated it, but felt helpless to change it.
At the time, I heard about a bishop from South Africa who was trying to change things. He was visiting Toronto, and was speaking at an Anglican Church there.
Shirlene and I went to hear him speak.
The first thing that struck me was how short he was — his head barely peeked over the lectern.
The second thing that struck me was how funny he was — he was always smiling and laughing.
The third thing that struck me was how courageous he was — even though the South African government was calling him a terrorist, a traitor, a Communist, he kept trying to change things in his country.
After that, I followed the news stories about him.
One of the most moving was a peaceful demonstration he had helped organize.
The police were out in force and wanted the crowd off the streets.
They corralled the people into a large church.
So there the protesters sat, in the pews.
And there the police officers stood, all around the perimeter of the sanctuary.
The protesters were tense and afraid.
Were they about to be roughed up, arrested, ….shot?
That is when Bishop Desmond Tutu stood up to speak.
He called for the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress.
He called for allowing all the political exiles to return home.
Lastly, he called for South Africa to do away with Apartheid forever,
and move forward toward a future of freedom and justice.
Then, surprisingly, Bishop Tutu began addressing the police officers all around the church.
He said, “Gentlemen, please, can’t you see.
You have already lost.
You have already lost.
We are the future. You are the past.”
Then he opened up his arms in invitation, smiled and said,
“We invite you to come.
Come and join the winning side.”
And this happened years before apartheid was dismantled.
Now here we are, 25 years later.
In the latest TIME magazine, Bishop Tutu was asked how he could be so optimistic given everything he had endured over the years.
He replied:
“I am not optimistic. No.
I am quite different.
I am hopeful.
I am a prisoner of hope.”
CONCLUSION
This week,
the King rides into Jerusalem on a donkey;
he rides into the desertion of his disciples;
he rides into the darkness of his betrayal;
he rides into the horror of his death.
And all of us prisoners of hope,
who long for a better world,
a truer world,
a world of shalom, and justice, and love,
we ride with him.
Amen
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