Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for this fabulous Friday. It is going to be a beautiful and brilliant day. Praise the Lord for the first day of spring. We have had a very hard and long winter. Praise the Lord for the way He brings the seasons and beautifies the earth, with so much love and grace. The crocus are in full bloom. We have a bee hive in one of the old trees by the parsonage, where the bees are out in full strength. The geese are back. You can hear the "Holy Honk"on the hour and off the hour. Indeed, weeping may tarry for the night but the joy comes in the morning. Praise the Lord for the beauty of the earth.
Last night the Binghamton University men's basketball team played against Duke University. Laureen came home and we all watched the game religiously. All four of our girls, starting with Janice, have been Duke basketball fans. They have converted their mom in to their camp. Alice is driving up to Boston today to spend the first weekend of Spring with Micah, Simeon, and their parents.
We continue to journey to Jerusalem with Jesus and focus on His Passion . Usually I read some of the powerful prophesies regarding Christ's vicarious suffering recorded in the Book of Isaiah. We can read even in the Book of Zechariah regarding the prophecy about our Lord's suffering.
The prophet Zechariah, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, was both a prophet and a priest. His work was to stir up the people in the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem but he too was given a wonderful insight in the coming of the Messiah when he predicted, ‘The desire of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory’ (2:7). Zechariah’s special emphasis was on the need of national and personal repentance and renewal and how it would be achieved in the coming of Jesus, still some 500 years in the future. Interspersed with stern words of denouncing sin, Zechariah’s prophecy contains brilliant shafts of light on the person and work of the Messiah. They are words which are quoted in the Gospels as a clear foretelling of what actually happened. There’s what we now recognize as the Palm Sunday event: ‘Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’(9:9). Zechariah also foretold that the scene of superficial rejoicing would not last long. The prophet had to follow up with increasingly somber messages. The king’s shepherd is rejected: ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me! … Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’ (13:7). But there’s worse to come: ‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced’ (12:10). The prophecies clearly point to the fulfillment of the earlier prophecy of Isaiah when he foretold to the letter that the Servant of the Lord would suffer for the sin of the world (Isaiah 53), and so vividly portrayed in the gospel stories of the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 26 and 27) In recording what Zechariah saw in his prophetic eye, he repeated a phrase: ‘on that day’ (12:3,4,6,8,9; 13:1,2,4). Zechariah is referring to ‘the day of the Lord’, a phrase used by many of the prophets and also found in the New Testament. It’s a period of time or a special ‘day’ when God is working out His plan of salvation, looking forward to the time when Christ will be seen to reign over the universe in the new heaven and earth (Phil. 2:6-11). The final fulfillment of ‘the day of the Lord’ will come at the end of history when with wonderful power God will deal with evil and restore His rule. The problem of sin is the central problem in the Old Testament. Sin began in the Garden of Eden and will not be eradicated until the final ‘day of the Lord’. But how is it to happen? Zechariah supplies the key: ‘On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity’ (13:1).
Zechariah’s prophecy tells us of the climax of God’s revelation of His plan of salvation; it’s the crux of the gospel. But it was no afterthought to deal with sinful mankind. It had been conceived in the Eternal Council of Almighty God even before the foundation of the world to bring redemption to His lost creation. It’s what the writer to the Hebrews described as ‘so great salvation’ (2:1). Zechariah specifically states that there will be a special fountain that was ‘to cleanse … from sin and impurity.’ t. Right back at the Fall, God had promised a rescue mission to mankind: He told Satan, ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel’ (Gen. 3:15), a clear anticipation of One who would defeat the devil, albeit at great cost to Himself. Zechariah states that ‘a fountain will be opened’. The anticipations of the Messiah clearly show that the ‘fountain’ was already in existence but waiting to be unveiled. The apostle Peter tells his Christian readers that Jesus, ‘a lamb without blemish or defect … was chosen before the creation of the world’ and what’s more, their redemption was only made possible ‘with the precious blood of Christ’ (1 Peter 1:19,20). A fountain conveys the image of something which is always flowing, providing a constant, abundant supply of a life-giving stream. This thought is beautifully captured in the verse of a hymn: ‘There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains’ (William Cowper). The prophet tells us that ‘a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem’. It’s not just for the leaders of the people of God. It’s open for all the inhabitants of the city, however insignificant, recalling Isaiah’s words: "Come, all you who are thirsty, and you, who have no money, come buy and eat!" (55:1). It’s a universal invitation. Isaiah’s words are those which would have been used in the market place. You can imagine the street traders calling out to the passers-by to try their produce - "Come..." Zechariah is acting as the town crier at a carnival, ringing his bell and calling the crowds’ attention to this unrepeatable gift of God, ‘to cleanse them from sin and impurity.’ As the apostle John states, Jesus alone ‘is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world’ (2:2). Zechariah went on to speak of the consequences of cleansing. Changes have to be made when people are cleansed from their ‘sin and impurity’. God’s Word teaches that once you have been made righteous, you start the lifelong process of being made holy. God’s people are required to live holy lives in obedience to His commands. It’s a matter of turning our backs upon the old life and to start anew. God’s people in Zechariah’s day were told to ‘banish the names of the idols’ to be ‘remembered no more’ and to stop receiving guidance from the false ‘prophets and the spirit of impurity’ (13:2). With the eye of faith Zechariah looks forward to ‘the day of the Lord’ when the godly remnant will ‘call on the name of the Lord and I will answer them.’ God will say, ‘They are my people’ (13:9). I quoted a verse from the hymn, ‘There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins’. I read some time ago that It’s final two verses are inscribed on Spurgeon’s grave, as his testimony: ‘E’er since by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. Then in a nobler, sweeter song I’ll sing Thy power to save, when this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.’ These are the authentic words of a true believer in Christ. May we be found among that number!
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiTIHdp5NVs
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