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Rather naively, some of us think that if Jesus were alive today, our tolerant culture would not give him a really rough time, much less crucify him. We would simply marginalize him, treat him as if he were a harmless eccentric. Is that true? Not according to John. The issues are bound up with the nature of fallenness and its response to holiness. Nowhere is this clearer than in John 7:7. Jesus’ brothers have been egging him on to return to Jerusalem. If he wishes to become a celebrity, they argue, he must show himself in the capital city on the high feast days. They are thinking like politicians: what will bring you public notice? But Jesus says that the “right time” for him has not yet come. They can follow their own timetable; he does and says only what the Father gives him to do and say (7:6; cf. 5:19ff.). Eventually he will go up to the Feast, but not yet (7:8). And when he does go, he goes quietly, without fanfare (7:10), refusing to draw attention to himself, with all the political fuss that would make. One important reason for this self-restraint is provided in 7:7: “The world cannot hate you,” Jesus tells his brothers, “but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.” Four brief reflections. (a) The “because” clause is both disturbing and revealing. The assumption, of course, is that the world is not only evil, but desperately hates to have its evil exposed, shown up for what it is. Both by his flawless character and by his candid speech, Jesus makes “the world” horribly uncomfortable. How long would Jesus have lasted in Stalin’s Russia? In Hitler’s Germany? Or in Northern Ireland? Or the Balkans? Or in the United States? The least we would do, I imagine, is have him committed for psychiatric evaluation. (b) But I doubt that it would end there. Consider just one small arena: Some of my friends have had their lives repeatedly threatened because they publicly oppose homosexual marriages. These are not homophobes or gay bashers. Some of them have proven wonderfully fruitful and loving in their ministries to gays and straights alike. Were Jesus ministering among us today, I have no doubt that such death threats would have become assassination. (c) The implication of 7:7 is that Jesus’ brothers belong to the world. That is why they fit in so well. Are we being faithful if no one hates us? (d) This candid exposure of the world is not smug one-upmanship, disgusting self-righteousness. Jesus is righteous; he is holy. Where sin and holiness collide, there will always be an explosion. And we sinners must come to recognize our deep sinfulness, or we will never turn to the Savior for help.

Zechariah’s fourth vision (Zech. 3) envisages the reinstatement of the high priest in the person of Joshua. At the same time, it envisages someone who transcends him, making Joshua a pointer along the stream of redemptive history, just as at the end of the prophecy of Haggai, Zerubbabel is a pointer along the stream of redemptive history (Hag. 2:23; see meditation for December 13). The first three visions look at Jerusalem from the outside. This one and the next find the prophet within the temple courts. Here he finds Joshua the priest teetering, as it were, between the angel of the Lord and “Satan”: the word means “accuser.” Joshua is dressed “in filthy clothes” (Zech. 3:3). The filth is a sign of guilt, as the second part of verse 4 makes clear. The accuser tries to destroy Joshua by the charges brought against him, and in truth Joshua is a guilty sinner (as indicated by the filthy clothes)—so how can he possibly be an effective priest? The answer is that the angel of the Lord, standing in for the Lord himself, gives him clean clothes, rich garments. The situation is akin to Isaiah’s experience in Isaiah 6. When Isaiah sees the Lord, he becomes terribly aware of his sin. But God provides the means of removing the sin—in that case, a live coal from the altar. The implication here is that Joshua must walk in God’s ways and keep his requirements (Zech. 3:7). So Joshua is recommissioned. But the vision says much more. Joshua and his associates (presumably other priests) are (literally) “men of good omen”—or, as the NIV puts it more prosaically, they are “men symbolic of things to come” (Zech. 3:8). They point to “my servant, the Branch” (Zech. 3:8). Nothing more is revealed about his identity here, but he crops up again in Zechariah 6:12–13, where we shall reflect on him further (see meditation for December 19). The metaphor then changes to a stone with seven “eyes” or “facets” (or even “springs”); the precise meaning of the metaphor is disputed, but the result is that the Almighty declares, “I will remove the sin of this land in a single day” (Zech. 3:9). As God removed the filth from his high priest, he does the same for his people, removing “the sin of this land in a single day.” The result is utter contentment (which is the substance of the visionary ideal in Zech. 3:10). Living this side of the cross, we have no doubt who the ultimate high priest is, and how he fully bore our sin in his own body on the tree. By God’s action, the sins of his covenant people were dealt with at one decisive moment. The “men symbolic of things to come” served better than they knew: “Joshua” is the Hebrew name for the Greek form we know as Jesus.

The last few verses of Zechariah 1 (which we did not think through in yesterday’s meditation) are fairly straightforward. “Horn” represents strength or kingdom or kingly power. The four horns that scatter Judah and Israel may not be four empires, but a way of referring to all the powers that had any hand in it (as in “from the four corners of the world” or “the four winds”). But the “craftsmen” ultimately overcome them—again, four, to correspond to the four who decimate the people of God. Historically, of course, the Persians overcame and incorporated the territory of the preceding empires into their own. The general point is clear enough and is repeated in many ways in the prophets: all nations meet divine retribution, especially those that attack God’s covenant people. That sets the stage for Zechariah 2 and the third vision. Here Jerusalem has a divine protector: it no longer needs walls. Indeed, the great number of people and livestock belonging to the city makes walls impractical. But Jerusalem is not thereby threatened. Far from it: “ ‘I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will be its glory within’ ” (Zech. 2:5). Parts of this vision anticipate the vision of the new Jerusalem (see especially Rev. 22:1ff.). Elements of this vision resonate with other biblical themes. (a) The Lord will plunder the nations that have been faithless and cruel. That theme crops up in every major Old Testament corpus, and it surfaces in the preceding chapter. (b) The Lord’s covenant people are “the apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). True, to be the elect of God may mean being first in line for chastening (Amos 3:2), but it also means being loved by God from before the foundation of the earth, cherished by him, preserved by him, and finally brought into eschatological glory. (c) The missionary theme surfaces again: “Many nations will be joined with the LORD in that day and will become my people” (Zech. 2:11). This should come as no surprise. The first announcement of the covenant with Abraham promises that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him (Gen. 12:3). (d) “Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zech. 2:13). In other words, in light of the glorious revelations God has given through Zechariah, the appropriate response is quiet reverence, hushed awe. How much more should that be our response as we contemplate the fulfillment of these promises and glimpse something of the horizon of the achievement in the Gospel and its entailments!

Like his contemporary Haggai, Zechariah is a postexilic prophet. If Haggai is largely responsible, under God, for encouraging the people to get going and build the second temple, Zechariah’s contribution, though in some ways more significant, is harder to pin down. Here one finds searing apocalyptic, enigmatic visions, decidedly difficult passages, soaring perspective. However difficult they may be, chapters 9–14 constitute the Old Testament section most quoted in the passion narratives of the canonical Gospels, and the second most important source (after Ezekiel) for the countless Old Testament allusions in the book of Revelation. Few Old Testament prophetic books have called forth a wider diversity of “partition theories”—theories that assign chapters 9–14, or certain parts of them, to some writer other than the historical Zechariah. This of course is not the place to address all these debates. We shall be concerned to grapple with parts of the text as they stand. For the moment, we focus on Zechariah 1:1–17. The opening six verses constitute an introduction to chapters 1–8. The word of the Lord comes to Zechariah in October or November 520 B.C. The burden of this introduction is to review the catastrophic judgment of 587, when Jerusalem and the temple fell, and what led up to it and what flowed from it. “Return to me … and I will return to you” (Zech. 1:3) is the lesson to be learned. Initially the people would not listen. But eventually they were carried off into exile and began to reflect more seriously on all the messages that had been given them. In exile they came to their senses: “The LORD Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do” (Zech. 1:6). The implication is obvious: the covenantal blessings and judgments still stand, and the people of God must come to him in reverence and godly fear, lest they repeat the stubbornness of their ancestors and call down judgment on themselves. There follow eight visions (Zech. 1:7–6:15), sometimes collectively referred to as “the book of visions.” These eight visions have a more-or-less standard form. After an introductory expression we are told what the prophet sees. He asks the angel what these things are or mean, and the angel provides an explanation. With four of the visions there is an accompanying oracle (Zech. 1:14–17; 2:6–13; 4:6–10a; 6:9–15), usually but not invariably at the end. The eight visions are thematically chiastic: the first and eighth are similar, the second and seventh, and so forth. All of them disclose something of the future of Jerusalem and Judah. What contribution is made by the first?

As we saw in yesterday’s meditation, Haggai 1 is set in August 520 B.C. Haggai 2 is set in the same year, but is broken up into two parts. The first oracle comes to Haggai in October (Hag. 2:1–9); the second, in December (Hag. 2:10–23). The first is measured encouragement to the remnant that is beginning the task of rebuilding the temple; the second promises blessing (Hag. 2:10–19) and an ultimate “Zerubbabel” (Hag. 2:20–23). The first section promises that the new temple, “this house,” will be filled with more glory than the first. If this “glory” is measured in terms of wealth or political influence, that simply did not happen before the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. But if instead the glory of “this house” is bound up with the coming of the Messiah who graced its structures and who was himself the ultimate “temple” toward which it pointed, the claim is not extravagant. The expression “the desired of all nations” (Hag. 2:7), taken as a singular, has often been understood to refer to the Messiah. The Hebrew, however, is plural (“the desired things,” i.e., “the treasures”), suggesting a time when all nations will pay homage to the God of Israel. After all, as verse 8 reminds us, all the silver and gold are God’s anyway. The words “give careful thought” now recur (Hag. 2:15, 18), reminding the reader how Haggai has used this expression in chapter 1 to call Israel to reflect on the two decades that have elapsed since their return. God’s blessing on them has been restrained, almost miserly. “From this day on” (Hag. 2:19), however, God will bless the people. But the greatest blessing is still to come. God predicts that in the vague future, the prophetic “on that day” (Hag. 2:23), he will overturn kings and kingdoms and make Zerubbabel “like my signet ring” (Hag. 2:23). Why? Because “I have chosen you,” the Lord Almighty declares. This cannot be a simple reference to the historical Zerubbabel. Too many indicators point beyond him. God is referring to “that day.” Zerubbabel is not only the governor (Hag. 2:21), but “my servant” (Hag. 2:23)—a title used of David (Ezek. 34:23; 37:24), as well as of the “suffering servant” of Isaiah. “Servant” and “chosen” are juxtaposed in Isaiah 41:8; 42:1; 44:1. David, Judah, and Mount Zion are similarly “chosen” (Ps. 78:68–70). Recall, too (yesterday’s passage), that Zerubbabel’s grandfather was King Jehoiachin, so that Zerubbabel is in the Davidic line, the messianic line. So Zerubbabel (whose name still appears with honor in contemporary Jewish liturgies for Hanukkah) sets a pattern, part of a larger Davidic pattern, that points to the ultimate Zerubbabel, the ultimate David—King Jesus.