Zechariah 12:1-3, 6-10, 13:1-2
The Process of Grace

This is the word of the LORD concerning Israel. The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares: "I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.

"On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place.

"The LORD will save the dwellings of Judah first, so that the honor of the house of David and of Jerusalem's inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah. On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD going before them. On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

"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.

"On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more," declares the LORD Almighty. "I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land."

New International Version

Zechariah was one of the later prophets in the Old Testament, living after the Hebrew people had been released from captivity in Babylon and had gone back to Judah to rebuild. As such, Zechariah was a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, during the time they rebuilt the walls of the city of Jerusalem against opposition from neighboring tribes and nations. In one sense, it was a time of rejoicing for God's people, because the exile was over and they were home again. However, the celebration was tempered, and ultimately choked, by the magnitude of the struggle to reestablish the nation, rebuild Jerusalem, and band together again as a people.

Zechariah's message was that the "end result" of God's grace was not simply that they were home from Babylon. God's grace always exceeds our expectations, and it always overflows the container we prepare for it. Zechariah's encouragement to the Hebrew people was to increase their expectations of what God would to do for them, a lesson we need to hear as well.

Within the context of the skirmishes the Hebrews had with surrounding peoples, God described an image to Zechariah of a massive military deployment against God's people, with every possible army arrayed against Judah. God promised to crush it so completely that not only Jerusalem would be safe, but even the houses in the farmlands of Judah would not be touched. In the same way, God called the people to imagine a blazing fire, but God's people would not be burned.

The verses that follow portray what God wanted in return for this supernatural protection, and the answer is for the people to repent. Zechariah called them to look at what God had done, as amazing as it was, and look at what it cost God. Look at the piercing, at the sacrifice of an only, a first-born son, and grieve for the loss that was required for the people to be saved.

The Hebrew people would have understood this response powerfully, if metaphorically, knowing that their rebellion brought about the need for God to respond and restore. Sin breaks God's heart, because sin separates God from the people God loves, and a relationship that is broken and restored will always bear the scars of that healing.

We now understand the image literally, as God sent Jesus, God's only Son, to a life of teaching and love. When that teaching was rejected, Jesus obediently submitted to death on the cross, where the soldiers pierced his side to confirm that he had died. From that death came the fountain of cleansing and forgiveness. Our restored relationship with God is immensely expensive, but God gives it to us for free.

Notice the order of the process of grace as Zechariah presents it. God's intervention to save us from desperate circumstances comes before we comprehend it. Not only can we not earn God's grace, we are incapable of conceiving what we need when God showers us with miraculous grace. It is only after we have received this grace that we can begin to see the immense magnitude of what God has done. As we grow to understand more of God's intervention in our lives, we can grow to let God's Will replace more of our own will, God's Love replace more of our hate, and God's Goodness replace more of our sinful nature.

During this season approaching Easter, we are more apt to recognize the historical significance of what God did through Jesus, but grace is more than a historical event. God's active grace through Zechariah's message predated Jesus' birth by 500 years. God's grace is just as active today, evident in the same cycle of redemption, repentance, and renewal as Zechariah described, available to each one of us because God loves us so much.