The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
‘Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous, and having salvation.’
+INJ+
The prophet Zechariah calls out to the children of Israel that their God is returning to them. For this was a perplexed people. Under the rule of Cyrus the Great of Persia, they were allowed, by the will of God, to return from their exile in the land of Babylon; to be poured back once again to the land of milk and honey. Their punishment seems to be over; their time of chastisement has ceased. They may return to the land promised to the seed of Abraham, and to the Holy City, Jerusalem.
And yet they are perplexed. For what reason? If you were there, you would know the reason, for it would have been quite obvious to you.
You, returning from a strange land, come home, to your city, and to your God; the very God that once cast you out for your sin, for your idolatry, for your blood-letting. But the season of tribulation is over; now, it seems, is the season of peace. God declares ‘return to me, my people.’ And now you return. The ax is buried. Return you now to your God; and yet when you return, you find that your God has left.
Indeed, the Lord Almighty no longer dwells in Jerusalem, upon the seat of mercy, within the majestic walls of the Temple of Zion. He has forsaken this dwelling made with hands, and, indeed, the Temple itself is destroyed. It is like a prisoner of war, returning to his home after the battles have long ended, only to find his house empty, his wife and children gone, and the floors covered in dust.
Why would God command us to return, if He will not be there upon our arrival? Why should we return, if we shall not return to the Lord?
It is these questions which puzzle the Israelites, and indeed torment their hearts. Are they still under punishment? Is this but another phase of their tortures? Will it ever end? Will God ever forgive them?
Perhaps not. Perhaps they had finally gone too far. Perhaps the false gods and lies they worshipped, and the iniquities which they had committed had been enough, enough to drown the loving kindness of the Lord in the depths of their sin.
The children of Israel were lost, and without a way. Even as they return to their cities, they are still wandering, just as they had in Sinai with Moses… except at least then, God was with them. Now they wander still in the hearts, but with no God to lead them forward.
It is into this despair that the prophet speaks. Visions he sees, of horses and chariots and a golden lampstand, and then a command: Anoint a new king; build a new temple.
From this command issues this banquet of delight spoken of this morning by Zechariah: ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!’
For though it may seem like yet another order, to build a new temple, this is in all reality a promise, and not only a promise, but an absolution. The Lord commands the building of a new house for Him to dwell. This is because Him who would not be returned to, Himself shall now return, to dwell with His people in their midst, in His great and endless mercy, to shower them with His grace, and to defend them with His might.
‘Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation.’
We who are but little children, are not unacquainted with such despair when faced with the darkness of our sin, for we collect petty iniquities as an amateur coin collector gathers worthless scraps of currency. Each little lie, little deception, short spell of anger, each term of bitterness, of resentment, each outburst of anger, each bout of jealousy, each political tirade or moral diatribe born of seeming holy wrath. Each, when viewed alone, seems like but a moment of everyday human weakness; but when seen together, they form a maelstrom, a whirling abyss, of damnation, for when taken in mass, we begin to realize that our life is little more than an infinite series of vulgar misdeeds and limp-wristed evils. And indeed they are limp-wristed, for we are not brave enough to commit a true crime. We are, above all, cowards. ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death?’
Guilt, as a millstone, throttles our neck—and not merely a feeling of guilt, but the reality of guilt, for guilty we are. We throw ourselves into a cycle of self-pity and self-vindication; all as we sink deeper still into the still emptiness of hell which slowly numbs our hearts.
And so, we do the rational thing. We try to do better.
I want to make this clear. Though we think that we are a society that has moved past guilt and shame, both of which we think of as bad words, and a sign of a perverted psychology, yet never more have we been overcome by them.
The Lutheran theologians of our past often would say that the life of the fallen, unregenerate man is nothing but an unending attempt at self-justification. Sometimes we can ignore this insight, for no one around us seems to be justifying much of anything. If anything, they try to justify themselves too little. They are lazy, unambitious, arrogant, and annoying. They don’t seem like they are attempting to aspire to even the least degree of honor.
But you would be wrong in thinking this. There is not one second in modern America where people are not searching for justification, a self-justification. They may call it ‘finding meaning in their life,’ they may call it ‘finding themselves.’ They may call it ‘social justice.’ It does not matter what it is called, for it is all the same: a deep, nagging, unsilenced, and undying conviction that our life is not being used as it should, that we as people are not doing as we ought, and that there must be something greater than us that will give to our lives purpose, a reason to be, a ‘justification.’
Patriots will find their meaning in making America great again; environmentalists in saving the earth; leftists with warring against inequality and unfairness and the oppressor; rationalists with banishing superstition; clerics with putting the Christ back in Christmas. And all these things are never done quietly. No. If there is one thing that typifies our society, it is shouting, and noise.
One who is sure of themselves says little; the one who is unsure, makes sound.
And so our streets are filled with argument and screaming and the occasional act of violence, all for a surely good cause.
And they are always accompanied with perhaps the single most palpable sensation of our modern world: anger.
Everything is done with anger. We rage against inequality. We rage against the pornographer. We rage against the outsider who is too rich and powerful, or the insider who is too destitute to contribute. Everything, with wrath. And the reason is simple: Wrath feels so very much like righteousness. When one believes they are opposing evil in the world, and opposing it with such fervent hatred that it breaks the bonds of friendship and family and love, it can only mean that they are so just, so righteous, so good, that even these things they are willing to sacrifice.
Our world is overflowing with hatred and anger, not because we love evil, but because we long so deeply to feel righteous. We seek to be justified; and in some sense, to bring God back down to us.
Yet none of these things satisfy. Like a drug, we feel good while the anger lasts, but then we feel the down; we seek after a new cause to devout ourselves too, or at least devote our social media to.
But it changes nothing, improves nothing, and consoles us none at all. No one ever finally wakes up, and realizes that they are finally a good person, and there is no longer any more need to prove it. Rather, we awake, and when we awake, we awaken to our own disgust. We feel shame. We feel guilt.
One day, perhaps. We might become wise. We decide to change things; to get our life in order; not in order with the world, but in order with the divine; ‘to get right with God’; to own up to the heathen ways of our past, and promise a godly future. We return to the Church, to our true and eternal home.
And yet, even within this hallowed house, even within these pews of rood, Conscience still mocks, for we know we are unclean, and how could this not be? We are but little children. Foolish, and without understanding. We have proven it all our lives; and proven it by the many just causes we pursued.
You have returned to the house of the Lord. One wonders if the Lord shall ever return to you.
You doubt, and you doubt reasonably, for how can God look upon you—you who have brought so much harm to others by trying to heal yourself?
You doubt, and you doubt rationally, for you know that from you no good thing comes, and even your attempts at righteousness are as filthy rags.
Dearest Christian, you doubt, but you do not doubt rightly.
O ye of little faith, you doubt, because you trust not in the unending mercies of the Lord. But let this doubt be shattered, and all disbelief be broken, for it is written: ‘Behold, your king is coming to you; humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’
Now I reveal to you what was first revealed to me by the Son of the Father. That which He first received, that you might understand, you, whom He first loved.
Our Lord Christ has come to reveal the grace and redemption of the Father to all, a burden, easy and light. And He searches both high and low, not for the man of wisdom and learning, but for the little children, for such is God’s gracious will. ‘The Lord recalls His promises.’
And He does not seek a righteous man, for whatever righteousness that man might have is but an invention of his vain imagination. He does not seek a righteous man, for He will bestow on man a righteousness of His own. An alien righteousness. One from outside of us, that yet will become ours. He shall bequeath to us the righteousness of Christ. The righteousness of His blood.
‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.’
This He calls out.
‘For you also, because of the blood of my covenant, will I set free from the waterless pit.’ From the wilderness of this unbaptized world, from its seeking after things not to be found, He will set you free. And He will bring you into the rivers of living water which flow from the font of the baptized Church. And all that is His shall be your own.
Therefore:
‘Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore you.’
+INJ+