The Message Remix (280 page)

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Authors: Eugene H. Peterson

BOOK: The Message Remix
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GOD’s Message came a second time to Haggai on that most memorable day, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month: “Speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah:
“‘I am about to shake up everything, to turn everything upside down and start over from top to bottom—overthrow governments, destroy foreign powers, dismantle the world of weapons and armaments, throw armies into confusion, so that they end up killing one another. And on that day’”—this is GOD’s Message—“‘I will take you, O Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, as my personal servant and I will set you as a signet ring, the sign of my sovereign presence and authority. I’ve looked over the field and chosen you for this work.’ ” The Message of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.
INTRODUCTIONZECHARIAH
 
Zechariah shared with his contemporary Haggai the prophetic task of getting the people of Judah to rebuild their ruined Temple.
Their preaching pulled the people out of self-preoccupation and got them working together as a people of God.
There was a job to do, and the two prophets teamed up to make sure it got done.
But Zechariah did more than that. For the people were faced with more than a ruined Temple and city. Their self-identity as the people of God was in ruins. For a century they had been knocked around by the world powers, kicked and mocked, used and abused. This once-proud people, their glorious sacred history starred with the names of Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, and Isaiah, had been treated with contempt for so long that they were in danger of losing all connection with that past, losing their magnificent identity as God’s people.
Zechariah was a major factor in recovering the magnificence from the ruins of a degrading exile. Zechariah reinvigorated their imaginations with his visions and messages. The visions provided images of a sovereign God that worked their way into the lives of the people, countering the long ordeal of debasement and ridicule. The messages forged a fresh vocabulary that gave energy and credibility to the long-term purposes of God being worked out in their lives.
But that isn’t the end of it. Zechariah’s enigmatic visions, working at multiple levels, and his poetically charged messages are at work still, like time capsules in the lives of God’s people, continuing to release insight and hope and clarity for the people whom God is using to work out his purposes in a world that has no language for God and the purposes of God.
 
 
From:
Zechariah’s family were priests, but priests could do their work only in Jerusalem, and he was born in Babylon. As a boy he joined the first wave of exiles who returned to rebuild Jerusalem. They quickly set up an altar for sacrifice, but after eighteen years it still stood in the open air because the returnees hadn’t gotten around to building the Temple. Finally Zechariah and Haggai spoke up.
 
To:
Zechariah started his ministry two months after Haggai. He spoke to the same audience: a demoralized community absorbed with its own concerns and not too passionate about worshiping God. They needed to see that their immediate problems—making a living, getting along with hostile neighbors, surviving an unstable international situation—weren’t the whole story. They were part of a much bigger story of what God was doing throughout history for the whole world.
 
Re:
520-518 B.C., then perhaps as late as 480 B.C. In China, Kong Zi, or Confucius, lived about 551-479 B.C. Kings were weak and rival warlords vied for power. In a time of turmoil Confucius wanted peace, and he thought it could be achieved if both leaders and subjects lived by good rules. Proper behavior and respect for authority, he believed, would produce virtue. In each relationship there were proper ways for each person to behave. Most of what we know about his teaching was actually written by a disciple who lived several centuries later, at a time when the emerging Chinese empire wanted a system to maintain order.
Israel’s season of crisis fostered prophets like Isaiah and Amos, while China’s produced philosophers and government advisers like Confucius.
ZECHARIAH
 
001
In the eighth month of the second year in the reign of Darius, GOD’s Message came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo: “GOD was very angry with your ancestors. So give to the people this Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: ‘Come back to me and I’ll come back to you. Don’t be like your parents. The old-time prophets called out to them, “A Message from GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies: Leave your evil life. Quit your evil practices.” But they ignored everything I said to them, stubbornly refused to listen.’
“And where are your ancestors now? Dead and buried. And the prophets who preached to them? Also dead and buried. But the Message that my servants the prophets spoke, that isn’t dead and buried. That Message did its work on your ancestors, did it not? It woke them up and they came back, saying, ‘He did what he said he would do, sure enough. We didn’t get by with a thing.’ ”
First Vision: Four Riders
 
On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month in the second year of the reign of Darius, the Message of GOD was given to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:
One night I looked out and saw a man astride a red horse. He was in the shadows in a grove of birches. Behind him were more horses—a red, a chestnut, and a white.
I said, “Sir, what are these horses doing here? What’s the meaning of this?”
The Angel-Messenger said, “Let me show you.”
Then the rider in the birch grove spoke up, “These are the riders that GOD sent to check things out on earth.”
They reported their findings to the Angel of GOD in the birch grove: “We have looked over the whole earth and all is well. Everything’s under control.”
The Angel of GOD reported back, “O GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, how long are you going to stay angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? When are you going to let up? Isn’t seventy years long enough?”
GOD reassured the Angel-Messenger—good words, comforting words—who then addressed me: “Tell them this. Tell them that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has spoken. This is GOD’s Message: ‘I care deeply for Jerusalem and Zion. I feel very possessive of them. But I’m thoroughly angry with the godless nations that act as if they own the whole world. I was only moderately angry earlier, but now they’ve gone too far. I’m going into action.
“ ‘I’ve come back to Jerusalem, but with compassion this time.’
This is GOD speaking.
‘I’ll see to it that my Temple is rebuilt.’
A Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!
‘The rebuilding operation is already staked out.’
Say it again—a Decree of GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies:
‘My cities will prosper again,
GOD will comfort Zion again,
Jerusalem will be back in my favor again.’ ”
Second Vision: Four Horns and Four Blacksmiths
 
I looked up, and was surprised by another vision: four horns!
I asked the Messenger-Angel, “And what’s the meaning of this?”
He said, “These are the powers that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem abroad.”
Then GOD expanded the vision to include four blacksmiths.
I asked, “And what are these all about?”
He said, “Since the ‘horns’ scattered Judah so badly that no one had any hope left, these blacksmiths have arrived to combat the horns. They’ll dehorn the godless nations who used their horns to scatter Judah to the four winds.”
Third Vision: The Man with the Tape Measure
 
002
I looked up and was surprised to see
a man holding a tape measure in his hand.
I said, “What are you up to?”
“I’m on my way,” he said, “to survey Jerusalem,
to measure its width and length.”
Just then the Messenger-Angel on his way out
met another angel coming in and said,
“Run! Tell the Surveyor, ‘Jerusalem will burst its walls—
bursting with people, bursting with animals.
And I’ll be right there with her’—GOD’s Decree—‘a wall of fire
around unwalled Jerusalem and a radiant presence within.’ ”
 
“Up on your feet! Get out of there—and now!” GOD says so.
“Return from your far exile.
I scattered you to the four winds.” GOD’s Decree.
“Escape from Babylon, Zion, and come home—now!”
 
GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the One of Glory who sent me on my mission, commenting on the godless nations who stripped you and left you homeless, said, “Anyone who hits you, hits me—bloodies my nose, blackens my eye. Yes, and at the right time I’ll give the signal and they’ll be stripped and thrown out by their own servants.” Then you’ll know for sure that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission.
 
“Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion!
I’m on my way. I’m moving into your neighborhood!”
GOD’s Decree.
 
Many godless nations will be linked up with GOD at that time. (“They will become my family! I’ll live in their homes!”) And then you’ll know for sure that GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission. GOD will reclaim his Judah inheritance in the Holy Land. He’ll again make clear that Jerusalem is his choice.

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