The Monday after the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on October 14, 2024 by under
Scripture: Zechariah 1:1-16 (NKJV)
1:1 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 2 “The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. 3 Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Return to Me,” says the Lord of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. 4 “Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.”’ But they did not hear nor heed Me,” says the Lord.
5 “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
6 “Yet surely My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they returned and said:
‘Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways and according to our deeds, so He has dealt with us.’”’”
7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet: 8 I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow; and behind him were horses: red, sorrel, and white. 9 Then I said, “My lord, what are these?” So the angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what they are.”
10 And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, “These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth.”
11 So they answered the Angel of the Lord, who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, “We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is resting quietly.”
12 Then the Angel of the Lord answered and said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were angry these seventy years?”
13 And the Lord answered the angel who talked to me, with good and comforting words. 14 So the angel who spoke with me said to me, “Proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts:
“I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal.
15 “I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease; For I was a little angry, and they helped—but with evil intent.”
16 ‘Therefore thus says the Lord:
“I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy; My house shall be built in it,” says the Lord of hosts, “And a surveyor’s line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’”
Devotion
Zechariah prophesied to the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity. Seventy years earlier their city and temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians, because their fathers ignored the preaching of the prophets and trusted in their genealogy and the temple structure. As the foundations of the new temple were being laid, Zechariah warned the Jews not to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, lest their new temple meet the same fate as the old. He urged them to repent and trust in the Word of God, which lasts forever.
But by the time of Christ, the Jews in Jerusalem were once again despising and persecuting the prophets. In yesterday’s Gospel reading, Jesus compared them to people who have been invited to a great wedding feast, but then refuse to attend and kill the servants who bring them the good news. As Jesus and Zechariah both prophesied, God once again sent foreign armies to destroy the city of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
A similar fate could be ours if we ignore God’s Word and despise His preachers. But if we repent and believe the Gospel, then we can apply to ourselves the good and comforting words of Zechariah’s second sermon (verses 7-16). There we see Christ, the Angel of the Lord, interceding for us and turning away God’s anger. He has built us a new everlasting Jerusalem, His Church, and blesses her with the peace and quietness that comes from the forgiveness of sins.
Collect: Grant, we beseech Thee, Merciful Lord, to Thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve Thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
