How Long?
Notes
Transcript
Pray
1 - THE PATROL RETURNS (vv.7–11)
1 - THE PATROL RETURNS (vv.7–11)
It is the middle of the night.
Zechariah is given a vision.
Zech 1:8 — *"During the night I had a vision, and there before me was a man mounted on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses."*
Zechariah has no idea what he is looking at - which I hope makes us feel better as we read it too.
So He turns to the angel who accompanies him throughout this vision and asks the obvious question - that we are going to also ask a lot in this new series through Zechariah:
Zech 1:9 — *"I asked, 'What are these, my lord?' The angel who was talking with me answered, 'I will show you what they are.'"*
But before the interpreting angel (the one talking with Zechariah) can speak, the man in the ravine on the Red horse, himself answers.
10 Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, ‘They are the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.’
A patrol. A divine reconnaissance mission of every nation, every city, every seat of power. They have gone out, surveyed the whole earth, and now they have returned with news.
11 And they reported to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, ‘We have gone throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.’
The whole world. At rest and in peace.
Sounds like good news to us.
It’s what every other Christmas Card asks for - peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind.,
But for the people of God in 519 BC, it’s an almost unbearable thing to hear.
And perhaps would worry us more than it does if we were to see the Non-Christian world around us be at rest.
The Israelites have been back home for Seventeen years from exile.
They have straggled home to a city that is barely a city —
broken walls, rubble where the temple stood,
a people trying to rebuild on the ruins of everything they once knew.
The great powers who crushed them — Babylon, and now Persia — have risen, dominated, and settled into comfortable authority. REST
No reckoning has come. Nobody is being held to account. The world has moved on.
And heavens patrol confirms it,
It is not that rest is evil — God himself gives rest, peace is his gift, his promise. But this is the wrong rest, enjoyed by the wrong people, at the wrong time.
The nations who crushed Jerusalem — who went far beyond any commission God gave them, who showed no mercy, who treated the covenant people with contempt — they are fine. Comfortable. Undisturbed.
And God's people are still, as the vision imagines, in the ravine - or a hollow place. Where myrtle trees typically grow.
Mytrle trees typically signifiy hope, but the hollow place certainly does not.
Perhaps the idea is one of hope trapped and deveastated, while the world is at rest and peace.
Perhaps You know this feeling.
You have watched people walk away from everything that is true, and they seem — if you are honest — absolutely fine.
You have heard the statistics as less and less people claim to be ‘Chtistian each year’, but wealth abounds.
You see church of England building being sold for houses,
you see us meeting each week in a school hall,
and yet the Armadi Muslims rebuild and extend what was already at one point the biggest Mosque outside of Mecca just down the road in Morden.
We don’t wish any harm, or distress on others, but their news of sucess and wealth and peace and comfort may not fill our own lives with joy!
You have prayed and nothing has moved.
You have waited, and prayed for God’s deliverance from your suffering now,
And not yet received, and the world has simply kept going, unbothered, at rest.
You know you have sinned, but so have they.
But you have returned to God and they have not.
you continue to suffer while others,
they abandon or deny their faith, their commitments and they seem, just fine thanks.
How long o Lord?
The patrol returns.
The World is at rest and peace.
---
2 - EVEN THE MEDIATOR CRIES OUT (v.12)
2 - EVEN THE MEDIATOR CRIES OUT (v.12)
The patrol Commander seems to agree with our assessment.
The man on the red horse — the one who stood in the ravine, who is called the Angel of the LORD, turns and speaks.
Not to Zechariah. To the Lord of Armies
Zech 1:12 — *"LORD Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?"*
*How long?*
We thought about this last week, how similar the times are between then and now.
They are stuck in a world that is at rest - even thoguht the World reject God;’s rule,
and God’s people are awaiting the fulfilment of God’s promsies!
Justice and resucue.
Similarly, we await the return of Jesus - to bring justice and full and final rescue.
So this prayer from the interceded Angel of the LORD is the prayer we still call?
How Long O Lord?
SO who is this figure? This figure who stands in the ravine
—He’s not a mere messenger but a divine mediating figure,
one who bears the LORD's own name and presence.
— this figure turns to the Father and voices the lament of the people as though it is his own cry.
How Long O Lord? Cried the Lord!
Notice this interceding divine one - He is among them. In the low place. And from that low place, he intercedes.
There is debate about precisely who this figure is in the vision,
whether this is the pre-incarnate Son or a uniquely divine representative
—the text doesn't finally resolve that.
But what it does show, unmistakably,
:is a heaven sent, divine mediator who stands simultaneously among a suffering people and before the Father as their advocate.
He either is, the reincarnate Lord, or he is supposed to show us the coming Lord Jesus.
Either way them, ultimately,
Jesus is the one who comes to his suffering people, and prays for us: *how long?*
Zechariah began,
as we saw last week,
with a call from the Lord of Armies, the Lord of Hosts,
‘Return to me, and I will return to you!’
And the people v6b did
‘Then they repented and said, “The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.” ’
So the power of repentance, in v6 is that God’s returns to them in the form of an interceding messenger.
God’ return is not immediate peace or rest - it is access to God again through His mediator.
A divine one - who not only laments their situation and calls for the Lord to remebr his promies in His word,
A diven one who is actually able to speak to God!
Have you considered the privelegde that repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus gives us.
For we too now have - a divine interceder, who speaks to the Lord of Armies on our behalf, from our place of lowly ravine,
to the Lord almighty on high!
Jesus - our high priest has taken the inarticulate anguish of a sinful people in the ravine and made it his own intercession.
God’s chosen people, living in a fallen world, beset by their own sin, surrounded by nothing but trees that grow in the low ravine,
them then, and us now - have a divine one with us.
Who sympathises, understands, experiences what we do, and yet is without sin, and so able to intercede, pray, speak for us as our representative.
But so what, is His prayer of intercession enough to deliver?
3 - GOD ANSWERS GRACIOUSLY (v.13)
3 - GOD ANSWERS GRACIOUSLY (v.13)
13 So the Lord spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who talked with me.
God is not silent. He is not absent.
He speaks *kind and comforting words.*
The Hebrew word for comforting here is the language of deep, intimate consolation.
This is not an administrative response to a filed complaint.
This is the Father speaking warmth back to the one who has prayed. The intercession was heard. The lament reached its destination. And what came back was grace.
Read your bibles- God speaks the same, in Christ today, whenever you are crying How long, hear his response of comfort in Christ Jesus.
when we pray, our great high preist intercedes for us.
And so our lesson is that When a divine intercedes for us - The divine response is always gracious, kind comforting.
When JEsus intercedes for us, we recieve grace.
God is infinetly kind and campasisonate to his children.
Do we need more convincing…
God is also
4 - THE GOD WHO IS JEALOUS (vv.14–17)
4 - THE GOD WHO IS JEALOUS (vv.14–17)
Then the angel who was speaking to me said, ‘Proclaim this word: this is what the Lord Almighty says: “I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion,
the word *jealous* needs rescuing from our modern, shrunken use of it.
The Hebrew קִנְאָה is not petty irritation or possessive insecurity.
It is the fierce, exclusive, burning loyalty of a husband who will not stand by and watch his wife destroyed.
It is the covenant love of a king who will not abandon his city.
God is not indifferent. God is not distracted.
He is *jealous* — which means his love for his people is ferocious, personal, and exclusive.
Our jealous God will not allow injustice, he will not allow his people’s enemies to be indifferently at rest and peace.
and I am very angry with the nations that feel secure. I was only a little angry, but they went too far with the punishment.”
Babylon was God's instrument — raised up, sent against his people as punishment for their sin so they might ‘return to the Lord’.
But Babylon acted from its own malice,
They even exceeded God’s commission, showed no mercy.
And for that the nations are morally guilty.
Their ‘rest’ is not God's endorsement of them.
Their ease is not Gods final verdict.
The world resting in peace does not mean God is at peace with the world.
Their judgement is still coming. And that itself is comfort to us.
Not at all in the sense that we can delight that those who reject God will be judged,
but in the sense that
we do not need to look at the relative rest and comfort of those in our world
and feel like somehow we are missing out.
Or that somehow following Jesus is not our best option!
Those who reject the Lord God and His rule will ultimately face eternal torment and judgement,
While His dearly loved children, will ultimately face glory and joy.
Do not give up on following, trusting and obeying God - is the point.
Zech 1:16 — *"'I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,' declares the LORD Almighty."*
God’s enourmouse tape measure is ready,
construction is about to begin.
God is not offering vague spiritual restoration — he is promising to build.
Physically, concretely, in time and space.
And that is what happened, within 4 years of this promise, in 515bc - the second temple was completed!
The very temple JEsus would walk in in his lifetime 500 years later.
God was not speaking vaguely — he delivered, specifically and soon.
But as with most OT prophesy, there are layers to it’s fulfilment.
Near fulfilment give confidence in the promise,
But they point to a distant and perfect fulfilment,.
‘Proclaim further: this is what the Lord Almighty says: “My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.” ’
While this happened in part in history, we know it hasn’t lasted eternally,
But It is not that God failed to act — he acted decisively and quickly - so we can trust the ultimate promise.
The action he took in 515 BC was clearly a down-payment, a first instalment,
pointing toward something the rebuilt temple could only sketch in outline.
The gap between what was promised and what the second temple period actually delivered is precisely what drives us to realise a greater temple must be coming.
A Messiah, an Emmanuel - not God in a temple, but God with us - A man who is the temple.
We read this and see Christ and ultimately the new creation that even we are still waiting for!.
And what Joy it will be when that new creation comes with Christs final triumphant return:
IN the ESV v17 reads:
Cry out again, Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.’ ”
Again. Again. Again.
What I have done before, I will do again.
The comfort that seemed to have ended — not ended.
The God who made the promises has not forgotten them or us.
So, we end by coming back to
5 - THE ONE WHO INTERCEDES
5 - THE ONE WHO INTERCEDES
Among the myrtle trees. In the low place. Among the people. And simultaneously before the Father, carrying their lament as his own intercession.
Bringing the Word of God To God on behalf of his people, and the Word of God to His people, comfort and kindness.
John 1:14 — *"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."*
Jesus came into the ravine. Into the low place. Not to observe suffering from a comfortable distance, but to stand in it with his people.
And not merely to sympathise — but to bear in his own body everything the nations and the powers and sin itself could inflict.
The punishment, the cruelty, the full weight of human violence and guilt — he took it - For those who look to him for intercession.
He is the one who makes us heirs of that the fierce, jealous love of God
HE is the one who absorbs what we deserve.
But,
Did you notice, that for all the promises made in this section,
the original prayer is not actually answered.
How long O Lord?
The reply they get is kind and comforting - but they will still wait.
But it was eventually answered.
Not in words - but on
a cross outside Jerusalem.
A sealed tomb. An empty tomb on the third morning.
And so we are in a different waiting period.
We have had our down payment,
Victory is won.
But we have not yet seen all evil and sin destroyed.
But we can be certain of it’s coming.
BEcasue our divine mediator, has won it, and promised it:
Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives for ever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
Jesus has not left the mediating role behind. He is still before the Father and Still among his people.
Your lament is still in his mouth. Your name is still on his lips.
And his tape measure measuring — is stretched out ultimately not over 515BC’s modest temple but over something no empire can reach:
a people being built, a city coming down from heaven, a new Jerusalem.
And the promise that God's towns will again overflow with prosperity will find its final, irreversible fulfilment when the exile is over for ever,
when the dwelling place of God is with his people,
and there is no more ravine, no more waiting,
no more patrol returning with bad news.
This vision does not explain every painful day when the world keeps going undisturbed and God seems silent.
It does not tell us how long until Christ retruns:
But it gives us something better than that.
It gives us a mediator who stands among us in the low place
and carries our lament before the Father as his own.
And it gives us the Word of a God
who answered that mediator with kind and comforting words —
He is not indifferent. He is jealous. He is building. He is coming back.
Amen
