“Living on a Promise” 

Zechariah 8:9-17 (NRSV)

Rev. M. Sidney McCollum

May 1, 2005

Introduction.   The passage for this morning is a word from an OT prophet to his people urging them to trust God’s promise and to live life based on the truth of what God had promised. 

            That sounds very appropriate for a prophet and very historical....   Then we realize that we are in exactly the same situation.  We believe on the strength of the first coming of Jesus Christ, and we live now in the anticipation of his return, as he promised he would.  We, like them, are very much people who live on a promise. 

I.          Who were they?  Before I read the passage, I’d like to fill in a little more detail about who these people were the prophet was speaking to.  Do you remember how you were told who we as Americans are?  I do.  When I was a kid, I got stories about pilgrims, and Plymouth rock; and about people coming here for religious and other freedoms, and opportunity; and about the Revolutionary War, freeing us from England. 

            Now let your imagination run.  Suppose you are Jewish, and in your mid-30’s.  The year is 518 B.C. You were born in Babylon, because Babylonian armies under a king named Nebuchadnezzar had overrun your country and captured its capital, Jerusalem, and burned it—along with the temple.  They had brought your parents to Babylon to forcibly resettle them there. 

            When you were learning what it meant to be Jewish, your parents had told you that the Jews are God’s chosen people.  The stories you heard were about Moses leading your people out of slavery in Egypt and through the Red Sea, and about crossing the desert and settling the promised land, and about the great kingdom under the great king, David, and his son, Solomon. 

            But you also got another story.  Your people had disobeyed God, and broken his covenant;  and God had allowed this exile in Babylon because of that.  So you tried hard, even in this land, to be faithful to God’s law. 

            Other prophets had said this exile would not last forever, and sure enough, some 17 years ago, Babylon was captured by a Persian King named Cyrus.  Within his first year after taking Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree that the Jews could go home. 

            You now have a family of your own.  You have made the long trek from where you were born in Babylon to Jerusalem, and what you found was discouraging:  a ruined and neglected city and a temple that had been burned down.  After building a barely adequate house for your family, the first order of business was to rebuild the temple.  The foundation was laid, then frustration started.  Non-Jewish people in the provincial capitol were jealous of what was happening in Jerusalem, and did all they could stop it.  For sixteen years, they were successful in keeping the rebuilding of the temple on hold.  You have built nicer houses for yourselves now, but your real project was stymied. 

II.        What did God say to them?  Now that you understand something of the situation of an original hearer of these words, let’s read a short section of what God said through Zechariah.  (Zechariah was a prophet;  he was also a priest, and that position gave him regular teaching opportunities to speak to the people.  This is probably a record of something he said in the temple.)  [Zechariah 8:9-17  p. 883 OT section in pew Bibles] 

            (9)Thus says the LORD of hosts:  Let your hands be strong—you that have recently been hearing these words from the mouths of the prophets who were present when the foundation was laid for the rebuilding of the temple, the house of the LORD of hosts.  (10)For before those days there were no wages for people or for animals, nor was there any safety from the foe for those who went out or came in, and I set them all against one another.  (11)But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, says the LORD of hosts.  (12)For there shall be a sowing of peace;  the vine shall yield its fruit, the ground shall give its produce, and the skies shall give their dew;  and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.  (13)Just as you have been a cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you and you shall be a blessing.  Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong. 

            (14)For thus says the LORD of hosts:  Just as I purposed to bring disaster upon you, when your ancestors provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the LORD of hosts, (15)so again I have purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah;  do not be afraid.  (16)These are the things that you shall do:  Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace, (17)do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath;  for all these are things that I hate, says the LORD.

            Before you close you Bible, let’s highlight what we heard. 

·        God spoke of his own disposition toward them.  God promised that in contrast to the time of the exile, His intent is to bless. 

·        God described what the blessing will be.  There would be peace;  there would be rain, and produce in abundance.  They would be an example of blessing among the nations, not an example of curse. 

·        They, as his people are not to be afraid, but let their hands be strong—in other words, don’t fear the folks in provincial headquarters;  get on with rebuilding the temple. 

·        Finally, God speaks of their relationships with each other.  They are to relate to one another on the basis of truth and justice.  Their own relationships are to be a model of God’s own justice. 

            Let’s also notice one thing that is not here:  a timetable.  God has blessed these people, and is promising to bless them again.  God is also calling these people to open-ended faithfulness.  We know, as they did not, that Jesus the Messiah (who is prominent in Zechariah, though not mentioned in this passage) does not come for another 500 years. 

III.       What were they to do?  God had spoken.  God had made clear promises to them.  And God had given them clear guidelines about living.  Now they were to live in the light of those things.  They are to live on a promise.  They needed some help, some structure, to do this. 

            First, they were to finish the temple.  The project had been stymied for 16 years.  Why was finishing this so important?  Certainly, pre-eminently, it was because it is right that God be worshipped and praised. 

            But it is also true that the temple was the center of life of a community based on being faithful to God and God’s commands and promises.  So in one sense, God’s command to them to finish the temple is God’s way of reinforcing their community’s need to be faithful to its commitments.  In other words, it was a practical step in helping them to live on a promise. 

            Next, they were to order their community life so that their relationships with one another would just and true.  And this isn’t just because these things make for good community life;  it is because they reflect the character of God.  Remember the last verse of the text:  “do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath;  for all these are things that I hate, says the LORD.”  In other words, community life reminds them of the Lord;  community life helps them to live on a promise. 

IV.       What does this mean to us? 

            As I said earlier, we are like these people.  We are called to live on the basis of a wonderful demonstration of God’s love and power:  the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Further, we were given a task and a promise.  The task is to be Christ’s witnesses.  The promise is that he will return, and will establish his Kingdom.  We are to be people who live on a promise.  We, too, need help and structure. 

            In a few minutes, we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  Remember the phrase in the words of institution, “Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord, until he comes.”  This act of worship is one way of responding to our task, and a reminder of the promise.  As with our Jewish forebearers, our worship life helps us to live on a promise. 

            But I believe there needs to be more.  Life is very busy these days, and unless we make a conscious decision to focus our minds on the reality of Jesus’ return and the task he’s given us, that focus doesn’t stand much chance of happening.  Let me give you a personal story. 

            I have always thought of my family of origin as a “fringe church” family.  When we were in town, we probably made church half the time.  I’m not sure all the reasons that went into this.  Churchgoing was certainly more a part of the culture then.  When I was in early elementary school, I remember being struck by a realization:  we went to church but my parents never mentioned faith in conversation.  Faith never seemed to affect anything in the family.  To attend church, even infrequently, and never mention what the church stood for was seemed truly odd.  The lesson to me was:  faith is of no practical value. 

            When I was a senior in HS, my parents separated.  I desperately searched looking for some way to make sense of life.  But I didn’t look in a religious direction—because of my childhood experience, I did not expect to find help there. 

            As you can see, I’m here now, and I did make the connection between Christian faith and meaning in life.  My growing-up experience made it important that faith be clearly connected to life, and that that be true in my own family. 

            An experience that illustrates this involves one of our sons.  We had moved, and he was going to a new school, and taking the bus.  It happened that some older kids at the bus stop picked on him.  Now we took some actions to keep him from being picked-on, but we also prayed with him about the situation, and about his attitude towards the kids who had done the picking.  God was an everyday part of our family life. 

            What we need to address is how we live on a promise which may be a long ways in the future.  The answer is that we need to build into our lives practical patterns which encourage our task of being Christ’s witnesses, and focus us on the promise of his return.  The illustration was from the life of a young family, but there are any number of other ways for us who are in other stages of life.  Let me urge you to examine your own life, and establish patterns in that life which reinforce faithfulness to God’s promise.  Help yourself, and help us who are your friends, to live on God’s promise. 

            After the hymn, we receive the supper, which is God’s gift to us, not only as an act of worship, but as a way to focus on living on His promise. 

Back to Top

Back to our Home Page

For questions/comments on this page, please click to e-mail: PCISwebmaster.

The contents of this site are copyright © 2005, Presbyterian Church in Sudbury. All Rights Reserved.