The following sermon is from the Westminster Pulpit, extending the worship ministry of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We are a local congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America. Please contact us for permission before reproducing this message in any format. These four Sundays of Advent this year, we want to look at four passages from the second half of the prophet Zechariah. And if you were to take the week of the Passion narrative in Christ's life, from the triumphal entry through Christ's death, and take that week over the four Gospels, in that period, Zechariah, these five chapters of Zechariah, are the most often quoted. passages of the Old Testament in that section of Christ's life. These are passages that just overflow with an imagery of hope, of promise, of expectation, of the glory, the salvation that the Lord is going to bring. And so these chapters are words that we want to saturate our hearts with in the weeks leading up to Christmas. So tonight we're in Zechariah chapter 9. These are short, Books in the back of the Old Testament can be tricky to flip to and find, but a second-to-last Old Testament book, Zechariah, if you turn to chapter 9, and we'll read verses 9 through 17. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he, humble, mounted on a donkey. a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope, Today I declare that I will restore to you double. For I have bent Judah as my bow. I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior's sword. Then the Lord will appear over them, and his arrow will go forth like lightning. The Lord God will sound the trumpet and will march forth in whirlwinds from the south. The Lord of hosts will protect them. and they shall devour and tread down the sling stones. They shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine and be full like a bull, drenched like the corners of the altar. On that day, the Lord their God will save them as the flock of his people. For like the jewels of a crown, they shall shine on his land. For how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty. Grain shall make the young men flourish. and new wine for the young women. Let's pray. God, this is your passage of scripture. It is a passage of promise and of hope. I pray that as we meditate on these promises from your word, that you would speak peace to our hearts, that you would shape our vision of the hope that we have in you, and that you would draw us nearer to our Savior. We pray this in the confidence knowing that your spirit still speaks to us through your word. And through Christ we ask this. Amen. The prophet Zechariah was one of a couple of prophets who spoke to Israel right after their return from Babylon. You'll remember that Israel was in Babylon for a period of 70 years. Jeremiah, before they left, had prophesied that 70 years they'd be in exile and they should look for a return. And that had happened. But when the Jews returned to their land, the return was not quite what they had hoped for. They returned, yes, but they returned to face repeated opposition and difficulty from surrounding nations. Zechariah also has to spend time in the beginning portion of his his letter to them, or his prophecy, warning them of the same sins that had led to exile in the first place. And even when the Jews begin to rebuild the temple, and in fact complete a new temple, it is such a pale imitation of the glory that Israel had once known. And so Zechariah's ministry is incurring in this difficult setting where The Jews have returned, yes, but they're still facing oppression and opposition. They're still facing disappointment. They're still facing their own sin, and they're still facing the confusion of saying, yes, there's a return, but the return we've experienced doesn't seem to match the promises the prophets gave to us. The glory that was spoken of by the prophets doesn't seem to have been fulfilled. And so it's into this setting, the setting of oppression and disappointment, perhaps confusion, that Zechariah delivers the words of the Lord that we have here, focusing on the hope of the Lord's salvation. And as we look at these verses, I want to notice three things together about the hope that Zechariah promises to God's people. First, in these verses, we see how God's hope will come. how God's hope will come. And Zechariah makes it very clear that this hope comes in a person. And I think if we were to look Throughout scripture, I think it would be accurate to say that the Bible itself teaches us that one of the best analogies for the arrival of our King, for the arrival of Christ, is a wedding day. The analogy of marriage to Christ coming to his people, the bridegroom coming for his bride, is painted all throughout the New Testament and certainly is alluded to in the Old Testament as well. I was thinking about this arrival of the king and this analogy of a wedding day. I was thinking about my own expectation leading up to my wedding day. And I remember this one comment I made to a friend. We were married on July 1st. And I remember commenting to a friend, boy, I'm sure glad June only has 30 days, not 31. Because then I'd have a whole other day to wait. But as I think about marriage and waiting and this expectation, what is a groom or a bride waiting for? Well, no true lover is waiting for the marriage just for the sake of the wedding. It's not an event we're looking forward to. I can sort of imagine in my mind the bride saying, well, you know, any guy will do as long as the wedding happens. We're not looking forward to an event. It's not the wedding we're looking for. It's not like we're looking for just a change in circumstances so that I get a ring and I'm calling myself married as opposed to unmarried. That's not what we're hoping for. It's not what we're looking forward to. We're looking forward to, we're waiting, we're hoping in a person. We're waiting for that person to walk down the aisle. And the event happens because a person has come. And the change in circumstances happens because a person has come into our life. of a wedding is all about the person, not about the event or the change in circumstances. And the same is true here with Israel. It's very easy for us to just hope for a change in circumstances. But what Zechariah says here is that Israel's hope, and of course our hope, is that circumstances are changed by the arrival of a person. It's the coming of a king, a king that is coming to you. That is the hope of God's people. And perhaps, I don't know for sure, but perhaps an Israelite might hear this promise, Israel, a king is coming to you. And perhaps an Israelite might say, well, sure, but we've had kings. We've even had some good kings. We've even had some kings that, you know, maybe attempted to do some good things, but the kings haven't worked out so well. Overall, our kings failed us. Zechariah immediately explains what this king is like. And he lays out the character of this king that's coming. This king that's coming is going to be a righteous king. His rule will be just and upright. He will govern faithfully. He protects the wounded, the oppressed and the poor. His own character will be righteous. He will obey the laws of God. He will be perfect and fulfilling what God has called him to do. He will be righteous. He will be righteous personally in his character. He'll be righteous in his rule. He will be the King that God desires, the true and the perfectly righteous King. This King that's coming is righteous. Perhaps, perhaps though a righteous King is a scary prospect. Perhaps a King that is perfectly righteous is one that we may or may not be ready to meet. Zachariah adds, he's not only a righteous king, he's a righteous king who holds salvation. He's a king who comes bearing salvation. And it's interesting, commentators sort of debated on the weight or the exact meaning of this phrase, having salvation. But most of them seemed to circle around this idea that this phrase, having salvation, is a picture that God has given salvation to this king in order that he might bestow it on other people. In other words, it's not simply that this king is going to come and conquer enemies or accomplish salvation. Salvation is something God has given to this king that he might then bestow on his people. And of course, if you think ahead to Christ, what better description when you think of Christ going through death and then God, as it even describes in the New Testament, that he's saved, that he's raised to life again. Christ himself, this coming king, is given salvation, bestowed salvation, that he might then give it to his people. He's a righteous king, but he's a righteous king that comes bearing salvation, having salvation, so that he can pass salvation on to his people. He's a king who is humble. He's a king who comes riding on a donkey. If you think in ancient warfare of the picture of an arrival of a king, Israel certainly would have experienced this with Babylon and Assyria. But if you think of sort of the arrival of a conquering king, the vision you get is this king on a war horse, this king who comes riding into victory, perhaps at the head of a procession with people bowing down to him. This is not the coming of a King riding on a war horse. This is a King who comes on a donkey and not just on a donkey, but a cult, the full of a donkey. This is no, this is no warrior who arrives demanding tribute. He's no warrior who comes demanding that honor and glory be given to the conquering hero. He is the humble King, the King who comes on a donkey. He's a righteous king, a humble king bringing salvation, but he also comes to bring peace. I love the description of peace that Zachariah paints. He says he will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow will be cut off. You get these these pictures of of warfare coming to an end, conflict coming to an end. But beyond that, the king comes to speak peace to the nations. And I could imagine perhaps Israel saying, well, what we really want is a king who saves us, a king who rescues us. And this king will do that. This king comes prepared to do that, but he doesn't come just to do that. The peace and salvation that this king comes to bear goes beyond the borders of Israel. Isaiah had prophesied this. This shouldn't be anything surprising or new to Israel, but it's a reminder Israel I have a plan for you, but it's so much bigger than you. It's so much greater than you, perhaps greater than you can even imagine. For this king is going to come to speak peace to all the nations. The picture of the borders, peace he will bring spreading from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. This is a God who sends a king whose plans of salvation, of peace are cosmic, worldwide in their scope. And that's our great hope, because we're those nations, those nations that God has come to speak peace to. So here's Zechariah's description focusing Israel's hope in the Lord's salvation on this righteous, saving, humble person. Not just in an event, not a change of circumstances, but a person. And as we prepare for the joy of Christmas, our hope is in this same person. It's this person, this coming king that our hope is focused on. the sinless righteous Christ who enters Jerusalem humbly riding on the donkey. This is the verse that pictures Christ humbly coming into Jerusalem ready to die for his people, dying and rising that he might save his people and then proclaim peace to the nations. This is the gospel. This is Christ in his work of salvation, which is Israel's hope and the hope of all nations. It's a hope in a person. A person whose arrival is so life transforming that we're supposed to get ready for it by preparing to shout with all joy. I love how Zachariah starts. He doesn't start with why we're supposed to shout. He starts, shout, rejoice. That's how it begins. And then he explains why we're supposed to shout and rejoice. One commentator said this, he says, In order to impress strongly upon his people the truth that the supremest joy shall be theirs through this king, the prophet summons them to begin rejoicing at his mere approach. You have probably experienced or seen the children as they wait at the window watching for dad to come home from work. I remember my bedroom window was on the second story of our house. And from the second story I could see two streets over. I could see a little space. And so I would sit in a chair watching through this window to see the headlights coming because I'd have the first indication that dad was almost home. And then I could be the first one to run downstairs and run out the door and be waiting in the garage. That's the picture here. Watch at his merest approach. And when you see this person approaching, shout, rejoice, because this person is a king who is righteous, who's humble, who's going to come to save his people and speak peace to the nations. It's hope in a person. And that's how this hope comes. That's the first thing we see. Hope comes in a person. Jesus Christ. But secondly, notice why Israel can hope. Why can Israel hope? It's a question the returning Jewish exiles had to be asking themselves. God had punished sin. God has already demonstrated in the history of Israel how complete his just punishment against sin will be. Israel has just experienced exile, judgment, punishment for their sin. Of course, the nagging question which Ezra and Nehemiah and Haggai and Zechariah and prophet after prophet who is speaking to these people who are returning from exile emphasize over and over, Israel is still dealing with sin. Sin is still a legitimate concern. Has Israel perhaps forfeited their right to their land and their hope by sin? God has punished sin once. Will he not punish sin again? Even for the returning exiles, as they see, yes, they're back in the land, but what we're experiencing is not what we'd hoped for. It doesn't seem to match up to what God had promised. We know we're still sinful. Does sin still stand in the way of God fulfilling his promises? There had to be some fear and doubt in Israel's mind, just as there is at times in our minds. We are sinners, and God is holy, and God is just. So what right do sinful people have to hope in a righteous and holy God? And besides all that, it seems to take so long. I mean, for Israel, it's generation after generation. The time in Egypt is hundreds of years. The time in the wilderness is over 40 years in an entire generation. The time in exile, 70 years in exile, but things still aren't right. And then there's 400 more years with no word from a prophet waiting and waiting. And I think we can sympathize with this sense of weight. It was 2,000 years ago that Jesus came. He promised he'd come again. It's been generation after generation and year after year, decade, century, millennium after millennium. It seems so long. It seems so distant. And all the while we see our own failure, our own sin. Do we have good reason to hope? Zechariah answers this in verses 11. 12. Zechariah answers these nagging doubts in the most solid, life-giving hope that we could imagine. Look at verses 11 and 12. God acknowledges that we are prisoners, but we're prisoners that will be set free. And the reason that we will be set free has nothing to do with you or I. The reason we will be set free has nothing to do with us getting righteous or becoming righteous or preparing rightly for this king. It has nothing to do with us. Look at verse 11. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant, I will set you free. Our hope, God declares, is in the blood of his covenant. not in us. If you think back in your Old Testament history, you think, okay, well, what is the blood of His covenant? And maybe there's a couple pictures you might turn back to, but you should at least turn back to Genesis chapter 15. Because in Genesis chapter 15, the God who has made so many promises to Israel, to Abraham, to Abraham, the father of Israel, promises about a great people and a great nation and a great land and a great hope of salvation and blessing that will come to all people. And Abraham says, well, God, this is a great promise, but how do I know this is going to come true? Because things don't really seem to be lining up to what you're promising. I mean, I don't even have a son. And that seems to be kind of necessary. And I don't own any land. And that seems kind of necessary. How do I know that your promises are going to come true?" And God causes Abraham to go into a deep sleep. And God has Abraham cut animals in half, shed blood. And God alone, in the picture of a flaming fire pot, passes through the shed blood of these cut animals. And God says, Abraham, how do you know? You know, because I am promising it and I am passing through shed blood to guarantee the solidity of my promise. And you'll note that Abraham doesn't walk through the cut animals. Abraham doesn't walk through making the promise dependent upon him. God passes through alone. and says, blood confirms my promise. My promise is as unbreakable as my character and as unbreakable as it is impossible to break as it is for God himself to lie. It's a hope not tied to our success or failure, but to his promise, not tied to our performance, but to his faithfulness confirmed in shed blood. And of course, if we turn back to Abraham, We can now also turn forward, although Israel couldn't yet at the time of Zechariah, and say, on the shed blood of his covenant. Well, that doesn't only look back to Abraham. It looks ahead to what Christ will do. He will shed blood. What does he say at the, as he institutes the supper, but that this blood is the blood of the new covenant of his covenant in his blood. The blood of the son of God himself shed for the forgiveness of sins. The blood of Jesus Christ himself shed on the cross that casts away any doubt and confirms God's unbreakable covenant with his people. It shed blood. It shed blood from the covenant with Abraham through shed blood with Jesus Christ himself. That is the solid rock of our hope. Why does Israel hope? Why do we hope? Because God has made His covenant with us, and He has walked through the cut animals, and He has shed His blood, so that our hope rests on Him and His completion, which He has done perfectly and faithfully, as God can and always will do according to His character. What could be more solid than the character and the promise of God Himself, confirmed in His blood? How can we doubt? There's no room left for doubt. What a glorious promise and a glorious foundation of promise. And if that were not enough to give us the facts, Zechariah then gives us this beautiful picture. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope. Prisoners of hope. This is a phrase that ran through my mind for two weeks as I thought about this passage. What better phrase to identify ourselves in than prisoners of hope? Israel certainly knew what it was to live as prisoners. And we've already talked about how after, even after their return from exile, they lived generation after generation under the oppression and rule of other nations. Israel, I think would be the first to tell you it's not so much that they'd been set free as they'd changed one prison for another. I love one commentator who said prisoners is descriptive of the full measure of circumstances in which Israel as a nation seemed hopelessly caught. prisoners. So how do war prisoners maintain their life? How do prisoners survive? They survive by hope. Many of you have read or seen the story of Louis Zamperini, Unbroken. Zamperini survived a plane crash in 47 days in the Pacific Ocean during World War II on only a life raft, catching sharks that were trying to eat him in order to survive. And he talks about them being captured by Japanese and circulated through prison camps. And in the book, Lauren Hillenbrand talks about how the prisoners would encourage one another and find things to give life meaning. Because those who died in the prison camp, she said, were those who had lost hope. And so for the Japanese, the cruelest act that Japan instituted during World War II was the Kill Order. The Kill Order. was the word that was circulated in all the prison camps that if the allies won, if Japan lost the war, before they lost the last battle, they would shoot and kill every prisoner. What does that do? It takes away hope. And Lauren Hillenbrand says more prisoners died after that order because of the loss of hope than because of any disease or other circumstance. It's hope. But Zamparini says in his autobiography, he says, well, Part of you still believes you can fight and survive no matter what your mind knows. Where there's still life, there's hope. And what happens is up to God. Zechariah is acknowledging Israel's circumstances. But what shaped Israel's identity and drove their community was hope. Because the prophets of God had prophesied there is hope. God would visit his people. And despite generations of suffering, God's people were prisoners of hope. And the same can be true of us, too. Yes, we have seen Christ. We've seen the decisive act that secures our hope. But how many times have we felt the longing for this hope that we have to be fully realized? Don't we long for the full revelation of Jesus, the full death of our sin, the full rescue from hardship, suffering, from the pain of our daily walk through a fallen world? How do you and I hope for holiness when we've just committed the same sin for the hundredth time? How do you and I hope for holiness when we see our own failure? How do I, when I sit at my desk horrified by the filth of pride and the desire for attention that just pours out of my heart again no matter what I do, how do I hope in that circumstance? Doesn't the weight of our remaining sin feel like a prison? Isn't that something we experience? And what about our circumstances that disappoint us and frustrate us and hurt us, maybe even lead to our death? Certainly as we're in this time of, yes, we've already seen Christ come, but there's oh so much more that we're waiting for. And we wait for it in the full knowledge of our own sin and our own failure and in circumstances that seem like they may crush us. How do we press on? We press on because we are prisoners of hope. Prisoners of hope because underneath the doubt and the sin and the failure and the circumstances stands the blood of Christ. The blood of his covenant that is the rock of our hope. And that is what brings us through. A hope that will not fail. So our hope comes in a person. Our hope is secure because of his shed blood. And finally and briefly, look at the extent of our hope. Look at the extent of our hope in verses 14 through 17. Verses 14 and 15, Zechariah describes the defeat of Israel's enemies. And certainly the defeat of Israel's enemies is a significant part of the hope that they felt. God will protect his people and he will give them a violent but full victory over the nations. that oppress them. These are violent words and particularly in verse 15 that describe the defeat of Israel's enemies and God's enemies. But I want to focus on verses 16 and 17 because 16 and 17 are not just the conquering of enemies. It's the positive picture of what God's people will be when their king comes. On that day, verse 16 says, the Lord their God will save his people. And what will this salvation be like? What will life be like when the King comes? What does it mean to be one of God's people? Look at the descriptors that verse 16 and 17 give us. God's people will be his flock. This description draws on so much rich imagery in scripture. God is the great shepherd. who saves his wandering sheep who have gone astray. God who watches over his helpless sheep and will be with them day and night, even in the valley of the shadow of death. God who provides for his flock, leading them in rich pastures for rest and water. God who gathers his lambs in his arms to carry them. Every Israelite would know what it was like to spend your life caring for witless, helpless sheep. And that's what God does, a God who protects his sheep, who provides for his sheep, who watches over his sheep, who is always with his sheep, who provides rich pasture for his sheep. And so Zechariah gives great hope and paints this picture to give us an idea of what it is like to live under the salvation of this coming king by saying that we will be his flock. He will be the shepherd who provides full care, protection, provision, and presence. This is the love of God's salvation. God's people will also be like the jewels of a crown shining on God's land. This is a beautiful picture. God's people had been prisoners cast in a waterless pit. That was how God's people were described back in verse 11. Prisoners in a waterless pit. Now, when their king comes, they are no longer prisoners in a waterless pit. They are now jewels in God's crown. They are jewels in a crown. They will shine in his land as beautiful, precious, valuable, treasured possessions, adorning the king's rule. If the first picture of being God's flock is one of care and protection, this description elevates God's people to a position of worth and glory. Brother and sister, do you realize that in Christ you are adorning his rule? What does it mean for us? We look at ourselves and we see a sinful person and God looks at us and says, you are adorning my rule, a jewel in my crown who shines on my land. We have a picture of protection and provision in God's presence. We have a picture of value, of beauty, of splendor that we are elevated to, to be a part of God's glorious reign with Christ. When this King comes, that's what his people will be. And finally, Zechariah describes God's people enjoying an overflowing abundance of God's goodness. It says that grain shall make the young men flourish and new wine the young women. This is a picture of God's blessings overflowing his people. You might remember pictures like a land flowing with milk and honey. People growing and excelling because they are richly provided for so there is no want. These are blessings described by God's prophets throughout the Old Testament for covenant obedience. In other words, God's people who had been sent into exile because of their sin are now going to be treated like faithful covenant keepers. We who sinned are now going to be given all the blessings of the covenant. Why? Why would that be true? What hope would we have of that? But when the king comes bearing salvation, all the blessings of covenant keeping are poured out on his people. That's what Christ offers. That's what it means to see this person, this king coming to us. As we look ahead to the manger on Christmas morning, This is the hope we have, the hope of a person, the hope of all the blessings of covenant keeping, the hope of salvation, of the protection of God and the participation of his glorious rule. And that, if I may suggest it, dwarfs a $5 mini Starbucks card. That is solid hope to hope for this Advent season. It's the hope that quietly burst into the world on Christmas morning. And it's the hope that will shape our hearts and minds as we meditate together in the coming weeks. Let's pray. Father, what words, what words of hope that we would shine like jewels in a crown to adorn the rule of the king of the universe, that we would be a flock of the God of the world. with his care and protection, that we would be treated like faithful covenant keepers with all the blessings poured out on us. Why? How? Because of the shed blood of your covenant, because of Jesus Christ, the coming King and our Savior. I pray that this hope would fill our minds and hearts and be the reason for our singing and our rejoicing. May our carols burst with energy and joy because of this hope and this coming King this Christmas season. We pray this through Christ. Amen.