Pilgrim Traveller

Zechariah prophecies something new and innovative that will build on something old and familiar.

Read: Zechariah 3: 8-9 and 6: 12-13

When I see the word “Branch”, three images immediately come to mind. The first is of a mighty tree, with it constantly renewing growth of branches, swiftly followed by the image of a local branch of a national or international bank. Finally, I see a family tree, with its many branches as fresh generations are added to the family.

In each of these images there is a common thread. Something that already exists grows by adding something new, or to put it another way, there is continuity and innovation.

The Jewish people at the time Zechariah was writing would have understood that the Branch was a metaphor for a person, a new king in the royal line of King David and/or the Messiah who was to come. Isaiah, who prophesied about 200 years before Zechariah also mentions the branch in this context.

Jeshua the High Priest becomes a sort of illustration of the coming Messiah in these passages. It’s hard to escape the fact the name Joshua and the name Jesus mean the same thing…the early church quickly picked up these prophesies as being about him., and they too spotted the continuity and the innovation wrapped up in his coming.

Israel were God’s people, chosen to represent him to the world. After Jesus came the church became God’s chosen people, not by replacing Israel but by being include with them in something new…a new people chosen and called out by God to show what he’s really like.

Israel had a succession of High Priests…Jesus became the great High Priest for all time. On the Day of Atonement the High Priest made a yearly sacrifice on behalf of the whole nation, to “remove the sins of the land in a single day”. On the cross, Jesus achieved the same thing for the whole world with his once for all sacrifice.

In Israel, Kings and priests were separate roles. When Jeshua was ritually crowned as both (he was never actually King) it was a picture of Jesus who took on both roles in the Kingdom of God.

The Israelites worshipped the presence of God in the Temple. When Jesus returned to Heaven he sent the Holy Spirit to live in and through each of his followers…God’s presence was everywhere through each Christian a who was a “temple of the Holy Spirit”, so a special building “to hold God” wasn’t needed any more.

Finally, in Israel only the family of Levi were to be priests, but in the Kingdom of God the early church came to understand that there was a priesthood of all believers, each able to come into the presence of God to pray and intercede for themselves and the whole world. A special priestly class were no longer needed, as Jesus had made it possible for the relationship between God and people to be restored.

The earliest Christians were all Jewish, so they perhaps understood this continuity and innovation better than many of us who came afterwards…it is pretty amazing!

What does it mean for you to be part of the priesthood of all believers?  For the priests in the Temple it was all about prayer and worship and service and sacrifice. How is that working out in your own life?

Read: Zechariah 1: 1-6

The book of Zechariah is at the same time both obviously similar and strikingly different to all the other minor prophets. At 14 chapters it is one of the two longest books of the minor prophets (Hosea is the other one).

First of all, it has many familiar themes.

Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai, and he prophesied between 520 and 518 BC. His family are recorded as being among the priests that returned from Exile, so it seems likely that he was a priestly prophet (Nehemiah 12: 16). Like Haggai his major theme was encouragement of the people to get on with the rebuilding of the Temple after the return from Exile. Like most of the other prophets he focuses on Israel’s future choices and possible results. He calls for repentance, spiritual renewal and a return to a right relationship with God. He gives comfort and encouragement. He brings God’s promises of peace, the judgement of the nations, the restoration of Jerusalem and righteousness among God’s people. He also speaks about a future restoration of Israel, the Lord’s return to the Temple and the establishment of God’s Kingdom.

Secondly, some of the book is just plain weird!

Several chapters of Zechariah are written in a style known as apocalyptic literature. In modern usage, apocalypse has come to mean a sudden destructive catastrophe, but in the original language of the Bible it means unveiling, revealing (as in the book of Revelation) disclosure or uncovering.

Often the message is hidden in plain sight, using symbols and code that an angel or spiritual visitor interprets. There’s often a very good reason for this. It is probably dangerous to prophecy the future destruction of a superpower that is currently at the height of its power…for Zechariah this was Persia, that was represented by one of the 4 horns in chapter 1: 18-20.

Apocalyptic literature is notoriously difficult to accurately explain if you are not one of the people for whom it was originally written, making it an interpretative minefield…tread cautiously with confident explanations.

Finally, and this is the striking difference, Zechariah makes more references to the coming Messiah than any other minor prophet. Many of Zechariah’s prophecies were picked up by Jesus and the early church as direct references to his coming into the world as Messiah and Saviour of the whole world.

There are a lot of things to be studied in Zechariah, but I’ve decided that my reflections are going to focus on 6 prophecies from Zechariah that found fulfilment in the coming of Jesus.

See if you can spend some time checking out all the Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus. There are lists of Bible references to help you find them on the internet. How do they make you feel?