Source: Orthodox Prison Ministry
March 11, 2016
Reading at Sixth Hour – Zechariah 8:7-17, especially vs. 15:
“I have prepared and purposed to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; be of good courage.” In this passage from Zechariah the Lord God proclaims a new era: a time when He will do good to His chosen ones after their long struggle. In the past, afflictions fell upon “those going out and those coming in” (vs. 10). But now, by His prophet, God announces a reversal of circumstances: “‘I do not do to the remnant of this people as in the former days,’ says the Lord Almighty” (vs. 11). Instead, He declares, “Rather I will show forth peace, for the vine shall give its fruit, the earth her produce, the heaven its dew, and I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people” (vs. 12).
Along with God’s announcement of these new circumstances, He exhorts His people to “be of good courage and strengthen your hands” (vs. 13). When faced with defeat, conflict, and affliction, how easy it is for us to become despondent and settle for bare survival. A defeatist spirit takes over. But God, with a promise, calls His people from lethargy to renewed diligence: “I will save you, and you will be for a blessing” (vs. 13).
A recent example is the situation of those Eastern Europeans who lived under communism for many years. Overnight, their political, economic, and social conditions changed. However, the days that followed offered them no golden era. Many aspects of everyday life are actually more difficult today. Still, a new era has come to Eastern Europe. Strong hands and diligence enjoy greater opportunity for reward than ever before.
Why does the Church give us this passage to read at the threshold of Great Lent? Though its message was delivered long ago (520-480 BC), its word applies to our own experience of Lent. The prophet of the Lord calls us to the work of the fast. We are to review how we live our life in Christ. What were our former conditions? And more importantly, what is the new circumstance now in place as a result of God’s intervention?
Prophet Zechariah describes conditions we know well: “Men’s wages will not be profitable and a price for livestock will not even exist, and because of affliction there will be no peace” (vs. 10). If we consider the prophet’s message in light of the gospel, we hear Saint Paul speaking of the fallen conditions of our life before we received the grace of God. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), and we “were dead in trespasses . . . by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2 1,3).
While sin may appear at times to pay well, the Prophet David asks God to “deliver my soul from ungodly men . . . yea, with Thy hidden treasures hath their belly been filled. They have satisfied themselves with swine and have left the remnants to their babes” (Ps 16:13-15). The Psalmist Asaph tells us why: “Surely, for their crafty dealings Thou has appointed evils for them” (Ps 72:17). Evils are precisely the wages of sin of which the Apostle Paul speaks.
We who belong to Christ view this present existence from a new orientation, for “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Our Lord and Savior cries, “Come to Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I give you rest” (Mt 11:28).
In Christ, we turn away from our sins and their deadly wages and receive refreshment. The Lenten season is time to make our hands strong for the things of God. “These are the things you shall do: speak the truth, each man to his neighbor, and judge with peaceful judgment in your gates, and let none of you plan evil in his heart against his neighbor, and do not love a false oath” (Zec 8:16-17).
Lord, grant us to pass the days of Lent diligently that Thy kingdom may come upon us.
