Zechariah 9:9-12
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 and mounted on a donkey,
on 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,
and 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.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Old Testament reading for Sunday, March 24. Palm Sunday is from Zechariah chapter nine, verses nine through 12. Rejoice greatly, Oh daughter of Zion, shout aloud, Oh daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the fall of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Efrem and the war horse from Jerusalem, the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, and 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, oh prisoners of hope. Today I declare that I will restore to you double. Here ends the reading. This is a famous reading that has to do a lot with Jesus's entry into Jerusalem, which is what we celebrate on Palm Sunday. It's the prediction of the King coming on a donkey, which we see as Jesus enters into the city of Jerusalem to shouts of Hosannas riding on a donkey. Right? So starts Rejoice greatly oh daughter, Zion, shout aloud, oh, daughter of Jerusalem, Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he. So, Zion, that is Jerusalem, the city of God and Jerusalem, they are both told to shout and sing for joy, right? Rejoice greatly because the king is coming. And this would be a great idea for rejoicing, especially after the Babylonian captivity is the king would come to protect his people again, because that was the Kings job in ancient Israel, to come and bring justice and righteousness, justice being making sure everybody's rights are protected under the law of God, and righteousness, being that he promotes the worship of God and only in the temple. So the king is coming, and everyone should shout for joy, especially those people who lost their king when the exile happened. And then it goes righteous and having salvation is he so he's not like the kings of the Old Testament, who are constantly turning away to false gods trusting after the bad guys, and seeking to make alliances with the wrong people. He is the right and good king. But here's the weird part. It says, humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Now, what kind of king is that? I mean, nobody really wants a king who rides around on a donkey. Nobody wants a king who is humble, and lowly. What we want is a king that can protect us. I mean, that's what Israel asked for when they went to when they when they went to Samuel and said, We need a king. We need someone strong, who will write out in front of us and protect us against our enemies. And here, you've got this guy on a donkey, humble, lowly. The king was supposed to be the kind of guy who would inspire fear in the enemy. One who would fight the bad guys keep everyone under control. But this is a different kind of king. And that's what God says next, he says, I will cut off the chariot from Ephrem and the war horse from Jerusalem, the battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. So not only is this a lowly King, it's a king who does not rule with force, the chariot, the war horse or the bow. He doesn't fight to rule. Instead he brings peace to the nations and He rules from seed See, without conquering and attacking. You know lots of people have tried to take over the world. We see empires growing throughout all of history from the Mongols and the Chinese and the Romans and the Babylonians and the Assyrians and the Egyptians. And you know, just about everybody who ever had a great civilization wanted to take over the world. And they always did it with swords, or spears, or guns, or whatever. And now, Zachariah is predicting someone who's going to conquer the world without firing a shot. But bringing peace. So the real question is, then how does Jesus conquer the world without firing a shot without using the battle bow or the war horse of the chariot? He does it by his word. He rules from C to C by the power of the word, and especially amongst his church, which is why the church doesn't use force in making our decisions. We don't focus on bylaws, though we have them, we don't focus on who's in charge or who's in control. Because at the heart of it, Christ rules over his church, not with guns, spears, or bows, but with the word, and it's the word that God uses to change our hearts and cause us to follow him. So verse 11, and as for you also, because of my blood covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. So now he's turning to Israel, he sang I will set you free from the dungeons waterless Pit and the people of Israel will get to return to their strongholds and be restored double. But even better than that, actually, because in Christ, God's people, the people of Israel, who are now in Jesus Christ, we don't get the ancient strongholds and double the land of Israel. What a tiny piece of Earth. What we get is a rule from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth by the power of the word, and especially on the day of the resurrection. What a joy to have this. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai