Zechariah 8:20-23 Let Us Go With You!

 

Observation: It's been a rough road for Jerusalem. After seventy years in exile in Babylon, the Jews have returned to a city, and a Temple, in ruin. Restoring and rebuilding their city, their Temple, and their nation, is a monumental task. Yet Zechariah lays out a prophetic vision that one day Jerusalem will be a spiritual center, not just for his fellow Jews, but even for people from foreign lands across the globe. 

Application: I was born in 1981. In the United States, for the entire time I've been alive, participation in churches, and in the Christian faith in general, has been declining in numbers. Of course, many individual congregations and movements here have experienced explosive growth. In other parts of the world--Africa, for instance--Christianity is growing. But here in America, the trend has been downward. That's a reality I've lived with as a Christian for as long as I've been alive.

Even before a global pandemic disrupted our congregations, Christians in this country had some rebuilding to do, much like the people of Jerusalem after their exile. We're not rebuilding the past, but building up a Christian life that we can pass down to future generations. It'll have to look different from the way our grandparents practiced their faith, and that's okay.  With that lifelong task ahead of us, Zechariah's vision is exactly what we need. We need to remember that the Lord we worship is mighty, but more importantly the Lord is supremely good. The Lord is someone worth knowing: someone our friends and neighbors will want to know, once they get to know us and what God has done in our lives. God is so good that, if folks knew what they were missing out on, Zechariah's vision would come true. We'd have ten people at once, from nations across the world, grabbing us by the lapels and saying, "let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you!" Mind you, that vision is not ours to accomplish--only God can do it--but it's one to keep in mind when we're becoming forgetful. We are so very blessed to know God. 

Prayer: God, thank you for being you. Thank your for your grace and mercy from the dawn of time, and into eternity. Help me to remember how good you are to me every day. Help me to share your goodness with everyone I meet today, Amen.