About this sermon
Zechariah’s last night vision shows chariots going out to the ends of the earth, and the prophet sets a crown on the high priest Joshua and names the Branch who will build the Lord’s temple and bear royal honor as priest on his throne. At the birth of John the Baptist, his father Zechariah sang of the God who had visited his people and raised up a horn of salvation in the house of David. John came in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the way for Christ, the priest-king in whom the whole Bible’s message meets.
Sermon transcript
The Holy Scriptures come to us from two great texts, texts rarely preached, I fear. Zechariah 6, 1-15, Luke 1, 57-80. Let us then pay due heed to the Word of God. First, from the prophet Zechariah. Chapter 6, 1-15. I looked again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains, mountains of bronze. The first chariot had red horses, the second black, the third white, the fourth dappled, all of them powerful. I asked the angel who was speaking to me, What are these, my lord? The angel answered, These are the four spirits of heaven going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world. The one with the black horses is going toward the north country. the one with the white horses toward the west, and the one with the dappled horses toward the south.
When the powerful horses went out, they restrained him to go throughout the earth. And so he said, go throughout the earth. And they went throughout the earth. Then he called to me, see, those going toward the north country have given my spirit rest in the land of the north.
The word of the Lord then came to me. Take silver and gold from the exiles, Haldai, Tobai, and Jediah, who have arrived from Babylon, and go the same day to the house of Josiah, son of Zephaniah. Take the silver and the gold, and make crowns. And set one on the head of the high priest Joshua, son of Jehoshadak.
Tell him, this is what the Lord Almighty says. There is a man whose name is Branch. And he will branch out from his place and will build the temple of the Lord. It is he who will build the temple of the Lord. And he will be clothed with majesty and sit and rule on his throne. And there will be a priest upon his own throne. And there will be a covenant of peace between the two of them. The crown will be given to Heldi, to Lai, to Dai, and Han, the son of Zephaniah, as a memorial in the temple of the Lord. Those who are far off will come and help to build the temple of the Lord, and then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. This will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God.
So far the reading from the Old Testament, and now the reading from the New, from the Gospel of Luke. The story of another Zechariah, this Zechariah the priest, husband of Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary, and the father of John the Baptist. Luke chapter 1 verses 57 through 80. When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.
On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father, Zechariah. But his mother spoke up and said, no, he is to be called John. They said to her, there’s no one among your relatives who has that name. So they made signs to his father to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment, he wrote, his name is John.
Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed and he began to speak, praising God. The neighbors were filled with awe. And throughout the hill country of Judea, people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, what then is this child going to be?
For the Lord’s hand was with him. His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has come and redeemed His people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he said long ago through his holy prophets, salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham, to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear, with holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, my child, will be called prophet of the Most High. For you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the path of peace. and the child grew and became strong in spirit and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel. The word of the Lord for the people of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
It is an odd and blessed thing that a great deal of Old Testament prophecy is actually about a figure that we often consider minor, not now one of the minor prophets, but John the Baptist. The New Testament gives attention to him mainly in the Gospel of Luke. There we have the long story of his birth. The other Gospels give briefer attention, but all four present him as the forerunner. who fulfills prophecy, and the two best-known prophecies, maybe they’re very well-known partly because of Handel’s Messiah, but the two best-known prophecies are that one from Isaiah 40, a voice preaching in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. There’s a text quoted by John in his preaching in the desert. Mark chapter one, Matthew chapter three, the gospel of Luke, they all do it.
And also that prediction from Malachi chapter 3 and from chapter 4, behold I’m going to send you my messenger, Malachi 3.1. And in fact the word Malachi itself means my messenger. The name of the prophet, or the name of the book at least, matches the name in chapter 3 of that book, verse 1. I’m going to send my messenger who will prepare the way.
And then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. Malachi 3. And by the very end of that book, again the prediction reasserted that before the great and terrible day of the Lord, I’m going to send you Elijah the prophet who will restore the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse. That last word of Malachi is the word curse. For you Bible students at Geneva, you might recognize the word harem. One of the more terrifying words in the Old Testament. And Jericho put upon the ban of Sarum, devoted to destruction. A terrifying word.
And so in rabbinic liturgy, the previous clause is then repeated in the reading of that passage. Behold, I’m going to send you Elijah the prophet. The reading ends with that. Elijah the prophet. And since this is the end of the reading of all the prophets in synagogue liturgy, the congregation then shouts, Chazak, be strong. You do that when you finish Torah, Chazak, be strong. You do that when you finish the prophets, Chazak, be strong.
And you do that when you finish the writings, the three great divisions of the Hebrew Bible, which correspond exactly to our books, but in a different order. All right, Chazak, three times. We have it for Joshua 1. We have it for Malachi 1, the threefold Chazak. The exhortation to be strong and courageous for the Lord your God is with you. All right, so Elijah the prophet coming.
And in the New Testament we learn that this Elijah is actually not literally Elijah, though the crowds wonder whether that is true. And the particular child of Herod the Great who beheads John the Baptist wonders whether Jesus is in fact John the Baptist come back from the dead. Okay, all kinds of superstitious opinions are out there in that ancient world of first century Palestine.
And when John is asked by the Pharisees, by emissaries from the Pharisees, are you Elijah? I am not, he says. Well, who are you then? on a voice, crying in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths. That is a cry for repentance, yes, even to the Pharisees who seemed to be so meticulous in the way they obeyed, but they were not.
And so we find then in the words of Jesus this astonishing statement, that if you can accept it, He is the Elijah who was to come. What does that sentence mean, if you can accept it? It seems to mean this. If you can bend your foolish rule of hyper-literalism, all right, he is an Elijah literally. But if you can bend your rule of hyper-literalism, which is not the way to approach the Bible, well, sometimes, sometimes not. But if you can bend that rule, he is the Elijah who was to come. And so our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that we are to receive John the Baptist as the Elijah of the prophecy.
And Jesus goes on to say, what did you go out to the desert to see? A wreath swayed by the wind? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes appear in king’s palaces. What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes! And I’m more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, I send my messenger ahead of you who prepare your way before you.
Malachi 3.1. And the very next sentence is astonishing.
Truly I tell you, among those born of women, there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist. John the Baptist, the greatest of all those born up to that point. Well, okay, there is one greater, and we know his name. And then Jesus finishes that sentence with this, yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. That’s another astonishment.
To be least in the kingdom of heaven is to be the least of all Christians. and yet greater than John? The teaching seems to be this, that John is the greatest of all the Old Testament saints. And John, in fact, is presented by the New Testament as something like the end of the Old Testament, oddly enough, even though his story is told in Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, and again the book of Acts a little bit. All right, there is his story in New Testament texts, but he’s presented as the greatest of the Old greater than Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel.
It’s astonishing. And if you’re willing to accept it, Matthew 11 verse 14, He is the Elijah who was to come. Whoever has ears, let him hear. Yet, whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Astonishing statement. That is, by virtue of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, The greater, deeper, more powerful spirituality is upon us, and the New Testament calls it the Kingdom of Heaven. Not that it was absent before, no, no, no. But now present in a far more powerful and intimate way.
And so, yes, the Elijah who was to come to prepare the way for a new and wonderful achievement in the redemption of the world. The disciples ask, why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first? And Jesus answers, to be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. That sounds like still future, but the very next sentence is this. But I tell you, Elijah has already come.
And they did not recognize him. but have done to him everything they wished, in the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer out their hands, then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.” Who is this character? John’s Gospel says he came as a witness to testify of the light. John’s Gospel says he was a bright and shining light. And as we read the whole story of John, we see in Luke 1, verse 5, that his parents are priests.
His father, Zechariah, struck dumb. I didn’t read that part of the story, but struck dumb while in the sanctuary of the temple doing his rotation duty as one of the priests of Israel. And there were so many priests in that time that they had to cast lots to see who would serve in the temple on a particular day. And at last, after years of waiting, it seems, Zechariah, the priest, gets to serve. And while there, at the altar of incense, inside the holy place, the angel Gabriel appears and predicts the birth of a son. And Zechariah, the prophet, hardly believes it.
How can this happen? We’re old. Elizabeth, she’s old. How can this happen? You’ve got to be kidding me. All right, you’re going to be struck dumb, says the angel. Until these things are fulfilled. And by the way, the boy’s going to be called John. John. Notice how the neighbors respond to the name. Nobody in your family has ever been called that. And here’s one of the weirder features of our story. Can you tell I like the weird features of Bible stories? Okay. Yeah. All right. So here’s one of the weird features of Bible stories.
Priestly families tended to name their kids after the grandfather, which meant you had three generations of, you know, rotation of names. And yeah, you get the name back. So here we have a priest named Zechariah, who’s the father of, well, nobody in the family line ever had that name. Ah, you can’t name him that. You’re a priest, right? You can’t do that. But Elizabeth says, no, his name is John. And the neighbors say, all right, well, let’s ask the daddy. And into their astonishment, Zechariah writes out, his name is John.
In Hebrew, Yochanan, Yahweh has shown grace. Pretty good name for the forerunner, eh? Because Christ is incarnate grace, the greatest expression of grace in all the history of the world. God incarnate, God in flesh, Immanuel. And so the one who announces such grace, how else could he be named? But Yohanan, Yahweh has shown grace.
And this also raises the question whether a priest named Zechariah might be even descended from a much earlier priest named Zechariah, namely Zechariah the prophet, who is a priest in Jerusalem, and whose grandfather, Ido, was one of the 12 chief priests at the time the temple was rebuilt. And in the very next generation of time, when we see another list of chief priests, the 12 of them, Zechariah the prophet’s name is on that list too. Nehemiah chapter 12. Now that’s speculation, but could it be, could it be that Zechariah the prophet is the great, great, great, great, great, great, whatever, grandfather of this Zechariah, the father of John?
We don’t know, of course, but the habit of priestly naming is traceable over many, many generations. And I’ve even read the doctoral dissertation that demonstrates it. Not one of the more exciting books in the world. That’s certainly true. Notice what else then about John. Okay, we see then that he’s a priest. John is a priest. And you may know that in the book of Leviticus, one of the duties of priests was to oversee the ritual washings that guaranteed ritual purity or kosher purity for tabernacle and later for temple and for all of Jewish life.
If you violated ritual purity, you were temporarily cast out of the worshiping congregation. You could not go to tabernacle or later temple. And when ritual purity was restored, then okay, you’re back in. And the principal way of restoring ritual purity was by washings. And if any particular object was defiled, say by blood or excrement or various other substances in the mortal world, all right, you wash the object. And when the sun went down, the new ritual day begins, and the object now is ritually pure. A person who’s defiled, maybe they have to wait a certain number of days, but then they wash, and when the sun goes down, the new ritual day, the day at the time of the evening sacrifice, the person is now ritually clean.
And these washings were overseen by the priest and the Levites. Baptism by John. is certainly rooted in the ancient customs taught by Moses of ritual washing. Certainly so. And so we see that in his work of baptism, John is being something like a super priest.
And he’s proclaiming that even good kosher Israelites must be washed for the forgiveness of sins. and repent of sins in preparation for the coming of the one who is grace incarnate, the Emmanuel, the Christ, who comes in the aftermath of the announcements of this Elijah, not Elijah literally back from the dead, but Elijah, the spirit and power of Elijah, now inhabiting John the Baptist, the son of a priest, the son whose mother was also a descendant of Aaron. as Luke 1.5 tells us. We see more about this man.
Luke 1.14, you’re going to have a son, and you’re going to call him John, and he will be a joy and a delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth.
You parents in the room, you know what that’s like. You rejoice at the birth of a child. You rejoice. But usually that joy is limited to friends and family. Nobody else pays a whole lot of attention. Friends and family, they do. But notice what this text says. Many will rejoice. And, verse 15. He will be great in the sight of the Lord. Not many are called that. Abraham gets that. David gets that. Jesus gets it big time, of course. He’ll be great in the sight of the Lord.
And then we have this strange provision often overlooked about John. He is never to take wine or any other fermented drink. That’s the law of the Nazarites. Remember the Nazarites? Forbidden to cut their hair lifelong. Samson, okay. Samuel is under that rule as well, from birth. Lifelong Nazarites. Not every Nazarite was lifelong. Most were not. Usually a temporary vow. But during the time of the vow, Paul was under the vow for a while, a couple of weeks or months. Under that vow, you do not touch a dead body. You do not have anything fermented. No wine, no raisin cakes, nothing that might have alcoholic fermentation in it. And so John is never to have wine or fermented drink.
That’s a Nazarite rule. So we see then that he is not just a priest, he’s a super-priest. Because Nazarite rules were to render the laity as pure as priests. And we see that he is in the spirit and power of Elijah, verse 17, to turn the hearts of the parents of their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. That’s prophetic work. So John is priest and Nazarite and prophet all at once. And Jesus will say that he is, of all those born of women, none greater than John. Now I needed to ask a question and I forgot to ask it. Do you have the handout? Steve, did you give them the handout? Okay, they’ve got the handout. Okay, so where am I on this page? Nowhere yet. Okay.
So in our Zechariah now, how does this tie in? It is one of the more difficult things to discover in the Bible, but it is fact that Zechariah chapter 6 anticipates John the Baptist. Nearly every serious reader of the Bible understands that John is anticipated by Isaiah 40 because he quotes the vines. In the desert, make way. makes straight his path, the way of the Lord, a highway for our God. Nearly every serious reader of the Bible understands that Malachi 3 is in anticipation of John the Baptist. Okay, I’m going to send my messenger who prepares the way before you. Both those texts quoted persistently by the New Testament Gospels. What is not well known, and I will confess I did not know this until about 10 years ago, what is not well known is that Zechariah 6 likewise anticipates John the Baptist.
Now, in translating this text, I found that it’s one of the most difficult texts to translate in all the Old Testament. I’ve taught Bible translation for, let’s see, 29 years. That’s a long time. I learned Hebrew when I was 19. I’m 64. That’s a long time. I’ve worked with these texts for a long time, and there is scarcely a text more difficult to translate than Zechariah 6, verses 9 through 15.
And as we approach this text, we see that this is at the very end of the night visions. I have preached most of those night visions to you over the last several months. Everything from Zechariah 1, verse 7, the angelic horseman, the first of the visions pronouncing peace, in the world and therefore the right time to restore Jerusalem and its temple all the way down to the woman in the basket and the flying scroll. And today we read the eighth of the visions, the angelic chariots.
And the point of that is that the time of wrath is over. God’s spirit of anger, anger at the nations, anger at his own people, has been appeased in the land of the north from which invasions had always come. Babylonians came from the land of the north around the fertile crescent to attack Jerusalem and Judah. That north country is now pacified. My spirit is now at rest in the land of the north. Zechariah 8.
And so the time of restoration is here. 519 BC, time to build the temple, and they’re building it. Time to reestablish the institutions taught by Moses, and they’re doing it. Time to rebuild the city, and it’s being rebuilt. And in that circumstance, we then close the sequence of night visions with an extraordinary event in Jerusalem, the making of crowns and a public coronation. Verse 10, take silver and gold from the exiles, Haldai, Tavai, Tedai, who have arrived from Babylon. These are Jews bringing the tribute of wealthy Jews, and maybe middle class ones too, in Babylon, bringing their wealth and offering to the newly building temple there in Jerusalem. Solomons have been gilded in gold. Herods, they would be covered, whole sheets of gold over the walls. It was astonishing. This temple has almost none. In fact, I would say this temple has none up to this point.
And these exiles return from Babylon bringing the offerings of the exiled Jews, those who have not come home. And they bring silver and gold. So go on that same day, when these people arrive, go to the house of Josiah, son of Zephaniah, and make crowns. Perhaps this Josiah is a metal worker, maybe he’s a goldsmith, we do not know. But somehow the house of Josiah becomes the place where such things are made. And our translations now have difficulties with verse 11. Make a crown? That’s what the NIV says. Make crowns, that’s the King James Version. Make an ornate crown, that’s the New American Standard. Make crowns, that’s the Anchor Bible. Make a crown, that’s the New American Bible.
And we have translational disarray. Partly because of the over-willingness of people to amend the Hebrew text. Now for those who know a little bit of Hebrew, that’s a few of you, you know that is the feminine plural ending. How many have had Hebrew in my classroom?
So a few hands going up. Okay, so ot, feminine plural ending. Ateret, crown, or ata, crown. Aterot is the word here. It’s a plural. Now maybe it’s a double crown, so the New American Standard guesses an ornate crown. Okay, a hyper elaborate crown could be one in plural, and the kings of Egypt wore a double crown. The crown of Upper Egypt and of Lower, symbolizing the union of two competing realms in about 3000 BC, and so Pharaoh’s crown is a double crown. Is that what’s in view here?
No. And I think clearly the New American Standard is wrong. King James crowns. That’s right. That’s the word. NIV amends the text, changes the vows. Okay, that’s possible. You can do that. Because sometimes the scribes don’t get it right. That’s sometimes true. And by close comparison of text with text, ancient versions, Dead Sea Scrolls in Hebrew, various considerations like this, sometimes we are bold to follow a manuscript that’s not the majority or the rabbinic standard. All right, sometimes we do this. We do it with great care. with pious devotion, sometimes with fear and trembling.
The United did it. Make a crown. I’ve done it in various texts. I’m not going to blame the translators as disloyal. No, they’re strong inerrantists. They love God. They love the Bible. They assert the inerrancy of the text. In their judgment, they think it’s aterit, a singular noun. Not impossible. But notice by verse 14 that there shall be a covenant of peace between the two of them. The two of whom?
Well, it seems that there are two crown figures. One will be the future king, the branch, a title associated with David’s descendants. The other shall be a future priest, a descendant of Aaron. And so in my reading of the text, I’m convinced reasonably, okay, maybe not unshakably, but reasonably, that there are two crowns. One is to be a priestly crown, and one is to be a royal crown. And notice what happens in the text. One crown, verse 14, will be given to Heldah, Tobiah, Jediah, and Henn, the son of Zephaniah, to be placed as a memorial, a remembrance, in the temple of the Lord. What happens to the crown?
Verse 11, set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua. It seems that we have this scenario, that Joshua, the high priest of that time is going to be crowned, maybe in silver. Because he’s functioning as high priest in that time, and he’s the gift of God to them. And in chapter three, we saw that he was ordained by heaven and given in heavenly vision, an ornate crown. Put a clean turban on his head. says Zechariah the prophet. So they put a clean turban on his head. Zechariah 3 around verse 5 or 6. Alright, so there is Joshua the High Priest crowned in the vision of chapter 3 and crowned here in a ceremony in the streets of Jerusalem, I’m sorry, in the public square of Jerusalem in Zechariah 6. But there’s a peace, there’s peace between the two of them. Who are the two? It seems necessary that there are two crowns, two thrones, and two figures.
And so I anticipate this in the text. That there is one crown there upon the head of Joshua signifying his current role 519 BC as the spiritual leader and high priest of the people. But the branch That man is future. And so the other crown is held on reserve as a remembrance in the temple of the Lord. It is a sign of things to come. What things to come? The sign that the branch of David, the righteous branch is going to come and that crown announces the certainty of the coming. That is, In future, there is a future priest and a future Davidic king. Now, why do I think the future priest is actually John the Baptist? Have you figured out that’s where I’m going with this? John the Baptist? Here it is.
The word branch, zemach in Hebrew, is translated anatole in Greek. Anatole is a new sprig of growth out of the ground. And so David’s trunk has been cut off, the trunk of David’s tree, the root of Jesse is still alive, but the tree has been cut. That was the end of the dynasty’s rule in Jerusalem in 587. No Davidic kings upon the throne thereafter. The line of David, though, survived because God had promised that there would always be a man from the line of David. There would always be one, always be a successor. And so out of that growth ring of the living tree, though the tree is cut off, a new trunk begins to grow and in Hebrew we call that Tzemach.
In Greek you call that Anatole. Uprising. And uprising is also the word for sunrise. Anatole. It’s also the word for east and sunrise and so Turkey is Anatolia from the Greek point of view. The land of sunrise. Turn now to Luke chapter 1 and the song of Zechariah the prophet.
And hiding there in the Greek, though not in English, not clear in English, is the link, which I only discovered about 10 years ago. Look at Luke 1, 76 and following. You, my child, shall be called prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him. All right, preparing the way, that’s Isaiah 40. That’s Malachi 3, verses 1 and 2.
To give His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun, the Anatole, will come from heaven. Zechariah’s hearers would have heard that in Hebrew or in Aramaic. And it would have been the word Zemach. in their hearing, the uprising, the rising sun to shine upon those living in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace. Hence our text in Zechariah anticipates John the Baptist, the priest who was more than priest, the prophet who was more than prophet, the Nazarite who was more than Nazarite, the Elijah who was to come, the greatest of all those born of woman, And so by prophetic figure, two crowns made in Jerusalem, anticipating the messianic future, the forerunner, like a priest, yes, a priest, and the messianic king, the branch of David.
And notice what is said then in that time, there’ll be harmony between the two of them, peace. And verse 15, Zechariah 6, Those who are far away will come and help to build the temple of the Lord.” Now, wait a minute. In Zechariah’s own time, they’re building the temple. And they’re going to finish it.
Chapter 3 said that the governor, Zerubbabel, his hands have founded this temple, his hands will complete it. But this governor is not the zemach, the branch, the branch who is yet to come. He is the ancestor of the branch. He’s named in Matthew one as one of the ancestors of Jesus. He is not the branch.
And so the temple that shall be built in verse 15 by those in future who come from far away is not the literal temple of stone and mortar and timber and brick, whatever it may be. It’s the spiritual temple of the church of Jesus. And Peter tells us that we are being built a spiritual temple. And that we are living stones.
And so we see in this very strange text then, surprises and richness and wonders. Surprise. That such a text as obscure as this should anticipate someone so well known to us as John. For two. the richness of Holy Scripture that anticipates in surprising ways out of the darkness of weird things in Hebrew and a song by a priest who has been struck dumb in the temple, that out of these things comes the glory and the certainty that the gospel is true and that things have been fulfilled by ancient prophecy. and are to be received by us as matters of joy and confidence in what God has done.
John comes not by merely the power of man. Parents old pastime, like Abraham and Sarah. Jesus himself, born of a virgin. These things are not by the power of any human person. They come by the will of God alone. And so we rejoice in the good things that God has done. And we see that the whole Bible gives one message. And even a strange, strange text like Zechariah 6, the hardest text I’ve ever had to figure out to translate, preaches gospel.
And so what is history? Well, the old joke is that it’s his story, history, his story. And Jesus said, this is the last several lines on that page you’ve got, that salvation is from the Jews. That is, Jewish history is the source of Christian gospel. and what God did with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Sarah, and Rachel, and Rebecca, and Leah, and down to the time of Joshua, the high priest, and his priestly colleagues, and Zechariah, the prophet, 519 BC, that even these things are foundation stones to the Christian gospel, and that redemptive history is the foremost thing upon the mind of God.
And one glorious thread laces all the Bible, the story of redemption, and even such a tiny thing as this, the making of crowns, a sign of gospel. You might ask what happened to those crowns. Notice the last line of text. All this will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God. Was Judah, was Jerusalem diligently obedient for all that waiting time of 400, 500 years? No, they were not.
And in the days of the Maccabees, the terrifying, paganizing king named Antiochus IV, the Greek, rode 170 BC, 175 BC to 164 BC. Antiochus was desperate for gold because he had to pay 12,000 talents of it to the Romans every year. His troops then went raiding the temple treasuries of everyone under their own, under their rule, including Jerusalem. And so they come to Jerusalem and they take the wealth they can. And there’s a separate sentence in first Maccabees that says this, the often overlook quote, and they took the crowns.
What crowns? Nobody knows for sure. But I think it’s these two crowns. All right, this will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God. There’s a conditionality there. All right, so some things did not survive the ordeals of disobedience and invasion. All right.
But is it nonetheless true that God would send his future priest, John, to wash Israel’s sins by baptism and the Messiah who must come to his temple and redeem the world. And so our stories, weak and paltry though they are, gain the deepest meaning when we trust this Jesus Christ who is that golden thread that links all of history together into one story. And as ancient Israel, ancient Judah awaited the time of fulfillment, 500 BC, 500 years of waiting. So we await the return of Christ, confident that he will come. He will. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Shall we pray?
Lord Jesus Christ, Yes, even through obscure and difficult texts you speak to us. So grant us then confidence that you rule not just the world, but our very lives. And that nothing can happen to us apart from your good pleasure and will. And that all things indeed work together for the good of those who love you. So bless us then in this time of, um, for many churches per Advent, for many of the thoughts of Christmas and incarnation, but bless us on this Lord’s day, that it might be truly the Lord’s day in our heart and mind and speech and action. And they might, we might reverence you then all the more deeply and ardently because of the confidence you build in us by your word and spirit.
And may we do the deed that John the Baptist so ardently proclaimed. to prepare the way for the Lord, to make straight His paths, and to shine light into the dark places of the earth, the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our only Savior. In your name we pray it, Lord Jesus. Amen. The hymn is Christ Whose Glory Fills the Skies, number 330.
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