Today’s Scripture Reading (July 24, 2017):
Zechariah 9
When I was a kid, I remember playing a game of hockey in
which I didn’t have the correct Jersey to wear. All of the players on the team
had jerseys with a number and a name on the back of it. I was a late addition
to the team, so my Jersey had the wrong name on it. I remember the first game I
played in was an away game and one player was getting on the fans nerves. For
some reason, they really didn’t like this
guy. My problem was that I didn’t recognize the name of the person they were
upset with as a person that played for our team until – yeah – I took my Jersey
off at the end of the game and found the name at which everyone was screaming. After
the game, I received the message that I
hadn’t understood during the heat of the play.
One of the stumbling blocks to
the Christian faith is the crucifixion of Jesus. We don’t understand the crucifixion on a few levels – but one is how a
father could sacrifice his own son. It is
a good question. And it probably doesn’t
have a good answer, but …
Zechariah is right. The
signature on the first covenant between God and man was signed in blood – the
blood of animals. God promised to do as he said he would as long as the
recipients were ethically responsible – that is, as long as they reflected the
character and image of God in the world in which he had placed us. In a fallen
world, that was a daunting task, so the
blood of animals sacrificed stressed both the importance of the covenant and
man’s inability to reflect God’s character without God’s help. One of the major
weaknesses was that it required a functioning temple. If the temple was ever
destroyed (as it has been), then the
sacrifices could no longer be offered.
So God was about to change the
covenant. Just before the second temple was
destroyed – God signed a new covenant with the blood of his son. In
doing so, he wrote his name on our Jerseys. As we move through our days, it is
his name that people see. And the question that they are asking is “does this
Jesus, whose name you bear, really make a difference in your life?” And when I hear
people speak against Christ, the truth is
that it is not because somehow Christ has failed, but we who bear his name have
failed. We have not been the force for good, for peace, for the release of the
prisoners, that Christ’s presence in our lives should have made us. Instead, we
are judgmental and have worked to keep those who disagree with us in their prisons.
We have failed; I have failed, not Christ.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Zechariah 10
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