On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. – Zechariah 12:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 27, 2017): Zechariah 12 & 13

The famous parking garage where Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein met with their informant regarding the Watergate break-ins is set to be demolished. Woodward and Bernstein met with their informant, who they had code-named “Deep Throat” after a 1970 pornographic movie, six times in following the 1972 break-ins. The meeting place was always the same – stall 32D within the otherwise unassuming parking complex in Arlington, Virginia. No one knew the true identity of “Deep Throat” except for Woodward and Bernstein until 2005. Woodward had repeatedly denied that the informant was in any way connected with the intelligence community, but in 2005 former FBI Assistant Director Mark Felt admitted that he was the mysterious source. Felt died in 2008.

Felt had seen all of the documents regarding the break-ins cross his desk in 1972 and believed that he had to do something. His revelations resulted in a scandal that eventually forced the resignation of the President of the United States – Richard Nixon. Nixon’s resignation and subsequent pardon saved him from criminal charges, but Watergate was an event that Richard Nixon never really recovered from – it was an immovable object that shaped the rest of Nixon’s life and the way that we remember both the man and the presidency - thus the title “scandal” is appropriately applied.

The word scandal literally means “a stone of stumbling.” Zechariah says that in that day, the Day of the Lord, Jerusalem will be like an immovable rock, a stone of stumbling, a scandal to the nations. No matter how they try, Israel will not be moved. And those who try to move it will only end up injuring themselves.

This passage is usually considered to be messianic in nature. Once again, we see the use of the imagery of stone. And it seems that this might be the image that Jesus was referring to as he describes the Kingdom of God in Matthew 21 –

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. ⁴⁴ Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed” (Matthew 21:42-44).

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Zechariah 14