In today's passage we find a delegation of men coming from Bethel to ask a question regarding the observance of a fast. Zechariah gives them the answer he receives from God.
"In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, in the month of Kislev. The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, 'Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?'" (Zechariah 7:1-3) The rebuilding of the temple took a great leap forward in the second year of King Darius and it was completed in the king's sixth year. Here in Chapter 7 the rebuilding is about halfway complete, so the people of Bethel want to know whether they should keep observing a period of mourning and fasting that commemorates the destruction of the first temple.
The day of mourning and fasting took place on the tenth day of the fifth month because, "On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down." (Jeremiah 52:12-13)
We might expect Zechariah to speak comforting words to this delegation. We might think he's going to tell the people to stop looking backward and start looking forward. But instead the Lord reveals the hypocrisy of their hearts to the prophet and he calls them out for it. "Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: 'Ask all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, was it really for Me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?'" (Zechariah 7:4-7)
The Lord says it's immaterial to Him whether they continue to observe a fast that He never commanded them to observe. The only fasting the Lord ever commanded was to take place on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) which coincidentally begins this very evening of September 29, 2017. In His reply to the delegation who asked about the fast of the fifth month, the Lord mentions not only the fast of the fifth month, but the fast of the seventh month that had to do with the assassination of the Jewish governor Gedaliah. Gedaliah had been appointed by the king of Babylon to oversee the remnant of the people left in Judah. Gedaliah was the last Jewish man who held any authority in the region until King Darius appointed Zerubbabel governor of Judah. The Lord had not commanded the people to observe either the fast of the fifth month or the fast of the seventh month. True fasting to the Lord was to come to Him with repentant spirits and broken hearts, to mourn over their broken relationship with Him rather than to mourn over the destruction of the temple or the end of Jewish sovereignty over the holy land. In essence He's saying, "Your fasting has been about the things that happened as a result of falling away from Me. It has not been about feeling sorrowful that you fell away from Me in the first place. You want your temple back. You want your nation back. These things are understandable, but above all these things you should want Me back."
Lest we think we can point a finger at the people of Israel or shake our heads over their conduct, we must stop and consider the times we've mourned more over the consequences of our sins than over the sins themselves. Sin separates us from God and mars our relationship with Him. The distance sin creates between us and our Lord should break our hearts far more than any other consequences of our actions.
This is the fasting that is acceptable to the Lord, "And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: This is what the Lord Almighty said: "Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'" (Zechariah 7:8-10) The Lord asks, "Do you want to honor Me? Then treat your fellow man fairly. Love those around you and show compassion toward them. You know the commandments and the law: obey them. You can't say you love Me if you refuse to obey Me." The Lord Jesus said the same thing in John 14:15, "If you love Me, keep My commands." We can't claim to love the Lord while living in opposition to Him. The proof of our love is in the way we conduct our lives.
The Lord reminds the people that their ancestors refused to heed the warnings of the prophets. The destruction of the temple and the loss of their sovereignty over the land was a direct result of their refusal to listen. "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by His spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry. 'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the Lord Almighty. 'I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.'" (Zechariah 7:11-14) He reminds them, "Your circumstances of today, and of the past seventy years, are a result of refusing to hear My words. Do not ignore the prophet Zechariah as you ignored the prophets of the past. The Babylonians aren't to blame for what happened to you; you are to blame for what happened to you. Now you have an opportunity to move forward. I'm giving you a fresh start, so begin in the right spirit."
The Lord could point His finger at each of us and say the same thing about all the unpleasant consequences we've ever suffered because of our sins: "You are to blame for what happened to you." Or, as the prophet Isaiah put it, it was our sins that separated us from our God. (Isaiah 59:2) But thanks be to God, just as He offered His covenant people a fresh start, He offers us all a fresh start. We don't have to repeat the mistakes of the past. We don't have to live unfulfilling lives separated from fellowship with our God. As the saying goes, when we feel far from God, we are the ones who moved. But thankfully He makes us the same offer He made to the people of Zechariah's day, "Return to Me and I will return to you." (Zechariah 1:3)
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