In Thursday's study we looked ahead to a final battle on earth, one that will be waged over the ancient soil of Jerusalem. God promised to deliver His people Himself. No credit was given to brilliant battle strategy or to the superior training of Israel's soldiers or to advanced military weaponry. Israel's defender in that battle is going to be God. Israel's defender has always been God. Because He is going to deliver her unharmed from the battle of the end times, she is going to turn to Him like never before. The King she previously rejected is going to become indescribably precious to her.
After the battle has been won, the Lord says, "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication." (Zechariah 12:10a) The dictionary describes grace as "the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings". In Chapter 11 we found Zechariah, in acting out the role of the Good Shepherd, breaking the shepherd's staff that had been named "Favor". This represented God taking His protective hand off of Jerusalem and the temple during the days of the Roman Empire following the crucifixion of Christ, but it did not indicate a permanent severing of God's grace toward Israel.
God is not only going to pour out free and unmerited favor, but He is going to bestow what just may be the greatest gift of all: a spirit of supplication. The dictionary defines "supplication" as "an act of humble prayer, entreaty, or petition". What better gift could we receive from God than a spirit that seeks after Him and longs to know Him? Left to our own devices, we tend to wander from Him. If He had not created us with a hollow place inside our souls that only He could fill, would we ever lift our hands to Him in supplication? Would we ever call out His name? God is promising His people a gift that never stops giving. He will pour out His grace on them by giving them a spirit that seeks Him, and in return for seeking Him, He will pour out even more grace. It's a never-ending circle of blessing.
What we should find most stunning about our passage today is that God pours out the spirit of grace and supplication on His people not when they are at their best, but after they have already pierced the King who came in the name of the Lord. "They will look on Me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son." (Zechariah 12:10b) This sorrow is godly sorrow, not the type of sorrow that leads to feelings of condemnation. It's the type of sorrow the Apostle Paul said was good for us, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret." (2 Corinthians 7:10a) What greater grace can there be than this? God gives us a spirit of supplication that brings us to repentance, and then He accepts our repentance! The entire work of salvation, from beginning to end, is God's alone. In our passage yesterday we found Him supernaturally delivering His people from their human enemies, but His greatest work on mankind's behalf is His supernatural deliverance from sin.
Who is "the one they have pierced"? It is God who is speaking. He has been speaking of Himself and what He intends to accomplish. The One who was pierced is God in the person of the Son, the King who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to shouts of praise containing Messianic phrases only to be pierced by nails and thorns and a sword several days later. This is the Good Shepherd and the King of the book of Zechariah. This is the One who "came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him" in the gospel according to John. This is the only child of the living God, the firstborn Son, the One whose birth the prophet Isaiah announced like this, "For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over His kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this." (Isaiah 9:6-7) How can the One who was rejected and pierced reign from David's throne forever? How can those who pierced Him find healing in His wounds? Because "the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this"! It is God alone, through grace alone, who bestows upon any of us the favor we couldn't earn and didn't deserve.
Before we conclude the final verses of Chapter 12 we need to stop and consider the fact that we all pierced our King. Both Jews and Gentiles participated in the crucifixion. It was the Jewish religious leaders who cried out, "Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar!" But they could not have put Jesus to death without the help of the Roman Empire. Under Roman rule, the Jews could not carry out the death penalty on anyone. Only a Roman citizen who held the rank of governor or higher could sign a death warrant. It may have been the Jews who cried out to Pontius Pilate to crucify the King, but it was the Gentiles who nailed Him to the cross. We all contributed to His death because we have all sinned. We earned the death penalty for ourselves but our King extended unmerited grace to us when "He took up our pain and bore our suffering...He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:4-6)
Zechariah tells us what happens when God's people accept their King, "On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be as great as the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives, the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, and all the rest of the clans and their wives." (Zechariah 12:11-14) The nation mourned and wept bitterly when the godly King Josiah of Judah was killed at Hadad Rimmon. His death was a great loss to the nation, but an even greater loss to the nation was sustained when the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. A day is coming in which Israel will accept the King she once scorned and all twelve tribes will be united in the worship of the Son of David and Son of God. Zechariah describes for us the weeping that will occur when at last the King is accepted by His own. This weeping is not the weeping of the lost, but of the rescued. This mourning is not the mourning of the condemned, but of those whose freedom has been won by their King. None of us comes to godly repentance without also mourning that our sins pierced the Son of God. We each had a hand in His suffering and death. It is grace alone that compels Him to offer us the opportunity to also share in His glory.
We conclude today with this worship song link whose lyrics are drawn from Isaiah 53. It speaks of the One who was pierced for us.
By His Wounds
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