Him Whom They Have Pierced (Zechariah 12:8-10; 13:1)

Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to Usun Churches Podcast.

We're a gospel centered church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

Our first reading this morning is from the Old Testament, the book of Zechariah, chapter 12, verses 8 to 10 and 13, number one.

Zechariah 12:8–10

On that day, the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord going before them.

And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come from Jerusalem.

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and please for mercy, so that when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an old child, only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.

On that day there shall be a fountain open for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from their sin and uncleanliness.

The word of the Lord.

And let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we come now to hear from you, to hear you speak directly to our hearts and our minds, regardless of the mood that we're in, Lord.

Help us to hear from you.

Lord, whether our weeks have been good or whether our weeks have been bad, Lord, we just desire to hear from you.

And we pray us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Get the cord out of the way.

So everyone likes a good underdog story.

And what I mean by underdog, I mean by um someone who's very weak or appears to be weak and uh rises up to the occasion.

The classic one that I'm gonna use here is like we all know who Rocky is, that movie, that movie series, where he Rocky is this guy who's kind of out of shape a bit, and um he gets back into shape and he gets into boxing and he rises up um through all the ranking of boxing, and then there's the big big boxing match, and he ends up gets pummeled for a bunch of rounds, then he wins at the end.

Um but he's the he's an underdog, and uh we love an underdog story.

We all do.

We all like reading about it, we like hearing about it.

And the text that we're looking at today is actually kind of like an underdog story that we're that we're looking at.

And the text we're gonna look at today is a Zechariah.

It's in your bulletin.

Um it's the first reading, it's what Margaret did.

So turn to Zechariah chapter 12.

Zechariah 12 · chapter mention

We'll look at verses 8 to 10 and 13, verse 1.

And the thing that's so interesting about Zechariah, I read it a couple times this week uh in preparing.

And it's one of those um Old Testament books where there's some wild visions, there's some wild dreams that go on in it, and you're left wondering what the heck is going on after uh you read it.

But the the con the way the book is set up is at the beginning, um, Zechariah, which overlaps, his ministry kind of overlaps with Haggai.

And their ministry at the time was after the exile, when the people of Israel are back in the land, and the temple has only had their only the foundations of the temple has been rebuilt, and then they stop doing it.

And the thing with that Zechariah does is that he calls the people back to faithfulness, to follow the commandments of God.

And he keeps calling them back to this.

So it opens up with this, and then it goes into these visions and dreams, and these dreams all point to the fact that they need to come back to God and be faithful to God.

And then at the end, there's another call for faithfulness, and then there's these oracles that happen.

And these oracles are a future vision of what it's gonna look like on that day of judgment when um when God comes back to his people.

And that's where this text, that's where we're finding this text in.

It's at the end of Zechariah.

After all these calls to be faithful to God, all these calls of these visions showing um how this faithfulness would work.

Um they're also um the people of Israel at this time, they're feeling they're feeling discouraged, they're feeling hopeless.

Um, in Jeremiah, Jeremiah prophesies that after 70 years that they return from exile, that they will um, that the Messiah would come.

And it's coming close to that 70 years, and it does not look like the Messiah is coming.

The temple isn't rebuilt, um, they're being persecuted all around themselves, um, everything appears to be going wrong for them.

So they feel discouraged.

And then Zechariah comes, and this is where the book uh starts and goes.

Calls them to turn back to God.

So, how are we, as we look at this text today, these couple of verses, I believe it's only it's only four or five verses, how are we supposed to um, in the context of this book, um approach it on a Sunday morning?

Well, we're gonna do it with three points.

And we're gonna do it like this the Lord strengthens the weak, the Lord protects the weak, and the Lord saves the weak.

Already it sounds like an underdog story, but there's something um quite different about it that's very fascinating and it's quite encouraging at the same time.

So the beginning of Zechariah chapters 1 to 8, it's a call to follow God, and there's visions.

Zechariah 1 · chapter mention

And then the end of Zechariah 9 to 14, there's the oracles of the future.

And here we go, that's where we're landing right now.

So we're gonna look at verse 8 of chapter 12, and it's the first point the Lord strengthens the weak.

On that day, the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord going before them.

So when it says when you read Zechariah, and when you get to these oracles at the end of the book, on that day, when it says on that day, multiple times, it actually says it around 14 times in this section.

And the thing about the Bible, when there's repetition, it means pay attention.

And what on that day means is that on the day when the Lord comes back in judgment of the world, it's not um a 24-hour period of time.

It's a time when the Lord will come into time and um do judgment.

It's not a separate, it's not a 24-hour period of time.

And it's not um, one commentator said, this isn't God's um, this is outside of God's providence.

God's providence is that he takes care of um, he governs and preserves his creation.

But this is a separate thing, like what God's doing here.

So on that day signifies that time when the Lord comes to judge.

And the inhabitants of Jerusalem means God's people.

Jerusalem means the habitation of peace, the place of peace.

It means God's dwelling, it means God's tabernacle with people, because God's temple is there.

But at the time, the temple is then rebuilt, so it's kind of confusing about what's going on.

And the house of David, David, famous king of the Israelites.

He is the he was the most powerful king of the Israelites, the most beloved.

You read Psalms, you see all his um writings are in Psalms.

He is the beloved king.

So when you see house of David, it signifies that this is the continuation of his line.

It's the continuation of that someone will sit on David's throne.

And we see that coming into um being through Zechariah prophesying it.

And he says that the feeble will become strong.

So when it says that, um, it's talking about those who are weak.

It's not the elites, it's those who are weak among the people, will be raised up and be almost, in a sense, become godlike.

It's not, they're not gonna become gods, but they're gonna become powerful.

Um, they're gonna become um, they're gonna become aware of who God is.

That's what's going on here.

And the angel of the Lord hearkens to an Exodus language, that they're gonna be led, like in Exodus, where they're led by the fire and by the cloud.

I know there's a lot of, I'm doing a lot of description here, but that's um when you come to these books, you need to, we need to really get the context in place to really understand about what is going on, what exactly is going on.

But this language is that God strengthens the weak.

It's not that God strengthens the strong, it's he strengthens the weak.

Because he says, On that day, the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David.

They shall be like the one who is after God's own heart.

They shall be the one who is a king.

They shall be like him, they shall be like God in that sense.

And then in the next part, it says in verse 9, On that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

So God here is promising protection of his people.

He's talking about that he will protect his people.

Israel, compared to the surrounding nations, are they small, they're weak, they're weak, and there's all these nations around them that seem so strong, so much mightier than them, but God promises to protect them.

He says, I will protect you.

In our um our our Canadian minds uh love this, love this idea of that these underdogs, these weak people are gonna be raised up against the strong.

We can't help but loving it.

We love a good story of an underdog coming being raised up, the weak rising up against the strong, the weak rising up against the oppressor.

This is the narrative that's all around us.

We live and breathe this narrative.

You can read a National Post article and it's that narrative.

You can read a CBC article and it's that narrative.

You go on Netflix or Amazon Prime, it's that narrative.

These are the things that do the get the most read and they get the most watched.

It's the underdog story, the weak becoming strong.

Because we all want to be the hero of our own story.

We all want to be the hero of the narrative that we live in our lives.

We don't want someone else doing it for us.

We want to be the ones who do it.

We live it, we breathe that idea.

But here we see that God is gonna be the one who does it.

So how does that play out?

Well, we see in verse 10 of what happens when Zechariah says, Zechariah says this, and I will pour out, he's saying, This is God speaking through Zechariah, and I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace, and please for mercy, that when they look on me and on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.

Now, right away, again, our Canadian minds are like, What's going on here?

Because now it's saying that the people are gonna plea for mercy.

This doesn't sound like that underdog story.

This sounds like something completely different.

So, what's going on in the text?

What is going on?

See, God is gonna make his people strong by raising them up in pleas of mercy.

It's a complete mind shift, it's complete opposite direction that we would expect, how God would work in the lives of his people.

See, the Bible is so countercultural.

The Lord strengthens the weak by repentance, the Lord protects the weak by prote by repentance, the Lord saves the weak by repentance.

Everything around us says otherwise.

Everything around us says we need to do it ourselves.

We need to rise up and be our hero.

But here we see that the Lord is the hero.

The Lord is the hero of the Bible, he's the hero of life.

But how does this happen?

How does he do this?

I don't know if anyone recognizes verse 10.

Does it sound familiar from anywhere else in the Bible?

See, verse 10 is a very famous verse.

And the thing about Zechariah, this book is actually quoted the most in the New Testament because there's so much language used of the Messiah.

And then you see this language played out in the Gospels because we see it.

Again, in verse 10, it says, I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, God's people, a spirit of grace, and the pleas for mercy, so that when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him.

The language is very New Testament sounding.

Because we see it, this language, we see it in John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

When this is at the end of John, when Jesus is on the cross, it says this.

19, verses 31 to 37.

It says this.

Since it was the day of preparation, and so that bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was a high day.

The Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken.

This is Jesus with the with the two thiefs on his sides.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the others who had been crucified with him.

But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead.

They did not break his legs.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

He who saw has borne witness.

His testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, that you also may believe.

Right here you see that prophecy being fulfilled in Jesus Christ on the cross.

That God's people will see Christ on the cross and repent.

They will see it.

Because the cross symbolizes that moment of when God comes, God comes into the world to save those he's called to himself, to save his people.

And that is the gospel.

And the gospel you see it played out from Genesis to the end of Revelation, that those who look upon the cross and repent, because they see that they could never do it themselves.

Because in Zechariah, it says that God's people are the ones who will plea for mercy because they are the ones who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

It's a humbleness, it's a seeing that you're weak, seeing that you need the Lord to make you strong.

It's not yourself to make you strong.

That is the good news of the Bible.

That we have a savior.

We have someone who is spoken about in the Old Testament and it's fulfilled in the New Testament, the person who walked among us, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

And in Philippians, Paul talks about this as well when he says in Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 to 11, he says this.

Philippians 2:1–11

If I can find Philippians.

He says this.

So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any partition participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

Therefore God has high highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

Here we see the true underdog story.

We see we see it play out.

We see that, see, we all want to be an underdog.

We all want to be the one who rises up to power.

But when we get elevated or powerful, we become the oppressor.

We become the one that surrounds God's people, or we become the one similar to that.

But when Jesus becomes elevated, through dying on the cross, he provides a way for those to be saved.

See, he became weak so that we may be right.

The book of Zechariah points to this moment of the cross, and you see it play out, and it's a call to God's people to repent and come to Him and follow Him.

That's how we see it.

That's what Zechariah is talking about here.

It points to the cross of Christ.

And there's great hope in Christ.

There's great hope that the weak, those who come and humble themselves before Christ, will be saved.

But Zechariah doesn't finish here.

He keeps going on in his oracles.

And in verse 1 of chapter 13, he says, On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sins and uncleanliness.

Do you remember the story of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well?

When he says to her, I have the water of li I have the living water.

The water you draw from this well, you'll be thirsty again.

But the water that I have will give you eternal life, and you'll never be thirsty again.

See, Jesus is the fountain of life.

Jesus is the one who will be with his people, with the new Jerusalem, with his people.

And it's all done through the working of the Holy Spirit that God pours out on his people, as you see here in Zechariah, and you see it play out.

There is great hope in Christ.

There's great hope.

See, today is my last day at New Song.

And it's been a privilege to be here.

And I leave here feeling very privileged to come and be your pastor and get to know you and get to just get to know your lives, who you are, and have good laughs together.

It's been a great privilege.

But I leave you with this.

Remember Jesus.

Remember him on the cross.

Don't remember me.

Remember Christ, who died on the cross and rose again for you, for me.

See, I am just here, and I think I said this on the first time I preached here.

I am just a beggar showing other beggars where to find bread.

Christ is the Savior.

He is the one to remember.

He is the one that saves all who come to Him and believe in Him and believe in His work on the cross.

He raises up the weak, those who come and humble themselves.

Those who don't humble themselves, He cuts down on the day of judgment.

But those who are weak and humble themselves and say, Lord, I need you in my life, he raises up and makes strong.

And there will be a day that he comes before his people, and you stand before him, and he says, Well done, good and faithful servant, come in, find rest for your soul.

For my burden is light.

Come and rest.

We're about to sing the song, The Wonderful Cross.

And that is a great song.

That is a fitting song to sing.

Because the cross is so wonderful, it is so sweet that Jesus is our Savior.

He died for us and rose again so that we can believe in Him and be saved.

And He does it all through grace, all through mercy.

Let's sing God's praises.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's word today.

If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.

If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make a contribution.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.