Can We Learn from the Past?

Can We Learn from the Past?

Third in Lent

Collect of the Day: We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Old Testament: Zechariah 1:1-6,12-17 (KJ21, p.1391)

Homily Text: Zechariah 1:1-6

1 In the eighth month in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

2 “The Lord hath been sorely displeased with your fathers.

3 Therefore say thou unto them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘Turn ye unto Me,’ saith the Lord of hosts, ‘and I will turn unto you,’ saith the Lord of hosts.

4 Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘Turn ye now from your evil ways and from your evil doings.’ But they did not hear, nor hearken unto Me, saith the Lord.

5 Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live for ever?

6 But My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? And they returned and said, ‘As the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath He dealt with us.’”

“Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” That’s a slightly altered quote from the philosopher, Carlos Santayana, who wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We often hear a statement like that  made by people who want to make a point about what we should do or not do today. The trouble is that people don’t agree what lessons of history are.

Take for instance the Great Recession of 2008. What are its lessons? If in the future a recession of that magnitude happens what should people living then learn from the past? If you ask a conservative economist, he may say the lesson is that government intervention hinders, doesn’t hasten, recovery. If you ask a progressive economist, he may say the lesson is that too little government intervention too late increased the severity and length of recession. Who’s to say what lessons we should learn from history?

Fortunately in God’s Word we are told infallibly some lessons we should learn from the past. The portion of Zechariah’s prophecy we read this morning is one such place.

Prophet. In order to understand what Zechariah says, we have to ask, “Who was Zechariah?” We need to know more than he tells us in the first verse - that he lived in the time of Darius, King of Persia, and was the son of Berechiah and grandson of Iddo.

To know who Zechariah was we have to know a little about the history of Israel. David became king of the unified kingdom of Israel about 1000 B.C. About 80 years later, because of some dumb decisions by his grandson, King Jeroboam, the Kingdom split into a northern kingdom and southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was usually called Israel, and the southern, Judan. The northern kingdom never had a king who followed the Lord. By 722 the northern kingdom was conquered by the dominant Middle Eastern power, the Assyrians, and many of the citizens were deported.

Meanwhile the southern kingdom, known as Judah, was ruled by descendants of David. Some kings were good, some were bad. The Lord sent many prophets to minister to the kings and the people. But, in the end the people did not heed the Word of the Lord. The Babylonians, who had succeeded the Assyrians as the great Middle Eastern power, invaded Judah around 600, and began deporting some of the best and brightest back to Babylon. By 586, Babylon, tired of Judah’s rebelliousness, destroyed both the city Jerusalem and the Temple.

All empires come to an end. Babylon was conquered by the Persians about 540. The Persian King Cyrus instituted a policy of allowing exiles to return to their homelands. The first group of Jews returned to Judah about 538. They laid the foundation for the Temple, but because of the hostility of external enemies and discouragement of the people, they stopped work on the Temple. But, about 520 the new king, Darius, whom Zechariah mentions, reaffirmed the policy that allowed the Jews to rebuild their Temple. Two prophets also began to challenge the Jews to rebuild of their temple and to encourage them about the future of the city of Jerusalem. These men were Haggai and Zechariah. What Haggai and Zechariah faced was renewed external opposition; political, economic, and military weakness of Judah; and profound discouragement among God’s people. Those were the circumstances in which Zechariah proclaimed the Word of the Lord.

Past. Zechariah tells us the date of the beginning of is ministry - the eighth month of the second year of the Persian King Darius. The eighth month of the Jewish calendar occurs sometime during our months of October-November. The second year of Darius’ reign was the year 520.  

The foundation of Zechariah’s message was to remind the people of his day what had happened in the past and why it happened.

The Lord reminded Zechariah, “The Lord hath been sorely displeased with your fathers,” or, “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.” Zechariah knew the history of the Babylonian invasion, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the exile of the people. But he needed to know what to tell the people about why it had happened.

It was occurred in the realm of international political and military affairs. Judah was a small kingdom that got caught between two world powers - Babylon and Egypt. People in the king’s court leaned two ways. Some wanted to side with Egypt, some with Babylon. Judah’s policy wavered back and forth, and ultimately Babylon had enough and crushed Judah. But, while dynamics of nations and politics were at work, they cannot provide the ultimate explanation of what happened. The ultimate reason for what happened to Judah was that the Lord was very angry with that generation.

The Lord sent many prophets to them to speak for him. The message of the prophets was, “Turn ye now from your evil ways and from your evil doings.”  Before the Exile Jeremiah had used almost the same words to summarize the Lord’s message through the prophets:

Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers from of old and forever. Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. Then I will do you no harm. (Jer. 25:5,6).

Over and again, for centuries the Lord called on his people to give up worshiping other gods, to to turn away from their immoral and unjust behavior, and to quit looking to other nations to be their savior - to return to him, worship him alone, and keep his commandments.

But how did they respond? According to the Lord, “But they did not hear, nor hearken unto Me.” Just before the Exile Jeremiah told the people of his day about his own ministry and that of the prophets who came before him:

For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets… Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. (Jer.25:3,4,7).

What had happened to that last generation before Babylon took them into exile? They were gone - all dead. Even the prophets who has proclaimed the Word of the Lord to them were gone. But one thing remained -  the Word of the Lord. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord abides forever. The Lord reminded the people through Zechariah of not only the endurance but also the power of his Word:

But My words and My statutes, which I commanded My

      servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?

Picture the people running away from the Word of the Lord - thinking they need not repent and return to him, that the judgments the Lord threatened would not catch up to them. But the Word of the Lord was like a tiger chasing his prey. The tiger of God’s Word caught them, and, because they would not repent, grasped them in its jaws and devoured them with its judgment. Both the gracious promises of God’s Word and its threatening warnings will be fulfilled.

Finally, in Exile the people began to repent. They said, “As the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath He dealt with us.”  They still were exiled in Babylon. But the people didn’t complain or see themselves themselves as victims. They said, “We are in this situation because of our sins.” Sometimes the first part of repentance is to stop pitying ourselves and accept that the Lord has dealt with us as he saw fit.

Present. This is a case where the people living in the present -  could learn from the past and not repeat it. How? By listening to the Word the Lord spoke through the prophet, “Return to me, and I will return to you.”

They were restored to their homeland. They had made a start of getting back to rebuilding the Lord’s house, the Temple. They were not worshiping idols. But their repentance was not complete. They had not wholeheartedly returned to the Lord.

But they can return and expect the Lord to be gracious. The Lord will not act like an offended friend who might say, “So you want to return and renew our friendship now? It’s too late. I’m done with you.” No, the Lord says, “If you return to me, I will return to you.” Their circumstances were still very difficult - a relatively small group of people, living in a city and countryside devastated a generation ago, with limited resources was called upon to rebuild the Temple. But they could return to the Lord and know that he will meet and receive them into his favor.

It’s not too late for you or me. We may not escape all the this worldly consequences of our sins. But we can return to the Lord and know that he will return us. We can start by coming to this Table with true repentance. It’s not enough to come to this Table if we intend to leave here and return to our sinful ways. But, if we come repenting of our sins and returning to Christ our Savior, this Table can be the place we meet the Lord and find his grace to forgive and renew us.

Yesterday, Bp. Morse, sent a letter to all the Clergy members of the Diocese. He suggested we read it in services today. I think it is a fitting way to close this sermon:

Dear Fathers and Brothers,

It has concerned me for most of my ministry that there are so few professing Christians who have any knowledge or experience of living by the grace of God, having the Gospel as the operative principle in their daily lives, but instead live according to the wisdom of the medical establishment, TV pundits, radio gurus, or financial advisers. Making a conscious effort everyday to live in the power of the Holy Spirit according to the teaching of Holy Scripture hardly ever occurs to them. I have heard numerous times of the surveys that show that there is no difference between church members and non-church members on such things as divorce, abortion, use of recreational drugs, adultery, etc.

Too many times I’ve had the experience of counseling someone who has gotten himself into trouble due to a failure to follow even the simplest understanding of the Ten Commandments. I frequently have asked the person which part of the Bible or the teaching he has received from me gave him the idea that it was ok to do what he has done, and every time that person has looked at me in amazement as if that was the dumbest question he ever heard. What that means is it never occurred to him to make decisions based on the Bible or the teaching of the church, and he thinks I’m pretty stupid even to ask such a question.

Too many people think that being a Christian means believing in Jesus and going to church at least occasionally, but they have no idea that the dynamic power to live the daily Christian life comes from the Holy Spirit. They have a list of things in their heads that Christians believe, and they claim to believe them, but they have no awareness of the need to depend daily on the Holy Spirit for the power to live that life.

There certainly are plenty of Bible verses that make this crystal clear. Two that come immediately to mind are Gal. 5:22-26, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another,” and Col. 2:6-7, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.”

Please keep this matter foremost in your teaching, preaching and counseling. You might want to share this letter with your whole congregation, or read it in the Sunday worship.

Sincerely yours,