Revoking the Covenant

Zechariah 11:4-13
Luke 22:1-6

It is around 500 BCE. The Jewish exiles had returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple, but the work had been stalled. It fell on the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah to confront this failure of mission and build the hope of the people by pointing to the coming of the Messiah.

Like no other time before or since, the nation of Israel had forsaken its worship of idols and had begun to develop a theology of hope. They had, however, returned to a mess. Their city was in ruins; their walls had been destroyed; their temple was gone; they were surrounded by marauding bands of hostile nations. Zechariah told of the God who would send His Messenger to rescue His people and to reign over the earth. The rebuilding of the temple was to be the first act in the drama of the coming of the eternal Kingdom of God in the Messianic Age.

Their King was coming! They must get ready!

Along with that message of hope came a warning that the Messianic Kingdom would not come instantly upon the rebuilding of the temple. God’s people would face sorrow and despair before Christ’s arrival. God remained angry that His people had ignored the prophets and had followed false leaders who exploited them. There would, however, be deliverance.

There developed a strong Messianic theology of hope in the post-exilic church in Israel. Judaism moved away from H’eretz, equating the land with God’s promise to Abraham, and moved toward a spiritual Kingdom that had nothing to do with the land. Unfortunately, however, the land and a physical kingdom eventually became the focus and played into the downfall of Israel.

What may surprise you is that it also played into God eventually revoking His covenant with Israel.

When the people lost sight of the spiritual Kingdom of God and equated the Messianic Age with restoration of the physical land of Israel, they lost their hope and failed to recognize Jesus as Messiah.

We have Christians today who have minimized the eternal Kingdom of God by pushing it out into the ether somewhere and see the physical land of Israel as the fulfillment of God’s Promise to Abraham. Those Christians are back there with the ancient Jews who crucified our Lord. I believe that there are many professing Christians today who will not recognize Jesus when He appears and will, instead, try to put an international leader in the place of God.

This is a scary place for Christians to be – back with the same folks who failed to recognize the Messiah. They look, instead, for a physical Messiah in a physical place. What is even scarier is that any national or international leader who says the right Christian phrases and claims to be “born again” has their unconditional support, no matter how many lies and crimes they commit against others.

This is fertile ground for the spirit of Anti-Christ. The spirit of Anti-Christ is the spirit of a person of peace who comes in the name of the Lord but has the agenda of a devil. If all it takes to get somebody’s vote is to talk the language of Christianity, few politicians could resist that.

The post-exilic period in Jewish history was a promising new beginning. In chapter 8, Zechariah says, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.’” Chapter 9 tells of the conquest of Israel by Alexander the Great of Greece and of his empire splintering upon his death. Out of that arose the powerful Seleucid dynasty over the Middle East, leading to the corrupt ruler, Antiochus 1V in 168 BCE. History records that Daniel’s prophecy of the desecration of the temple was fulfilled for the first time by Antiochus 1V when he set up there a Hellenistic center for paganism.

God again was faithful to His people. He raised up Judas Maccabeus in 165 BCE to purify the defiled temple. Temple worship was resumed in 164 BCE. Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, was named as the holiday intended to commemorate the restoration of temple worship. In 142 BCE, a peace treaty was negotiated with the Seleucids, but succeeding generations saw a deterioration of leadership. The Roman general, Pompey, conquered the region in 63 A.D., ending around 80 years of what had been known as the Hasmonean Dynasty.

The stage was then set for the coming of Messiah and the final destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.

Chapters 9 & 10 of Zechariah present pictures of blessing and prosperity for Israel, with God protecting His people against hostile enemies. In Chapter 11, however, the scene changes dramatically to a picture of sin and punishment. Zechariah announces in the beginning poem that Lebanon’s cedars would fall. That is a reference to the royal palace in Jerusalem. It contained so much cedar from Lebanon that it was called Lebanon.

The shepherds would wail and the lions roar because of a coming destruction that would leave no pasture for the flocks nor food for wild animals. This dire prediction fulfilled in the Roman leveling of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

God appoints Zechariah to present himself as two different kinds of shepherds assigned to prepare a flock doomed to slaughter. Zechariah speaks for God and for the coming Messiah as though he himself were a shepherd. The first type of shepherd demonstrates how God would reject His people because they rejected him. The second type of shepherd demonstrates how God would give His people over to evil leaders.

The “flock doomed to slaughter” represents a fattened people feeding on their own greed and evil desires until they were ripe for God’s judgment against them. Their slayers were foreign rulers who took over Israel, treated them as slaves and had not paid the penalty for their sins against God’s people. What did these exploiters say when they became rich from exploiting God’s people? The same thing some American Christians say when they get rich: “Praise the Lord; I am rich!” (v. 5).

God’s pity had run out. “I will no longer have pity on the people of the land,” declares the Lord. “I will hand everyone over to his neighbor and his king. They will oppress the land, and I will not rescue them from their hands.”

The Israelites were a conquered people with their hope centered, not on a spiritual kingdom, but on the “land.” Today, Zionists justify Israel’s right to the land by calling it “a land without people for a people without land.” If my reading of this Scripture is correct, Zechariah prophesied that God would no longer preserve the identity of the land with His people. “I will no longer have pity on the people of the land.”

In this allegory, Zechariah pastured the flock doomed to slaughter. He took two shepherd’s staffs and named them Favor and Union. These staffs stood for God’s blessing and the unity of the flock.

Within the first month, he did away with 3 shepherds that had been leading his flock, making him the beneficent dictator. A common interpretation of these 3 shepherds is that they were the ruling prophets, priests and kings of Judaism. We see this played out in the patient, popular work of Jesus, where the people were no longer listening to their religious leaders but were taken with Jesus’ miracles and teachings. The most poignant example is that of His reception at the Triumphant Entry, where all Israel was focused on Jesus.

In our NT reading this morning – Luke 22:2 – we find that “…the chief priests and teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people.” Zechariah’s prophecy of getting down to one shepherd was being fulfilled in that one week before the trial and crucifixion.

The Good Shepherd, however, has had enough: “The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them and said, ‘I will not be your shepherd. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s flesh” (Zechariah 11:8, 9).

It was a Sabbatical year before the Roman siege of Jerusalem began, which meant that the fields were given a one-year rest. Grain was scarce. Because of the siege, famine spread. General Vespasian began the assault on Judah and Jerusalem but was called back to Rome to become emperor. His son, Titus, completed the mission that took over two years before the first, second and third walls of the city were destroyed.

Within the walls, the Jews were convinced that God would deliver them. But this was the time when God swore He would no longer preserve the land for His people, nor His people for the land. It was no longer about the land.

I have in the past talked about Masada, where just a few less than 1,000 Jews held out for a couple of years against a Roman assault, believing that they would be spared by divine intervention. Eventually, all but a handful committed suicide. In Gamala, thousands leaped over a cliff to their deaths.

Inside the walls, atrocities were committed by the leaders against the people in order to keep them from deserting. Outside the walls, prisoners were crucified. The historian Josephus said this was done by the soldiers out of rage and hatred. Titus found that Jewish prisoners had cannibalized themselves.

Why did this happen? God’s Favor was broken. Symbolically, Zechariah took the staff he had named Favor and broke it. As a type of the Messiah, he represented God as at last growing weary of His people and abandoning them. Vs. 10 & 11 get very interesting:

Then I took my staff called Favor and broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the people. It was revoked on that day, and so the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew it was the word of the Lord.

This little passage is pregnant with information.

The breaking of the staff signified the breaking of God’s covenant that He had made with all the people – not only His special covenant with all the tribes of Israel, but all other people who were proselytized into their religion. Zechariah prophesied that the Jewish church would at that point be stripped of all its glory. Its honor was laid in the dust. God had departed from it and would no more own it as His.

This prophecy was repeated by Jesus in Matt 21:43:

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. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

The poor of the flock – the Disciples of Christ who waited on Jesus and understood by what authority He spoke, could distinguish the voice of the Shepherd from that of a stranger. As Zechariah prophesied, “…the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew it was the word of the Lord.”

The Pharisees knew that prophecy of Zechariah’s. The chief priests knew that prophecy of Zechariah’s. They knew it was the word of the Lord. Because they failed to recognize Jesus as Lord, however, they did not believe that He was the Messenger.

It was over. The covenant that God had made with the nations was finished. The kingdom promised to Abraham was not a piece of real estate but an eternal dwelling place of infinite blessing. That kingdom was not merely extended to others. It was taken away from Israel as a nation and given to others who would bear fruit – you and me, for example.

The Shepherd is so fed up, He turns to them and says, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.”

How much was the Shepherd of our souls worth? What would you give for your soul? Remember the words of Jesus, “What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, and what will a man give in exchange for his soul.”

God’s sacrifice for our very souls was walking away from His flock – not only walking away but revoking God’s covenant with them:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

That is, I think, a fit description of Hell – “Look, your house is left to you desolate.” God has revoked His covenant; He has left the House of Israel desolate – without a Shepherd. Only by acknowledging that Jesus has come in the name of the Lord can anyone from that moment on hope to see Him. Right on schedule, on the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 Jews said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

When the Good Shepherd comes to settle up for His worth, they offer Him 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave gored by an ox. The Shepherd tells them, “Throw it to the potter.” You will remember that Judas took back the 30 pieces of silver that the chief priest had paid him. Because it was blood money, they used it to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners.

The completion of the rejection by God was in the breaking of the other staff, called Union. The brotherhood between Judah and Israel was broken, completing the destruction of whatever it was that bound them together as brothers and sisters by race. God’s Favor was broken and His covenant revoked. And now God broke the brotherhood – the unity between the divided kingdoms of Israel. Zechariah must now play the villainous shepherd – foolish and useless. Israel’s needs would be neglected, they would be scattered throughout the world, cruelty and greed would be directed toward them, and they would become victimized by ruthless rulers.

An un-Shepherded people will soon become an undone people.

The Jewish people had the law and the prophets, and they twittered them away. We Christians have the perfect likeness of God, His Son, and many of us have twittered Him away. Can you imagine the judgment on an America that was given by God, blessed by God, strengthened by God and now not too interested in God? Can that judgment be any less severe than it has been on those who were favored by God and yet rejected Him?

Out of this disaster has arisen a New Israel – a people of God who look to Calvary and say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Some are Jews; most are Gentiles. No longer is the Favor of God showered only on those of H’eretz – the land. Instead, the Good Shepherd still seeks the lost, one lamb at a time.