Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Our Christian formation classes are taught by the clergy of Church of the Incarnation (Dallas, TX). Journey with us as each season unfolds.
All right. We'll go ahead and get started. They're in the back. In three different place. They're over there on the tables.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Yeah. Hey. Yeah. That's what I just learned. Yeah.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Yeah. That's okay. We'll get started. We'll go ahead and pray and start. Father, I thank you for this nice cool day.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:I thank you for this opportunity to dive into your word. Pray that we would be again faithful readers of your scriptures and faithful people who live them out in our daily lives. And we commit this time to you Lord and thank you and love you and pray these things in Christ's name and by the spirit. Amen. Okay.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:So my name is Steven Bagby. I think I know most of you from the previous Genesis class. We are at the other end of the Old Testament this morning and I want to do a two part series on the book of Zechariah and for Advent these next two weeks. And I wanted to do that because I think Zechariah really cast a vision for us in terms of thinking about politics and the politics of hope. And I want to sort of dive into Zechariah over the next two weeks and talk about basically today the first eight chapters of Zechariah and next week the remaining nine through 14, chapters nine through 14.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And I want to talk about sort of this politics of hope because I think that you know we you know, when I think about my theological background and my education, when I think about politics, I often think about Stanley Harwas, the theologian. And Harwas has taught me many things over the years, many things. But one thing that sticks in my mind that he taught me through his writings is that he says that most Christians, he's critiquing the American church here, which he often does, he says most American Christians don't have any kind of political imagination. And what he means by that is that American Christians have a tendency to sort of slip into same categories, the same rhetoric, the same culture wars, if you will, the same kind of patterns as the world does in terms of politics. Whether that's fighting across parties or whether that's the way we talk about politics, the way we think about politics, the way we envision power and so forth.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And that's one of his critiques. But on a more fundamental level, Stanley Harwass challenges the American church to go much, much deeper in its political imagination. And what he does is he imagines a political reality that is, in many ways, otherworldly. Right? And what he's challenging the American church to do, and myself in particular as well, is to have a political imagination that is informed by the scriptures, that is informed specifically by kingdom theology.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Okay, the theology of the kingdom. And what he argues often in his writings is that our political imagination, our political patterns today in the American church are not informed very much at all by a kingdom theology. And I think in his thinking and in mine as well, and I hope to show Zechariah as well, that a kingdom theology, a kingdom politics is ultimately a politics of hope. Often our political patterns and aspirations lead us to certain avenues that are ultimately a politics of fear or a politics of power. But they're not a politics of hope.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And if we can train our minds and our hearts to sort of inhabit a world in which we really understand and believe in the politics of hope, it'll change the way profoundly we live our everyday lives today. And so I want to introduce that as we talk about Zechariah here, and I want to introduce you to sort of the world of Zechariah. Okay? This is not a book that a lot of people are running to every day, right, to read. You may or may not have read this book.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:You may not even know where it is in the Bible. Right? As I mentioned a few minutes ago, you may not have been here. We're on the other end of the Old Testament right now, the second to last book of the Old Testament. And the book of Zechariah, you've got to sort of place it within Israel's history.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And so we know from Israel's history, especially studying the book of Genesis this past fall, is that God has made a promise to Abraham and to his family to make a great nation of them, and he is going to follow that promise throughout the Old Testament. And so what we see is Abraham and his family will be the recipients of the promise. Ultimately, that family will fall into bondage in Egypt. God will raise up a deliverer in Moses to take them out of Egypt, to deliver them, to take them on the cusp of the promised land, give them the law as well, take them right there on the edge of the promised land. Joshua and others will take them into the promised land.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And then we have the reign of sort of these judges, this loose confederation of tribes of the nation of Israel. Ultimately, and later, in first and second Samuel, first and second Kings, you'll see the monarchy established where you have these political monarchs, these rulers like Saul, David, and Solomon. And then the temple will be built during this time, during Solomon's reign. So the temple is built in first Kings and then ultimately Solomon's disobedience and the people's disobedience too, I think along the way, will lead to the division of the kingdom, and then ultimately captivity. Both sides, north and south, will be taken into captivity.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:The North to Assyria, the South to Babylon, and they'll be exiled. So this is the time of exile. And then what the Bible does, what the Old Testament does is largely follow from then on the Southern Kingdom, the Kingdom Of Judah. Okay, that's taken into Babylonian exile. That's where the sort of the narrating the narration of the Old Testament follows during that time.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And that's where we're going to enter in here when we see Zechariah, is that the people of Judah in the Southern Kingdom have been in exile for the better part of the sixth century BC. Okay, and so they've been a people of exile about seventy years in Babylon. Okay? And of course, Babylon is always this sort of foil throughout the Old Testament. This evil empire that's always being sort of used as a backdrop against the idea of righteousness of what the Israelites are trying to attain.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And so what we have here in Zechariah is the people returning from exile to the promised land, back to Jerusalem, and they're reentering Jerusalem. And so what we have to sit here and think about and imagine for a second is what would it have been like to be Zechariah and the people of Israel after they've spent the last seventy years in exile? How long is seventy years? Basically a lifetime. Right?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:So there were probably a lot of Israelites who were born in Babylon, lived their entire lives in Babylon, and died in Babylon, who never saw the Promised Land at the beginning or the end. There were some Israelites who were born in Babylon who then would live the rest of their lives in the Promised Land. And vice versa, some who were born in the Promised Land die in Babylon. You have a very unstable society. You have a very calamitous time.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And what Zechariah is doing is entering into this space and speaking into this space, and God is speaking through him ultimately as a prophet. Zechariah is considered one of the post exilic prophets, the after the exile prophets. There are three post exilic prophets in the Old Testament. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. And when you read the book of Zechariah, you really want to read it concert with Haggai.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Haggai is a very short book. Okay? It's only two chapters long. But the argument of Haggai or the main theme of Haggai is that God wants the temple to be rebuilt. The temple was destroyed when Babylon overtook the Israelites.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Okay? God wants the temple to be rebuilt so that worship can be restored in the Promised Land, in Jerusalem specifically, and the people can be in fellowship with God. And in Zechariah, the main theme of Zechariah is this idea of renewing the covenant. Okay, the temple being rebuilt, renewing the covenant. The impetus upon renewing the covenant for between God and his people.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Okay? So Zechariah is in this midst here. This is a very unstable calamitous time for all the Israelites as they reenter the land. Are they going to live? How are they going to worship?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:How are going to rebuild this temple? Who are their neighbors going to be? So on and so forth. Okay? And so when you read the book of Zechariah, and you can see this very early on, Zechariah is a very different kind of book in the Bible.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:The first eight chapters of Zechariah are what's called apocalyptic literature. And apocalyptic literature is a certain genre of literature that uses very heightened language, very colorful language, very exalted, very flowery language to communicate a point. And apocalyptic literature tends to thrive in times of calamity and in times of persecution and in times of exile. You see apocalyptic literature in the book of Revelation, the church is being persecuted in the first century. You see in the book of Daniel.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:You see in the book of Ezekiel. You see a handful of places. The point of apocalyptic is to speak into a situation that oftentimes feels overwhelming for people, that oftentimes feels confusing or unstable for people, is to offer hope in the midst of very difficult, calamitous times. And so one tendency a lot of people have when they see apocalyptic literature is to sort of stand over it and study it and overanalyze it and try to dissect all the individual images that you see in this literature. I don't think that's a very good way to interpret it.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:I don't think we need to stand over the literature of apocalyptic and sort of overanalyze it and try to get every single thing out of it. In the book of Zechariah, the first eight chapters, you have a flying scroll. You have horses of different colors. You have a woman in a basket. You have a golden lampstand.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:You have all these different images. And you're like, what does that mean? I think a better way to look at apocalyptic is to sort of let it wash over you. Let it just sort of come over you and sit with it. And ask yourself the question, as you're sitting with it, as you're reading it and rereading it, what is causing the community to speak in such a way?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:What is making the community of faith here communicate in such a way? And I think one of the big answers to that question is this is a community that has been sort of shaken to the core. Right? It has been disrupted. It has been through so much in its history.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:I talked about the history of Israel and how it's been through a lot. One thing that's really hard for us to understand as modern individuals is sort of this idea that and Old Testament commentators talk about this. Israel itself had a very strong sense of its organic unity. Okay? The nation of Israel had a very, very strong sense of its sort of collective identity and organic unity.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And by that, I mean not just an organic unity in terms of place, but also in terms of time. When the nation of Israel thought about itself in any given point in time, it wasn't just thinking about that situation or that circumstance that they're in. It was thinking about the circumstances that went before them for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. And Israelites inhabited and embodied a reality and an existence in which they identified on a very core fundamental level not just their own situation, but the situation that happened to others. If you look at the book of Haggai, in the second chapter of Haggai, the Lord is speaking through Haggai and he says to Haggai, I brought you out of Egypt and I made a covenant with you.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:I brought you out of Egypt and made a covenant with you. Haggai is living in May. Roughly. When were people brought out of Egypt? A thousand years prior to that.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And yet God says to Haggai, I brought you out of Egypt. I made a covenant with you. And so as you think about sort of this idea of this organic unity of Israel, you have to think about it in terms of a common remembrance, a common history, a history that they very much feel on a very core level that they've been through. So it's not just the exile and the return that they're feeling. It's all of their history that they're feeling.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:It's all of their story. They see themselves as embodying all of it. And also, they see themselves as embodying a common destiny. Is that the Israelites going all the way back to Genesis, all the way through the Old Testament, see themselves as part of a common destiny. And that's how I think is a faithful way to sort of understand what's going on in the Old Testament narrative and how this therefore feels all the more acute for Zechariah and his community that they've been through so much in their history.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:When will we see hope? When will we be delivered? When will we see redemption After all this that we've been through in our history. And so they're trying to make sense of the world in light of all this. And so Zechariah one through eight is speaking into this and if we take the human author seriously in terms of, you know, obviously all scripture is God's word, but the human author is bringing their own particular approach, their own particular style to the text.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And this is what Zechariah is feeling. So if you look at Zechariah, and I don't think I have it on your sheet, if you have your Bible, the early chapters of Zechariah are very telling, especially as you see these images start to unfold in chapters one and chapters two. And at the end of chapter two in verse 13, I think you see a very telling verse here that whenever I read this verse, it sort of startles me. And I think it's supposed to startle you. It's supposed to wake you up and make you sit up.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Two thirteen says, be still before the Lord all mankind because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. Okay? What that's communicating is that the Lord of the universe is setting out on a new course of action. The God of Israel and the God of all the universe is setting out on a new course of action. And Zechariah is announcing this and specifically announcing a new day for Israel and the coming of the kingdom.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And so what you see in Zechariah, and you see this in a few other prophets as well during this time, during this post exilic period, you see this expectation emerging at the end of your old testament. You see the book of Isaiah, you see the book of Ezra, you see it in Haggai and Zechariah. You see this sort of leaning into an expectation, a hope That something they're on the cusp of something bigger that's emerging. And as one commentator said, Zechariah is a man intoxicated with the vision of the coming kingdom. So when you think about the book of Zechariah, think about him announcing the long awaited kingdom that is to come.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And as we go through these first six chapters of Zechariah, see a lot of these visions I talked about, this flying scroll, the woman in the basket, and all these things, and you're like, what do I make of all this? What is this communicating? But as you get to chapter six, and I have it on the back of your sheet there, chapter six really starts to sort of crystallize what's happening. And over the next three chapters, six, seven, and eight, you have a sort of crystallization of what this kingdom will look like. And so as I have on your sheet there, what how do I state it?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:I don't even have one of the sheets. The anticipation of the king there, the second bullet point? Or the king of the kingdom. Yeah. King of the kingdom.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:I do have that. So look at in fact, I need one of my sheets here. Sorry. I should have had that. Zechariah six starting in verse nine there.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And the word of the Lord came to me, from the exiles Hedi, Tobijah, and Jedediah who have arrived from Babylon and go the same day to the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah. Take from them silver and gold and make a crown. So what you're seeing here is this this ceremony that's gonna unfold. This very solemn ceremony. Take from them silver and gold, make a crown, set it on the head of Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest and say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold the man whose name is the branch for he shall branch out from his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne and the council of peace shall be between them both. And the crown shall be in the temple of the Lord as a reminder to Helam, Tobijah, Jedediah and Han the son of Zephaniah. And those who are far off, meaning non Israelites, foreigners, shall come and help build the temple of the Lord and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. This shall come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And so what you see here in Zechariah, I think, is two different levels of meaning occurring at the same time. In one sense, Zechariah is announcing the new day in Israel. What's going to happen in the near future in Israel? But at the same time, he's announcing something bigger and greater and further off. He'll often use the language of in those days, in those days, sort of pointing out and talk about a particular person.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:You see this in this ceremony, the branch shall grow up in this place, that is, be from the Israelites themselves, shall build the temple, shall sit and rule upon his throne and be a priest on, some translations say by, but I think it's better to say on his throne. And so what you see here in Zechariah six, the high priest Joshua is serving as a stand in for that branch. Joshua, the high priest, is not the fulfillment of Zechariah's vision ultimately. He's merely a stand in at this time for the coming branch or the coming king. And I think it's interesting that always throughout Israel's history, if you look at the Old Testament, the climax of Israel's history was always envisioned as coming to fruition and climax in a particular person.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:It was not the plan for Israel, for their history, to go forever as a nation, as a whole. That nation would be seen more as a realization ultimately in a person, in a Messiah. And so you see this as early as Deuteronomy 18, this prophet that God's gonna raise up, this particular prophet. And you see that in the New Testament, right, in the Gospels. Are you the prophet we've heard about?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Are you the one? This prophet that is promised in Deuteronomy 18. You also see this idea of a priest, and not just any priest that's going to emerge from Israel, but a priest who has an eternal priesthood. You see this in Psalm 110. This idea that the priest to come has an eternal priesthood.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Okay? And Joshua, of course, could never fulfill that. Then you also see this idea of a king is going to emerge, someone greater than David, someone greater than the kings Israel had before. You see this in second Samuel seven in the Davidic covenant. This idea that that David was a great king in many ways, but someone is coming after him and his rule will never end, will last forever.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:So you start to see this crystallize over the course of time and so you see this in Zechariah's vision. So the king of the kingdom, chapter six. Chapter seven, the ethics of the kingdom. Now that we understand who is gonna rule the kingdom, what are the ethics of the kingdom, look at your page, chapter seven verse eight and following. And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart. Okay. If this sounds familiar to you, it's because this is a theme that you see over and over in the prophets. Right? Show kindness and mercy.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:What do you think of? Micah six eight. Right? You're thinking of prophets who are emphasizing this. He says here, Do not oppress the poor, the sojourner, and so forth, and do not devise evil against one another in your heart.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Those who say the Old Testament is an external religion of the law and the New Testament is an internal religion of the heart have never really read the book of Zechariah. Okay? The heart is central in the book of Zechariah and throughout the Old Testament, I would argue. And you see this as part of the ethics of the kingdom. Okay?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And there's an idea that I think, you know, when we think about kingdom theology today and what Jesus is going do to usher in the kingdom, most scholars see the kingdom in terms of kingdom theology as in New Testament times, Jesus in our own times as already slash not yet. You heard that language? Already not yet. Half I feel like half of Christians, when they say already not yet, what they're really saying is already. Not yet.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And the other half are saying, already, not yet. Okay? And depending on how loud you shout or how quiet you are, that's going to affect your theology in profound ways. What you think about how realized the kingdom is. And I think a lot of people have an under realized kingdom theology.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And therefore struggle to understand how the kingdom and the politics of the kingdom and the vision of the kingdom can really be lived out or even if it should be lived out in their lives today. And therefore, we get to the sermon on the mount. We don't know what to do with it. What do we do with those three chapters? Can we really turn the other cheek?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Can we really live out this kingdom vision? Oh, it's not practical in the modern world. You've heard that. Right? How could we possibly be expected to live according to that vision?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:You've heard it said over and over, right? And yet, this is the kingdom that Zechariah is anticipating. And again, if the language sounds familiar, it's not just the language you'll see in the prophets themselves, it's also the language you'll see in the New Testament. It's the language you'll see in the Gospels and in the Epistles as we go forward. And so do our everyday lives reflect the kingdom ethics that we're seeing in Zechariah's vision?
Dr. Stephen Bagby:As one commentator said, now the Israelites are to love God and their fellows, not in order that God will bring his salvation to them, but because God is in fact bringing his salvation. And so you have the ethics of the kingdom in chapter seven. In chapter eight, you have what I've called the peace of the kingdom. Okay? We have the king of the kingdom.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:We have the ethics of the kingdom. What will the kingdom itself look like that's being announced here by Zechariah? Look on your sheet there starting with verse one chapter eight. The word of the Lord of hosts came to me saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, I am zealous for Zion, that's Jerusalem, with great zeal and I am zealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord, I will return to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:That is restored worship here the Israelites will experience. Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city and the mountain of the Lord of hosts shall be called the Holy Mountain. Thus says the Lord of hosts, old men and old women shall again sit in the streets. Note this, old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets. Thus says the Lord of hosts even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, it should should it also seem impossible to me, says the Lord of hosts.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will save my people from the East country and from the West country and I will bring them to live in Jerusalem. They shall be my people and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness. Thus says the Lord of hosts, let your hands be strong. You who have recently been hearing these words from the mouths of the prophets who were present when the foundation was laid for the rebuilding of the temple, the house of the Lord of hosts. For before those days, there were no wages for people or for animals, nor was there any safety from the foe of those who went out or came in.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And I set them all against one another. But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, said the Lord of hosts. There's a new day occurring here. For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall yield its fruit, the ground shall give its produce, and the sky shall give their due.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things just as you have been a cursing among the nations, oh house of Judah and house of Israel. So I will save you and you shall be a blessing. Do not be afraid but let your hands be strong for thus says the Lord of hosts just as I purposed to bring disaster upon you when your ancestors provoked me to wrath and I did not relent says the Lord of hosts. So again, I have purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem into the house of Judah. Do not be afraid.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:These are the things that you shall do. Speak the truth to one another. Render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace. Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another and love no false oath for all these are things that I hate says the Lord. The word of the Lord of hosts came to me saying thus says the Lord of hosts the fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful festivals for the house of Judah.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Therefore, love truth and peace. Thus says the Lord of hosts, peoples shall yet come. The inhabitants of many cities, the inhabitants of one city shall go to another saying, come, let us go to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts. I myself am going. Many peoples and strong nations shall come shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Thus says the Lord of hosts, in those days 10 men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew grasping his garment and saying, let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you. 10 men meaning like the perfect number, so it's an indefinite number. Well, grasp shall take hold of a Jew grasping his garment and saying, let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you. So this is the ethics or the realization of the peace of the kingdom. And this sounds familiar because we see this as the part of the prophetic imagination.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:We see the prophets announcing this new day of peace that will be ruled by a king. And it seems hard to imagine, but this kingdom with Jesus' arrival will break into this world and will become a realization in their time and in our time. And I'll wrap up with this. Let me read Isaiah 11. If this sounds familiar, you've probably seen it in Isaiah 11.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:A shoot, Isaiah eleven one, a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the lion will feed together and a little child shall lead them.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:The cow and the bear shall graze. Their young shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox and listen to this, the nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put its hand on the viper's den. They will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And so we see this great anticipation in Zechariah which we're going to see again next week and we're going to see this anticipation ultimately fulfilled in Christ as he comes. The branch that is promised in Zechariah and Isaiah will be fulfilled in Christ.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:Jesus calls himself in John fifteen:one I am the true vine, right? He shall build the temple it says in Zechariah, Jesus himself his body is the temple. A little child shall lead them, Jesus will lead them, he's born in a manger and will lead his people. The ethics of the kingdom parallel with what we see in the gospel narratives and ultimately you see this peace of the kingdom. This peace that is promised that is breaking in in Jesus' own time and in our time.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:A peace we should aspire to, that we should lean into, where children are playing in the streets as promised in Zechariah and you see this promise in the New Testament as well where Jesus says, let all the children come to me for them to belong to the kingdom of God, right? And so you see this realization of the kingdom, this kingdom of peace, this kingdom of rest. Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest. This realization of the kingdom. So rather than running to a politics of despair, a politics of fear, a politics of power, we have in the scriptures the promise of the politics of hope that Zechariah announces and we lean into that hope this Advent season.
Dr. Stephen Bagby:So thanks for your time. We'll pick it up next week and go from there. Hope that helps shed a little light.