zechariah 9

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==zechariah 9:9-10:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace to the nations;
His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.’

David McGough

​The Prophet Zechariah’s joyful call to hope, addressed originally to a broken and dispirited people, speaks powerfully to our own generation as we take the first uncertain steps to emerge from the devastation of the Covid 19 pandemic.
Through the words of Zechariah, the Lord had spoken to the uncertainty of a people who had experienced the destruction of Jerusalem, death, and the humiliation of forced exile. Now at last the exiles were able to reassemble in the ruins of all that had gone before. They faced a daunting task:  the rebuilding of both a city and its people.
Zechariah’s clear message was that this rebuilding would be rooted in God’s saving power rather than the sinful pride that had led to the destruction of the first Jerusalem. They were called to a God who would indeed triumph, but who would come amongst them in humility rather than pride.
“He comes to you, humble and riding on a donkey.”
The pandemic has forced us into a period of reflection as we take our first, uncertain steps into the future. We face the same question that awaited Israel’s returning exiles. What kind of a society do we want to build, and what do we want as its guiding foundation? -​Bishop David McGough; ​What the Prophet Zechariah can teach the post-Covid world 7.4.20

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