Zechariah 9:9-12 - by Don Neuendorf
This is a funeral sermon.
At least that's how I think of it. Zechariah (whose name means "Yahweh remembers") is a priest and prophet after the Babylonian exile. The people he is preaching to are the folks whose parents and grandparents had been dragged off to captivity with hooks in their cheeks. They lived 70 years in a foreign country while their homeland was destroyed. And now these are the remnant, the smaller number who returned after the Babylonian Empire fell. What would their life be like?...
Picture the Lutheran congregation in Dresden, Germany after their city and their lovely cathedral had been burned to the ground during World War II. Most of Germany was decimated by the war, but Dresden was utterly destroyed. Now these people, some of them wounded soldiers, widows, orphans, unemployed workmen, people living in temporary shelters, people who are struggling to rebuild an economy, homes, life. Now picture, you are called to preach to them...
What could a preacher say? You speak to a handful of discouraged survivors. Like the Jews who labored to rebuild their beloved Temple, the Germans only recently completed the rebuilding of the Lutheran church that was destroyed 60 years ago. But there are few worshipers.
Zechariah says, "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you..."
The good news is not in the rebuilt building. It's not in promises of a revived economy. It's not the alleviation of all their injuries or the elimination of their sad memories. It is in the coming of their king - their Savior - the one who will do justice and bring peace.