Called to Be Holy
Zech 5 August 10, 2008
Intro:
I distinctly remember a conversation with a young man back in the days that I was a youth pastor. He was making some really destructive decisions in his life, and I was trying to convince him to make some better ones. I tried to help him see the path he was heading down was dangerous, wrong, and was leading him away from God. And that this was not good! His reply cut deeply: “Steve, you have always taught me that God loves me, right?” “Yes, absolutely,” I replied. “And that God will always forgive me, right?” “Yes, God will always forgive you when you ask.” Then he said, “ok, then I’m perfectly fine to go ahead with these decisions you don’t approve of, and later on, if I want to, I can come back to God and that will be easy because you just said He’ll always love me and forgive me.”
Ouch. What had been missing in my teaching? Where had I gone wrong, that led this young man to the place where he felt it didn’t matter how he lived, because there was always this spiritual safety net, benignly waiting for whenever he wanted to come back and pick up where he left off. How had I managed to create an image of God as nothing more than the gentle, harmless grandpa who just says “there there, it’s ok, don’t worry about anything, just forget about that bad stuff because it doesn’t matter, it’s not important, do whatever you like and if you get into trouble just call and I’ll come and rescue you and shield you from any harm and pamper you and give you all kinds of nice gifts…”
How did this young man get to the place where sin didn’t matter?
Zechariah background:
This summer we’ve been reading Zechariah, and seeing again God’s incredible forgiveness and promise of restoration and depth of love for His people, who had been slaves in Babylon and were now returning to rebuild their country, their lives, and their faith. The first part of the book of Zechariah records a series of supernatural visions that the prophet saw, and what they mean. The last two visions have been about two key leaders – Joshua the high priest in chapter 3, and Zerubabbel the governor in chapter 4. The focus of these visions has been on the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Now we come to chapter 5, which contains two more visions. These two visions extend from the focus on the leaders to the entire people. Let’s read them together.
Zech 5 (NLT):
1 I looked up again and saw a scroll flying through the air. 2 “What do you see?” the angel asked. “I see a flying scroll,” I replied. “It appears to be about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.” 3 Then he said to me, “This scroll contains the curse that is going out over the entire land. One side of the scroll says that those who steal will be banished from the land; the other side says that those who swear falsely will be banished from the land. 4 And this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: I am sending this curse into the house of every thief and into the house of everyone who swears falsely using my name. And my curse will remain in that house and completely destroy it—even its timbers and stones.”
5 Then the angel who was talking with me came forward and said, “Look up and see what’s coming.” 6 “What is it?” I asked. He replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain, and it’s filled with the sins of everyone throughout the land.” 7 Then the heavy lead cover was lifted off the basket, and there was a woman sitting inside it. 8 The angel said, “The woman’s name is Wickedness,” and he pushed her back into the basket and closed the heavy lid again.
9 Then I looked up and saw two women flying toward us, gliding on the wind. They had wings like a stork, and they picked up the basket and flew into the sky. 10 “Where are they taking the basket?” I asked the angel. 11 He replied, “To the land of Babylonia, where they will build a temple for the basket. And when the temple is ready, they will set the basket there on its pedestal.”
The Flying Scroll (vs. 1-4):
We’ve all seen huge banners flying behind airplanes before, advertising something or other, so this vision might seem not quite as weird as some others. But when we think from the point of view of an Israelite in 520BC, a giant billboard flying in the sky would be extremely unusual. The size and the fact that it is flying both would identify it as coming directly from God, and thus something to which we should pay attention.
And on this flying billboard are two messages: “One side of the scroll says that those who steal will be banished from the land; the other side says that those who swear falsely will be banished from the land.” Two specific sins – theft and lying – both with a promise of punishment. Why these? What is going on here?? Were these two particular sins that were running rampant, and that needed special emphasis?
Certainly the specific sins are applicable, but most interpreters see something more. It is a breakdown in community – people taking unfair advantage of others, not living in an honest and respectful manner with one another, putting themselves ahead of others, and quite likely cheating and manipulating them. There was a legal relationship between the two sins listed; when an allegation was made for which there was no conclusive proof, the last step was to take the accused into the temple and have them swear an oath of innocence. If they swore falsely, the people assumed that it was now a matter between that person and God, and God would deal with their falsehood.
And that is precisely what the vision promises – that God will deal with those who lie and ignore and twist the law to their own advantage. Those who have manipulated others and used their strength or opportunity for personal gain, who have stolen and then lied about their innocence, will be dealt with by the Almighty “God of the angel armies” who will send “this curse into the house of every thief and into the house of everyone who swears falsely using my name. And my curse will remain in that house and completely destroy it—even its timbers and stones.” This specific reference to houses and timbers and stones leads some interpreters to suspect that some of the Israelites who returned from exile had lied about property claims, perhaps claiming homes that were in better shape instead of the ones that had belonged to their families, and had thus manipulated and exploited others. Regardless, the point of the vision is clear – God is not going to sit idly by, and let sin go un-noticed and un-punished.
The Basket (vs. 5-11):
Let’s look at the second vision and then see how both apply to us today. Zechariah looks up and sees a measuring basket, used by the merchants to measure grain after the harvest and then pay the farmer what was owed. But instead of being filled with grain, there is something grotesque – the “sins of everyone throughout the land” and they are personified in the form of a woman named “wickedness”.
Why a woman? Is this an example of the Bible’s prejudice against women, suggesting that the best picture of “wickedness” that God could dream up was a woman? Is there some huge gender bias, some misogyny, some patriarchal slam directed at women everywhere? Of course, some have found such ideas, and of course, they are completely ignorant when they do. They ignore the very obvious symbolism in the image – obvious at least to the Israelites of the day and to those who have done their homework.
Remember the Israelites came from slavery in Babylon. Undoubtedly, they have carried back with them some religious influences from the country that had been their home for 50 years. Mark Boda writes, “The angel identifies (the woman in the basket) as “wickedness”, a term used elsewhere of the idolatry of the nations around Israel. The use of this term along with a female image in a sitting position destined for a pedestal in a sanctuary indicates that this woman is a goddess or her idol, representing the idolatrous worship of the people.” (Haggai, Zechariah. “The NIV Application Commentary”, p. 306.) There are a number of Babylonian goddesses, including the goddess of the harvest which fits the image of the basket used to measure grain.
In Zechariah’s vision, this idolatry is trying to escape, to get out of the basket and thus be able to run rampant among the people of God. But God does not permit this – the basket has a huge, heavy lid made of lead, and after the angel forcibly pushes the image of the idol back into the basket and slams on the lid, Zechariah sees two powerful spiritual creatures come and remove the basket, the idolatry, the wickedness, from the people of God and take it back to Babylon. Quick sidebar for the curious – why do these creatures build a temple and set the idol back up on the pedestal in its temple? Is God promoting a foreign religion, even helping them out? Simple answer – if you truly believe that this “goddess” is the incarnation of wickedness, sending it into the heart of your enemies’ country is no benevolent, helpful act – in fact, it is the opposite! It is unleashing a great evil in their midst!!
So this second vision in chapter 5 is, then, a picture of the entire people’s relationship with God. It is back to God’s exclusive claim on His people, it is back to God’s call to His people to love Him and Him alone, to “put no other God’s before me”, to declare that they worship Him alone. It is a call away from the worship of a Babylonian idol and back to covenant faithfulness in God alone.
Let us not miss the important point that the vision is about this wickedness being removed from the midst of the people of God – and this means that it was there to begin with. Likely they had brought these affections back with them from Babylon, and now God is making a statement to all His people – a familiar statement – “I AM the Lord your God”… and I will not tolerate any worship of other God’s.
OK, so what does this all mean for us?
So, this ancient prophet named Zechariah, more than 2500 years ago, sees these two strange visions. What does all that mean for us?
Put together, the two visions address the two all-inclusive realms of life: our relationships with one another (the stealing and the lying on the flying scroll) and our relationship with God (the image of the idol in the basket). Taken together, the two represent the same two things that Jesus made the simple essentials for all of life – “love God and love others”. And we see the vital importance of us keeping our part of the covenant we have made with God. We see that God takes sin – even “little” sins like lying – extremely seriously. They are a big deal, they do matter, they do destroy. And God does punish.
Yes, I did just say “God does punish”. Why has that become so hard for us? Why have we come to see “punishment” as an opposite to “love and forgiveness”? In probably one, maybe two generations we have completely reversed our understanding of the relationship between “punishment” and “love” – how has that happened? How have we come to see those as opposites, as mutually exclusive, as contradictory? How did we get to the place where we think that “love” means letting someone off the hook, while “punishment” means that some hard-hearted meany refuses to forgive? How did we get to the place where a teenager concludes that “I can make whatever decisions I want to, and it doesn’t matter because God will always love me and forgive me”?
There is something important here, because when we believe that punishment and love are incompatible, when we believe (however subtly) that it doesn’t matter how we live because God will just love and forgive us, we quickly embrace sin. We pull the lead lid back and let something grotesque run rampant throughout our communities, a wickedness and an idolatry that reveals that we do worship something other than the God of the Universe who loves us and saves us – we worship our own free will, our own power to choose, our own ability to determine the course of our lives, our own comfort and safety.
I don’t say any of this to be harsh or condemning, and I say it to myself first. But I say it because of my firm conviction that God’s way is always better than our way. The essence of sin is us choosing our way instead of God’s, and the result of that is always death – not death because God swoops in and crushes us like some cosmic meany vindictively “getting us back” for doing the stuff He told us not to, but death because we have turned away from God (who is life) and those choices end up robbing us of life and truth and beauty. And God, in His infinite goodness, and love, steps in when we make wrong choices and punishes us so that we can see our choices were wrong and can then make different choices, that lead to life instead of death.
So what then of grace? Are some of you resisting this talk of sin and punishment, and feeling that I am leaving out grace – that incredible “unmerited favour” of God on us who do not deserve it? Well I do believe in grace, just not cheap grace. Sin is always punished – it is just that for those of us who are in Christ, the majority of that punishment has been inflicted on Jesus not on us. Cheap grace is when we take that idea and say, “great! I’m getting off scott-free!! I can do as I like, God’ll just forgive me anyway, doesn’t matter how I live!!”
Cheap grace is us abusing God’s gift. Real grace is the God of the Universe, Lord of the Angel Armies, completely holy and pure, stepping into time and into the world, giving up all that it means to be the God of the Universe, and willingly laying down on two pieces of wood. Willingly accepting nails piercing His skin. Willingly enduring mockery, torture, humiliation, unspeakable anguish, and even death. In my place. Grace doesn’t say, “ah, forget it… no big deal…”! Grace says “it IS a big deal, it must be punished, it must be atoned for, and I will love you so much that I will endure this horror so that you might be saved from it”.
What do we see when we look into the face of Jesus on the cross? Do we see that sin doesn’t matter, that it is no big deal, that it doesn’t matter how we live? Or do we see a face of such deep love for us, that we can no longer imagine living in a way that takes that love for granted? Do we see a depth of love that creates within us a deep desire to return that love, to give our lives in obedience and humility and service to Him and His Kingdom??
Conclusion:
This past week I attended the Leadership Summit, and for those of you who have been around for a number of years, you’ve seen that I come back from that event sort of fired up – enthusiastic – ready to push and challenge and confront because I see again how important it is that our lives matter, that we live all-out, unreservedly, relentlessly, wholly for Jesus. These two visions of Zechariah do that same thing – they confront us, they challenge us, they force us to ask the tough questions – how is our love for God? How is our love for one another? Are we living lives of sin, or are we fighting to live lives of holiness in the power of God?
It is just too important. It is life or death. It either embraces Jesus’ death for us and accepts it with gratitude expressed in a lifetime of obedience, or it makes a mockery of Jesus’ death for us. And ultimately, it impacts not just our lives but the lives of countless other people around us.
So how about you? Are you living a holy life, or are you playing with sin? I’m not talking about the occasional sins that happen to all of us, which we recognize and confess and move quickly on stronger than we were before. I’m talking about our habits of sin – the ones we have accepted, gotten used to, nurtured and fed and even cherished. God sees those, and they break His heart. They mock Jesus on the cross. And they are killing us – robbing us of the life God intended. And so, because of how much God loves us, He will punish those, so that we see and we learn and can choose differently. So that, in fact, we can be saved from them.
As we close, I invite us all to a renewed pursuit of holiness, through a renewed love for Jesus. I invite us to get rid of the garbage and come back to Jesus, step back in love with Jesus, immerse ourselves again in Jesus. And as we do, the sin loses its appeal. It loses its allure. It loses its control over us.
And in its place? Love. Power. Holiness. Every good gift of God. Life, abundant.
So here is what you can do with this. 1. Ignore it. 2. Feel guilty and depressed and defeated by it. or 3. Embrace it, fix your eyes on Jesus and the depth and power of His love, accepting forgiveness and being filled with life and holiness. The choice is yours, but I recommend the last one.
