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Sunday Morning, Zechariah 2:5-13 A quick search of the Bible for verses that echo the invitation of the third night vision (Zech. 2:6-7), the call to come out from that place of exile and separation from the place of God's dwelling, turns up an extensive list. By my own count, and it is by no means exhaustive, the verses number in the scores. This is because the central theme of Divine mercy is the calling of sinners out of the land of enslavement to sin and death: lands like Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, empires devoted to the Satanic task of keeping the people of God from experiencing the blessing and glory of dwelling in that good and plentiful land. The story of the Gospel, of God's gracious condescension to His fallen people, is one of reclamation from that miserable state of imprisonment, brought on by their own rebellion. It is the Lord who calls, it is the Lord who builds, it is the Lord who dwells and so makes that land of promise a good and pleasant land, a land flowing with milk and honey, guarded by the same fire that burns in the midst of us, a flame that consecrates as well as protects, and fills as much as it defends. Let us, this Sunday, sit in awe at the grand design of God's salvation, and respond with sincere reverence, knowing that once we were not His people, but now, through Christ Jesus, we are. Let us also sing and rejoice, even as the Messiah takes to Himself is blessed inheritance as our Righteous Deliverer.

This song reflects a time, not unlike current times, when the Lord did something glorious for Israel, when He restored their fortunes. It contains also a lament, focusing upon time in the past when deliverance was accomplished in order to inform a plea for the Lord to do it again. And oh how the Lord has worked in times past, and how that work informs, sustains, and grants us hope in the labor of sowing, unto the end of reaping the harvest. Christ's work of deliverance at the empty tomb, a past event, undergirds and informs our hope in the midst of sorrow, knowing that the Lord is working good for those who trust Him, and called by Him. Whatever we might endure that results in suffering and sorrow in the present will one day turn to good fortune, to laughter, to the ending of all captivity in glory.

Sunday Evening, 2 Samuel 24:18-25 What does it take to remove covenant guilt from the land? This question dominates the closing chapters of 2 Samuel, beginning in chapter 21. It was there that we are introduced to an unspecified action taken by Saul against the Gibeonites that was a violation of the covenant agreement between Israel and them, and due to Saul's violence against them, God had brought about covenant judgment upon Israel. This narrative follows the same theme at 2 Samuel 21:1-14, of guilt, wrath, and atonement. Whereas the sin of Saul which David had to deal with had happened in the past, the sin for which God brings judgment against David was something in David's present. Chapter 24 goes further than chapter 21, however, as we see the threshing floor of Araunah does not simply become the site of one sacrifice, it in fact becomes the site of the temple. The atonement that closes the book of Samuel is not the end of the story; it is the foundation of what comes next.