Is This the Day of the Lord?

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to the LORD.” And the pots in the house of the LORD shall be as the bowls before the altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day. (Zechariah 14:16-21 ESV). The talk of the Second Coming of Christ seems to be increasing this year more than I can remember in the last twenty years. Perhaps it is because of the general unrest and spiritual malaise we see in our culture, especially in America. I haven’t read or heard of any “predictions” as were common in the seventies, but those may be surfacing soon as well. I can say this with certainty: no one knows when Jesus is coming except the Father. That does not excuse our vigilance and preparation. A part of that vigilance is the understanding of prophetic passages in the Scripture. Today’s reading is one of those. It is certainly different than any other prophecy in the book. Zechariah has given us lofty visions, stirring promises, fearsome warnings. Now his climax, his closing chapter, his final word, is all about cooking pots and horse bells! The Old Testament operates with three moral categories: the holy, the clean, and the unclean. The holy meant “limited access.” Moses’ bush and the inner room of the Jerusalem temple are notable examples. The clean required diligent attention to meticulous laws. Eventually those laws became dysfunctional, so that Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for excessive attention to them. The unclean category was wide open: most people and many things fell into it at one time or another. But here’s Zechariah’s grand prediction was that someday there would be just one category: the holy. God makes all things new; common stuff becomes holy, outsiders are included. The end of the story comes to pass. This world belongs to God at last. Everyday things are sacred in the new creation. The simplest communication technology (horse bells) and the most ordinary implements (cooking pots) are now “holy to the Lord.” The foreigner is no longer shunned. God is sovereign, and everything at the periphery is now brought close to the center, sanctified, it’s true value revealed. The world is the way it should be, at last. What a day that will be! If this is that day, then my response is Hallelujah! Be encouraged. It is going to get better!