The coming of Zion's king
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11 As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
12 Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.
13 I will bend Judah as I bend my bow
and fill it with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, O Zion,
against your sons, O Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword.
These words remind us of Advent. Verse 9 is often used as an Advent text. Here, hidden in the words of Zechariah, is a prophecy of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as King. It is also a reference for all Christians to the final fulfillment of prophecy, when the Lord comes again victoriously with all of his angels. Then the streets of heavenly Jerusalem will ring with the shouts of the victors. Shouting is impressive, and in our day and age we do much of it. Shouting thrives at sporting events. Imagine any kind of athletic game played without shouting. Would the effort even be any fun at all if there was no shouting? People shout themselves hoarse. From their living rooms they even shout at a glass screen that mirrors an event taking place hundreds of miles away!
Imagine the shouting and rejoicing that is going to take place when the Lord comes for his people! All Christians will rise up and shout themselves hoarse in exploding enthusiasm. God has come just as he said he would!
“See, your king,” the verse says. We are going to see him. Just like Job we are going to see: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another” (Job 19:25-27).
We cannot look at the one picture of Jesus coming on Palm Sunday without also thinking of his second coming, which we too will witness along with all people. We say this particularly as we look at the scope of the peace that will accompany his arrival. It will be universal. There will no longer be any war chariots or battle bows. Pruning hooks
and plowshares will take the place of swords and spears. This peace will come upon those people on the King’s side. Real peace comes in knowing that you have won and that the other side is forever incapable of fighting.
The peace comes in rightness and righteousness. When the cause is finally shown without a doubt to be the right one, when believers finally see the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams, then true peace of mind and heart will arrive.
It does not seem possible that meek, humble Jesus will bring the rampant forces of evil to unconditional surrender. It takes faith to accept this King now. It will not take faith to believe in him as King when he returns in the clouds of heaven to claim undisputed rule. But it will be forever too late for those who wait until that day to try and claim him as their King. “Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him” (Revelation 1:7).
It will be a universal peace that will reach the east and west, north and south—all brought into the peace of God through the blood of the Son, all won through the agreement instigated by God himself: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). Those were the divinely established terms of the covenant. “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19,20). Truly, as verse 11 of Zechariah says, “Because of the blood of my covenant with you.” That is the only reason for peace—then or now.
The prisoners would also have this peace. It will be a peace of release for those in waterless pits. God is a God who rescues his people—like Jeremiah, Daniel, Joseph—out of pits from which they could never escape by themselves. Never mind if the pit is of our own or of others’ digging; never mind whether the pit is physical or spiritual. We can return to the fortress, the Mighty Fortress, to the unbreachable place of safety and security.
God’s people were prisoners of hope. Their hold had just about slipped. They were just about gone. The flame had just about died. But as long as there was life, there was hope. Sad words were spoken many years later on the road to Emmaus by two disciples fresh from the crucifixion of their Lord, “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). Life itself was lived by this hope. Without this hope, life was and is not worth living.
“Even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.” The mind has trouble comprehending the goodness of God. Not only did he release the people from prison, but he also promised that they would receive twice as much good as they had previously received evil in their languishing. The words come to the people in a tone similar to the prophet Isaiah’s words: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1,2).
The goodness of God to his people is the theme upon which they will sing for eternity without ever tiring of it or exhausting its possibilities. What a King! No wonder the people line the streets to shout their praise and happiness! The section ends in martial tone. The Lord himself breaks back the bow. His keen eye looks down the straight arrow at the enemy; his muscles bunch for perfect release of the arrow. We can see a trace of a smile on the archer’s face. Judah is the bow. Ephraim is the arrow. In the hands of the Lord they will prove deadly against the enemy. In his hands they will make telling shots. They fly straight and true.
What a bold picture! The Lord will use his church as his instrument in conquering the gentile world and bringing them into his family.