“I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.” (Zech 3:9b-10)
The great promise and dream of a salvation city too numerous for walls, yet too safe to be breached by evil, cannot be realized until her foes are vanquished. And, oh, what a foe there is! The Accuser, Satan, stands in the middle of today’s reading ready to play the foil. “Why grant such a city to these pathetic, rebellious people?” he accuses. He does not speak utter nonsense. There stands Joshua, the representative of the covenant people, and he is filthy. Tensions rise in the Lord’s courts as the Accuser’s sly reasoning based on fairness seems to make a lot of sense. Maybe the great promise was just a pipe dream after all.
Oh Christian, stop looking to your feet and gaze upon your gracious King! Here the promise of Christ is given! God sends the Branch, and He has removed the sins of the people in a single day. On a single cross, in one horrific ceremony of traitors being forever silenced, the King’s Son died in our place, in our behalf. Yet Jesus was indeed not a traitor as are we, so He was rightly justified by the Father and raised from death to resume His position at God’s right hand.
Joshua was filthy indeed as he stood before the King. Embarrassed, he must have waited apprehensively for an assenting nod from the king to his accuser. “Satan’s right,” he must have thought, “I am pathetic, unworthy—a true brand destined for the fire.“ But in that fateful moment, the beauty of grace shone brightest. The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair. Your life is not fair, it is graced. And it is the power of the all-leveling resurrection that enables verse ten’s wonderful opportunity to invite all neighbors to come to the Vine and rest under the shade of grace and life. Rich or poor, brilliant or dumb as a rock, all are welcomed to be raised as an inheriting child of Abraham.
Soli Deo gloria! Satan has been rebuked and death is defeated. We now look back upon the cross and invite our neighbors!
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