Prepare to Listen. See your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation.
Prayerfully Read Zechariah 9:9-10 9Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. Prayerfully Wonder Rejoice greatly, shout aloud; your king comes to you. We usually read these words on Palm Sunday. However, Handel put them early in his Messiah, relating them to Jesus’ first Advent. It’s good to reflect repeatedly on Messiah’s character, described here in three words: triumphant, victorious, and humble. The Hebrew terms for “triumphant and victorious” more accurately mean “righteous and having salvation” (i.e., saved or delivered).[1] Righteous, in biblical usage, implies fulfilling relationship demands, administering justice (as in equity and equal rights), living rightly, trafficking in truth telling. The second word, saved/delivered, relates to being vindicated, declared right. For instance, Jesus was falsely judged and crucified but vindicated by God in the resurrection. The third term is humble, a challenging virtue and not one that characterizes most rulers. However, Jesus, the supreme Ruler, is characterized by humility, which meant knowing that everything he accomplished was the result of God’s great work and not his own. [2] This is the Messiah we follow, and we’re called to be like him. We’re called to live righteously by fulfilling relationship demands, seeking justice and promoting truth. We live humbly when we acknowledge we’ve been declared right, vindicated by God, not due to our own efforts, but through the work of Jesus. Therefore, we rejoice and shout aloud because our King continually comes to us. Prayerfully Reflect How can you practice righteousness, justice and truth telling today? Prayerfully Respond There is so much in our world, Lord that seeks to dampen our rejoicing. Help me look beyond the mess so that I can see you coming in your compassionate and peaceful way today and rejoice. Amen. Live obediently. See your king comes to you. [1] As in Today’s New International Version and Achtemeier, Elizabeth. Nahum-Malachi. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1986, p. 151. [2] See John 5:19 where Jesus claims to do “nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing.”
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