In Zechariah 11.4-17 the prophet receives two different commissions from the Lord, both times as a shepherd. Both commissions would seem to symbolize the leadership God has given to the leaders he has placed over his people.
First, the prophet is placed over a flock which is destined for slaughter. Despite his attempt to govern them and the other shepherds with a staff of favor, the other shepherds and the sheep themselves are self-destructive. In frustration and anger, he breaks both the staff called "favor" and the staff called "union." By this symbolic act, he is removing the kindness of God and the unity found through the fact that the sheep really belong to one flock. Even good rulers who attempt to protect and unify the people, when faced with a people determined to self-destruct, will fail in their attempts. As in the days of Zechariah, also in today's world. Civil authorities, even with the best of intentions, are faced with a people who reject God, rebel against authority, and ultimately cause their own destruction.
Second, the prophet is told to take on the garb and tools of a lazy and worthless shepherd. This shepherd himself is doomed to destruction due to his disregard for his flock. Both the flock and the shepherd are destroyed.
Despite the strong statements of Scripture that leaders are responsible to rule well for the benefit and good of even a rebellious people, when faced with that rebellious people, leaders eventually put on the foolish shepherd's clothes. This does not relieve them of the responsibility for the people. It merely seals their doom.
I wonder what God-given responsibilities we have shrugged off? I wonder how we have given up on nurturing and caring for a self-destructive world? How great the condemnation we deserve!
Before leaving this passage, though, we must look at the middle a bit more carefully. The good shepherd's services were purchased and ended for thirty pieces of silver, not coincidentally the amount of money for which Judas betrayed Jesus. As he approached the cross, Jesus, confronted with rebellious and self destructive people, other leaders who were worthless, and a world which could not receive God's favor, allowed himself to be given over to those destructive men and to bear the penalty they deserved, that penalty of death and separation from God.
Do we deserve condemnation and wrath? Certainly. Thanks be to God, who has sent his only son to bear that condemnation and wrath in our place.
