In today's reading from Zechariah we see our Lord seemingly stop and reflect on his work and on the distinction between his chosen people and those who have persecuted them. While we can mine the passage to see what is on God's heart, I'd like to take a different tack. I realize that, like God himself, it is good for his people to reflect on the way the Lord has blessed them and on the way he has withheld his blessing from some others.
Does this lead to a holier-than-thou attitude? I hope it doesn't. Rather, I hope it leads to a deep sense of gratitude for God's mercy. After all, we confess that Jesus died for everyone's sins and that all people who believe in this work of Christ see that they are adopted as sons of God and joint heirs of the heavenly realms. Our desire is that all should believe, just as our Lord's stated desire is.
So how has the Lord blessed us? As we think we can count innumerable blessings. If there's anything good that has ever happened in our lives, that is a blessing from God. It has not happened without his providential care. For that matter, we can look on our troubles and see that ultimately they are all evidence of the reality of sin in the world, of the fact that we are prone to suffer and that we need someone to ransom us from this suffering.
What perspective is the unbeliever left with? Sadly, if we think we are the arbiter of our life, we see that suffering is something with no lasting benefits. We take the ultimate glory for anything good that happens, though many things, we must realize, simply happen without our control. We find that life is transient, ephemeral, and that we have no ultimate anchor in our lives. This is a sad situation indeed, a position which is hard to imagine. Yet that is the ultimate outcome of any faith that looks inward, to the individual, to the culture, or to one's own goodness in the world.
It's the same world, the same reality. So which is true? Is everything meaningless? Is there someone lovingly governing the world and all its affairs to bring us to him and the delight we can have in him? History clearly seems to show that the events around Jesus' death and resurrection are based in reality, though they are doubtless claims to a supernatural. There are more or less contemporary records of eyewitnesses who had nothing to gain by giving the testimony they did falsely. The evidence is quite as reliable as the evidence for countless other events in antiquity. Why do we dispute it? Why do we not rather realize and believe that Jesus did exactly what the Scripture says - died for our sins and lives for our righteousness? Let us look to him in faith.
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