Zechariah 12

Our Lord has a special plan concerning His covenant people. During many centuries this plan included the plain fact of divine discipline against them. Eventually, at a time known to Him, this plan will finally take the form of a great victory. The Lord's perfected Israel will come in glory with the One who was pierced for our transgressions, the One we have looked upon in order that we might live. The Lord of creation who made the heavens and the earth, the Lord who has made us to be not only physical beings, but who has given us spiritual life and created us in His image, the Lord who has made us alive in His Son, has a Word to communicate to us concerning His plan, a Word to strengthen us during the many centuries of suffering that we may face along the way to glory.

The Lord has revealed here that in some final day the nations of the earth will gather against His Jerusalem. This will not be for the final destruction of the Lord's people but for their victory over the world. This prophecy cannot have been fulfilled in any moment from the history of the Old Testament people. We can point to moments of defeat for Jerusalem, but where is the moment that then turned into victory against the nations that were gathered against the Lord's anointed flock? When did Jerusalem become a heavy stone that others would try to lift, only to hurt themselves?

When the Christ, the Rock of our salvation, came as the true Israel of God, something like this did happen. A prayer of Peter, John and their friends concerning this, based on Psalm 2, is recorded for us in Acts 4:24-30. "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, 'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed'- for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." The apostolic church saw what would happen next through their ministry as a victory by God's power, a victory that they requested with these words, "And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

We know that there will be another day, which the New Testament writers also spoke of, when the nations would be gathered against the people of the Lord in some final battle. That occasion also fits with this prophecy, when it will appear that the people of God will appear to be almost overwhelmed, yet the result will be a massive and final victory for the Lord and His glorious Jerusalem. As Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10, "They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints." On that great day, the Lord will strengthen all those who are in Christ, the exalted Son of David, and will grant them the greatest victory that can be imagined. He will give the fullness of salvation to His people, and will destroy all those who were gathered against them.

How can we understand the connection between the amazing victory of one man over the nations that the church seems to be praying about in Acts 4, and the final victory that will come at the Day of the Lord, when heaven will come to earth at the return of the Son of God? During the period between the victory of the cross and the resurrection and the final return of the glorious Son of Man, the Lord would be pleased to bring the message of this one Savior to the ends of the earth through the ministry of His church. Here in Zechariah 12, God promises to pour out His Spirit of grace upon the people who are part of this great Son of David, His holy Jerusalem. They will make pleas for mercy, and they will be heard. They will look on him whom they pierced. They will look to Him and weep, but they will look to Him and live. This began when soldiers looked on the one they pierced (John 19:37), and it will not be over until He comes again on clouds of glory, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him." (Revelation 1:7)

Men and women from among the Jews and the Gentiles have come to look upon Him as He is presented in the preaching of the Word, and many families have believed. Though for centuries the church has faced much persecution and many sad setbacks, there can be no doubt that the Son of David will have His final victory, and that He will bring with Him all who now rest in Him in the present heavens. Despite the struggles that we face in any day of trouble, we are kept going as we rest upon the One who has loved us with an everlasting love. He was pierced for our transgressions. By His wounds we shall be healed.