Fasts Turned to Feasts
Zechariah vii., viii.
The Jews, during their captivity, appear to have observed four fasts. Four months were darkened by them. That of the tenth month recalled the first enclosure of Jerusalem by the lines of circumvallation; that of the fourth month commemorated the capture of the city in the reign of Zedekiah (Jer. xxxix. 2; lii. 6, 7); of the fifth, the disaster which capped all, when the house of the Lord was set on fire (lii. 12-14); that of the seventh, the murder of Gedaliah, resulting in the dispersion of the remnant (xli.. 1-3).
The Jewish year was thus filled with sad retrospects, and the national life was perpetually oppressed with gloom: for it is clear that the observance of these days was a rigorous obligation (Zech. vii. 4-6).
On their return from captivity the people still maintained these fasts; and it seems to have struck some of the exiles who had settled in Bethel as altogether incongruous to continue wearing sackcloth, and casting ashes on their heads, when the Holy City was rapidly rising from the dust, and
Pie regaining much of her former prosperity and beauty. It seemed to savor of unreality and hypocrisy to continue to profess a grief which had long since been assuaged, and even changed into great joy. Surely the confessions and lamentations, which were befitting enough in Babylon, were out of place in the land of their fathers. They sent, therefore, a deputation to the house of God, to consult the priests and prophets congregated there, saying: “Should I weep in the-fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?” (Zech. Vii. I-3.)
It was a very reasonable inquiry, and becoming to honorable men, who felt that fasting and mourning must be both meaningless in themselves and displeasing to God, unless they were the outward expression of the soul’s genuine emotions. It was surely worse than useless to keep up an antiquated form, the effigy of the past, the withered mummy of a service which once expressed the most profound
( anguish and repentance. It is, above all things, necessary to be real in our religious life — never to L orofess what we do not feel. Do not keep up a form for form’s sake, if you have left behind the experience of which it was once the expression.
Nothing will so deaden the soul as the maintenance of rites from which the fire and light have died, leaving them as the scoriae of the volcano.
Zechariah seems to have given four separate answers to this inquiry. Four times “The Word of the Lord of Hosts” came to him.
In the first (vii. 4-7), he reminds the people that these fasts were of their own appointing; and suggests the inference, therefore, that as they had inaugurated them, they were at liberty to discontinue them when they chose. He suggests the further inference, also, that it would have been far better if, instead of appointing fasts, which satisfied national sentiment, the people had set themselves to ponder the words of the older prophets: “Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited, and in prosperity?” It is so much easier to set up fasts, and to insist on outward observances, than to bow down the heart before God, and to obey the ordinances which He has enjoined.
In the second (vii. 8-14), the prophet says, that whatever they may or may not do with respect to the outward fast, they should at least exemplify the spirit of true religion, which was of priceless importance. “Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother; and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.” Thus had God spoken to their fathers, and thus He was now speaking with them. Their fathers had refused to hear, but had made their hearts as an adamant stone; and it had befallen, therefore, that, as they were deaf to God’s cry, so He had been to theirs. He had scattered them as with a whirlwind, and left their land desolate. Thus Zechariah implored the people of his time not to yield to the obtuseness and disobedience of their fathers; that they might escape their fate, and that no catastrophe should interrupt the resurrection of their nation, or cast it back into the disasters with which it had been visited.
In his third answer (viii. 1-17), Zechariah dilates on the great prosperity which was awaiting the chosen city. The Lord had returned to dwell there, to constitute Jerusalem the city of truth, and Zion, his holy mountain. The streets should yet be full of old men and women, staff in hand for very age. The ringing, careless laughter of boys and girls at play should proclaim the prosperity and security of the times. From east and west, contingents of exiles should troop back to repopulate the former desolations. “Now I will not be unto the remnant of this people as in the former days, saith the Lord of Hosts. For there shall be the seed of peace; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things.”
And, again, on these delightful promises ensue the reiterated appeals — that every man should speak truth with his neighbor; that true judgment should be executed in the gates; and that all things which God hated should be put away. It was as though these golden visions of prosperity and
blessedness were enumerated to convince the chosen people that God desired to remember their sins no more; and to urge that, instead of dwelling mournfully on the past, they should launch upon the swelling tide of light and love, which was creeping up their shores.
This is God’s way still. He chastens sorely. If we profane his name and pollute his temple; if we strike hands in ungodly alliances, and go after strange gods; if we dye our hands in the vats of the world’s vanity — we are sent, as Israel was, into captivity, and our seventy years are fulfilled. But when we have profited by his stern discipline, and returned to Him with all our heart and soul, we are restored to our former position; God’s hand wipes the tears from our eyes, and He bids us turn from our bitter repinings over an irretrievable past, to accept the unalloyed mercy which remembers our sins no more:
God who, whatever frenzy of our fretting
Vexes sad life to spoil and to destroy,
Lendeth an hour for peace and for forgetting, Setteth in pain the jewel of his joy.
Such dealings with his rebellious and erring children are very wonderful. They pass all human thought. It is much to be forgiven: but to be forgiven so utterly, so completely, so extravagantly, “according to the riches of his grace’” — here is a marvel indeed. But there is no marvel with Him! Such grace is no effort to his glorious nature! He is not sensible of strain! It is simply the bubbling over of his heart, which is Love. “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: If it be marvelous in the eyes of the
aeRO aa earner remnant of this people, should it also be marvelous (
in mine eyes, saith the Lord of Hosts?” “His ways J
are higher than our ways, and his thoughts than: lour thoughts.”’
In his final answer (viii. 18-23), Zechariah gives a delightful anticipation of future days, which are still awaiting complete realization, but in some measure were fulfilled in the history of the Restoration. “The word of the Lord of Hosts came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; The fast of the fourth month, of the fifth, of the seventh, and of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace” (viii. 18, 19).
This is a welcome exchange. We could not be surprised to learn that God had so blotted out the memory of the past that fateful anniversaries would pass without special recognition. Our memory of the dark and disastrous is commonly short-lived. Bitter recollections soon fade from memory’s tablets. What we do not like to recall, we drop into the keeping of oblivion, and that sea is never in haste to give up its dead. But the remarkable point here was, that these anniversaries, which had formerly brought the deepest melancholy, would henceforth be hailed as festal days, as though the events which had happened on them, and seemed only disastrous, were really full of the choicest blessing, and had been misinterpreted. It reminds us of the dark lines in the spectrum, which stands for new and unrealized constituents in the solar atmosphere.
Does the astronomer regret them, when he understands their significance? No, he counts them of inexpressible worth.
As we inquire how such a revulsion of feeling could be brought about, we catch a further glimpse into God’s thoughts. He set Himself to assure his people, in effect, that in the future, when they could view his dealings in their true perspective, they would discover that their darkest days had been the source and origin of their gladdest ones; because through them they had come to know themselves, been weaned from their sins, and had acquired those virtues which attracted the reverence and love of the world.
Consider again these glowing predictions: “It shall come to pass that as ye were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing.” And again: “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come peoples, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to entreat the favor of the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts.” And again: “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you” (vs. 13, 20, Be).
eee predictions have already been marvelously fulfilled. In the midst of the dark night of heathen idolatry, when the foremost and wisest nations of the world were given up to the grossest idolatry and impurity, the synagogues of the dispersed Jews shone like sparks of light, holding forth the great. doctrines of the unity and spirituality of the Divine Nature, the need of forgiveness, and the sanctity of Home. In every considerable Gentile city, the synagogue had a large following of devout proselytes drawn from the leading Gentile families. From the Jewish nation came the Saviour of mankind, and the earliest members of his Church. To Jews we owe the New Testament, as the Old. It was at Jerusalem, on the occasion of a Jewish festival, that the Holy Ghost descended to begin his mighty work. And in all the so-called Christian ages, while persecuting the chosen people, the foremost nations of the world have taken hold of their skirts, going with them to their sacred shrines, using their conceptions of God, appropriating their sacred writings, and venerating their lawgivers, prophets, and saints, with a reverence equal to their own.
There is also a time, yet future, but probably not far away, when the Jewish people shall be brought to own the claims of Jesus, and shall look on Him with repentance, faith, and love; and then they will be still more sought after by the nations of the world as the representatives and teachers of the only true religion. These days are clearly predicted; and the signs on every hand corroborate our faith that it shall be even as the prophets, and this prophet especially, have foretold.
But we can never forget that this vast respect of the world for the Jewish people dates from the Babylonish captivity. Before that they were too fickle in their allegiance to Jehovah, too deeply tarred by the vile impurities of surrounding peoples, to win either audience or credence, when they advocated their own religion. What respect could the nations have for them, when the heights around Zion were covered by temples to foreign deities; and when the same defiling rites were practiced as disgraced the fanes of Chemosh, Molech, and Astarte? Abana and Pharpar were equal to any of the waters of Israel; Balaam was as Moses, and Zoroaster as Elijah.
But the captivity altered everything. They entered it deeply imbued with polytheism, and left it the strictest monotheists the world has ever seen. Their sorrows gave birth to some of their noblest Scriptures, and made their hold on the sacred Canon more tenacious than ever. Cast out by man, they fled to the bosom of God. Divorced from the outward rites of the temple, they were driven to cling to the spiritual realities, of which the Levitical institutions were only transient types. Israel owes all the influence she has wielded in the world to the anguish which culminated in the conflagration of the temple; and, if she were wise, she would evermore keep those ancient anniversaries of despair as birthdays of her power. Until March, the farmer may regard with regret the days in which he empties his barns of their precious contents to cast seed into the soil; but when April comes, and all the furrows are covered with the green spires of the young corn, he reviews those dark winter days with congratulation, and dates from them his glorious heritage. From this historical review, we are led to apprehend the working of an eternal principle, which is thus enunciated elsewhere by the Holy Spirit: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness with them that are exercised thereby.”
We have all had our dark, sad days. The day when God said “No” to some eagerly pressed request; or when life was overcast by a dread announcement concerning our own life, or the life of one dearer to us than life; or when our trust in man’s faith rocked to ruin. We have put a black mark against those days in our calendar, and are apt, as these anniversaries occur, to give ourselves to unrestrained sorrow. It is natural, and God does not blame the tears which are salt with rebellious repining. It is natural and human, as we sit by the crags on which the sea breaks heavily, to regret the tender grave of a day that is dead, and to long for the sound of a voice that is still, and to borrow from Job’s magnificent soliloquy:
Let that day be darkness;
Let not God regard it from above,
Neither let the light shine upon it.
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QOIN, Abe “t ‘3 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. But this will not be our final verdict. Probably in the golden sunset of our life, when we can see its true meaning and perspective, when its various parts are fitted together like the variously shaped pieces of our childhood’s puzzles, we shall see reason to thank God most for our darkest days, so long as they are not days of sin, and to keep them as feasts in the eternal noon of heaven. We shall perceive that out of the darkness light was born; out of the anguish joy was born; out of the trial we entered into God’s blessed peace.
That day, when God said “No” to your hot desires, was the day of your weaning from the babelife into the strength and growth of an independent existence. That day, when a dark cloud settled on all your hopes, was the beginning of your new appreciation of the eternal constellations, shining unnoticed in your sky. That day, when your Joseph was torn from you, was really necessary to those seventeen years of prosperity in the sunshine of Egypt’s favor. That day of captivity, which snatched you from your busy life, to share Paul’s four years’ imprisonment at Cesarea and Rome, gave birth to deeper views of the nature of Jesus; so that, whereas you had only known Him as the Divine Substitute, you came to know Him in his heavenly glory, seated at the right hand of God; and your discoveries not only comforted your stricken heart, but made for the enrichment of the world.
Dare to believe this; dare to anticipate the far-off interest of tears; dare to live in the day which is after tomorrow. As Dante said, “In God’s will is our peace.” He loves us infinitely. No good thing will He withhold. He must lay deep in tears the foundations that shall upbear our eternal weight of glory:
Thus hath He done, and shall we not adore Him? This shall He do, and can we still despair?
Come, let us quickly fling ourselves before Him — Cast at his feet the burden of our care.