Zechariah 6:1-7:14, Revelations 15:1-8, Psalm 143:1-12, Proverbs 30:24-28
Today is the 24th day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is great to be here with you today, it’s Christmas Eve. Here we are, last day of the Advent season. And it’s Christmas eve and so Merry Christmas to everybody as we kind of settle in to the festivities and the goings-on of the next couple of days. It’s wonderful to be here with you to spend Christmas Eve for a few moments together around the Global Campfire. And we will simply take the next step forward as we do every day, and our next step forward leads us back into the book of Zechariah, and we’ll continue with Zechariah’s visions and they may sound similar to what we’re reading in the book of Revelation because this is apocalyptic literature, highly symbolic. So, it’s interesting for us to hear this, the symbolism of Zechariah, or in Revelation, just ask ourselves, what am I considering symbolism, and what am I, what do I literally and…and why? And just kind of explore the things that we see and hear. Let’s take that next step forward now. Zechariah chapters 6 and 7 today.
Commentary:
Okay, so, it's…it’s Christmas Eve right, and that’s, that makes it the final day of the Advent season. Tomorrow, we commemorate the arrival of Jesus. So, there’s joy in our hearts. There’s probably a lot on the to do list, still to go for, for tomorrow, maybe tonight is a candlelight celebration at church, maybe even like a midnight service to ring in the arrival of Christmas and the…the arrival of the Savior. And through all of this we’ve established this rhythm, every day, moving through the Scriptures and the Scriptures continue to speak to us. We’re reading in Zechariah today and we heard what the prophet had in a visionary experience and what it reminds us of. Zechariah said this is what the Lord of Heaven’s armies says, judge fairly, show mercy and kindness to one another, don’t oppress widows, orphans, foreigners and the poor and don’t scheme against each other. We can see in the prophecies that Christmas isn’t a blackout date where we can just do all those things during Christmas because it’s a different time of year and everybody, everybody does different things. Like, there’s no blackout. This is what we’re supposed to do all the time. And if there were a season to judge fairly and show mercy and kindness to each other, wouldn’t that be now? May we do that and as we do that, let’s consider what we saw in Revelation. John sees what looks to him to be a sea of glass that’s on fire, very hard to comprehend but this is what he’s seeing and next to that sea were those who had endured and God gave them hearts and they were singing to the lamb in worship and their words were great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God the Almighty, just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear You, Lord, and glorify Your name. For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous deeds have been revealed. That may not be like a well-known Christmas Carol that we might sing today, but it’s a song wholly appropriate for the arrival of the king of all. Right, we’re celebrating this…this first arrival of the Savior, as we celebrate Christmas. But we are also longing for the second Advent for a return, and as we read Revelation, we’re prophetically hearing what that worship will look like in advance from a time that we long for, when all things will be made new again and all things have been made new again. Because of the arrival of Emmanuelle, because God came to be with us. And so, may we rejoice today, may we treat each other with kindness and mercy. May we extend the love of God to everyone that we interact with. May we look in the mirror and extend the love of God to the person there, and may we open our hearts to the joy of Christmas.
Song played: “Silent Night” Sleeping At Last