Links for today’s readings:
May 20 Read: Zechariah 2 Listen: (1:41) Read: Luke 11 Listen: (7:33)
Scripture Focus: Zechariah 2.2-5, 10-11
2 I asked, “Where are you going?”
He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is.”
3 While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him 4 and said to him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of people and animals in it. 5 And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’
10 “Shout and be glad, Daughter Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,” declares the Lord. 11 “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.
Reflection: Welcoming Walls
By John Tillman
One generation’s trauma affects the next. I didn’t see the Berlin Wall built, but I saw it fall. It was a day of joy and tears.
The Berlin Wall stood for less than thirty years. Only ninety-six miles long, it divided a city, a nation, and the entire world. It was one of many generational traumas of the Cold War. When the wall was torn down, there was joy and celebration. But there were also tears for the years of separation and mourning for those who did not live to see the day or had died trying to cross.
Returning from exile must have been a similar emotional rollercoaster. No wall was demolished in their escape, but when they arrived at Jerusalem, there was a wall to repair.
Jerusalem was an abandoned rubble pile, defenseless, vulnerable, and marked by tragedy. The rubble was a physical representation of the emotional scars from their seventy-year exile. Zephaniah encouraged the people that it was time to rebuild.
“Measure twice, cut once,” goes the truism.
Measuring is important to rebuilding. To rebuild Jerusalem, the walls and many other things would need to be measured. These measurements were vital to gather sufficient material and organize and complete the work. However, when a young man in Zechariah’s vision set off to measure the width and length of Jerusalem, an angel ran after him to say, “Don’t bother.”
New Jerusalem will be measureless. Innumerable people from every nation and ethnicity will live inside it. The city’s only limit will be the presence of God, envisioned as a wall of protective and purifying fire.
The Brandenburg Gate’s original name meant “Peace Gate.” But the Berlin Wall enclosed it in the “death zone” where those attempting to escape would be shot by East German guards. The wall around New Jerusalem has no “death zone” but it does have a Peace Gate. Jesus Christ is the gate through whom all may enter to find peace with God in his city.
Like the exiles, we are called to escape the empires that claim us or that we claim. We are called to return to, rebuild, and repair, not a worldly city or political entity, but the city of God. We don’t need to measure (or even build) walls to divide. The walls of the heavenly city are welcoming to all who will pass through Jesus, the Peace Gate.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
How sweet are your words to my taste! They are sweeter than honey to my mouth. — Psalm 119.103
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle
Read more: Cultivating Daily Bread
Daily bread refers to a daily need for God and purposely highlights the need for spiritual disciplines that are required for us to grow in faith
Read more: The Urban Sprawl of the City of God
God is writing an Exodus narrative for us today…“Escape!”, he cries. “Escape from Babylon!”
