Zechariah 11:12-13
12 Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. 13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter” — the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.
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This chapter of Zechariah describes a prophetic act through which the prophet declares judgment over the chosen people of Israel. They leaders do not care for those in their charge, the people have despised God, and God has rejected them. Can you imagine things getting so bad that God said to them, “What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another” (v. 9). Oh, that we would never hear God speak those words to our nation or our world!
Stop and think about this for a moment. You see, we have much more in common with the people of Israel than we would like to admit. By nature, we all are guilty of not caring for those we could help. At times we all have done things that would indicate that we despise God. And, I suspect that I’m not the only one who has exasperated God to the point that He might want to give up on me. As Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Thankfully, Jeremiah also tells us that “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).
While I’m sure Zechariah didn’t realize that his action of throwing the thirty pieces of silver into the house of the Lord meant anything other than a small part of his prophetic message to his audience, we can see that God had His bigger message in mind. With this detail He points to the story of Jesus being betrayed, murdered, and resurrected, and He lets us know that the situation of judgment being portrayed by Zechariah doesn’t have to be our situation.
Jesus came to us, became one of us, and lived among us to show us the way God wants us to live. He died on the cross to remove our sin, which keeps us from living His way. He rose from the dead to defeat the power of sin and death once for all. He sent His Spirit to live in us, to equip us to live that better life that was made possible by Jesus’ work.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live the kind of life Zechariah was portraying. It’s so much better to walk in God’s love, mercy, and faithfulness.
– Rev. Dale S. Cain