Zechariah 7: Diamond Hardness
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Scattered in a whirlwind and living in an unfamiliar, desolate land, they are not heard by the Lord of hosts when they call on his name. They refused to listen. They turned stubborn backs and stopped up their ears. They plotted evil and oppressed those who lived on the fringes and those who were unaccepted. They isolated, they divided, they did not show compassion or kindness toward each other. With all of this constant turning away, they have turned their hearts to such stoniness that they are now diamond hard. Only God can call them back. Only God can soften these people. Only God knows their true names.
Zechariah writes to those who have returned from exile and who should remember and understand how they came to be living in a hostile land. He encourages those who return to open their hearts, to soften their hearts, to give their hearts over to God.
The people who first heard this prophecy believed that they had suffered more, longer and harder than any of the other faithful before them. Zechariah offers hope to these people and to us. He encourages us to cease putting off tending to our relationship with God. He urges us to clean our temple selves, and to ready ourselves for the coming of one who will save. We do this best by forming and building community. We do this best by showing compassion and kindness to one another.
When we are in the throes of a struggle, the one thing that will lift us, open us, soften us is our choice to place ourselves in our opponents’ shoes. In doing this, we step out of ourselves and open our cold hearts to God and to others. We risk being hurt, we risk losing our safety spot. Yet we risk the total loss of self we stay encamped in our own interior tending to ourselves as our hearts turn harder each day. Eventually we turn into the hardest of materials – the cold glitter of diamonds.
When you fasted and mourned . . . was it really for me that you fasted?
We have a clear choice before us. We may either turn a pleasant land into a desert, or we may open our hearts to the possibility of divinity. What do we choose today? Diamond hardness, or the gentle, patient wisdom of God?
Images from: https://secretangelps911.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/hearts-of-stone/ and https://www.pinterest.com/dan330/hearts-in-nature/
A favorite from November 14, 2009.
The Noontimes 
To enter into the conversation, leave a reply