Thursday, November
30, 2017
“On that day a fountain will be opened for the dynasty of
David and for the people of Jerusalem, a fountain to cleanse them from all
their sins and impurity.
Zechariah 13:1(NLT)
We are now in the Season of Advent, a new year in the Christian calendar;
it’s a season of promise and expectancy.
This time is filled with the images of people who walked in great
darkness anticipating the dawn of light and life.
God said through the prophet Zechariah that a fountain would be opened for
the cleansing and re-birth of Israel. God’s
forgiveness birthed in a stable would become that fountain that washes away the
sins and rebellion of the past.
Israel needed a rebirth because of their national sins; they had stopped
serving God and were full-blown into self-serving worship of whatever pleased
them most. That is a microcosm of what
is true for all humanity. As the apostle
Paul proclaimed, all have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard[2].
Through another prophet, Isaiah, God spoke this same sweeping reality,
that every one of us, like wandering sheep, have lost sight of God, and our
deepest personal need is to be forgiven.
Zechariah’s prophecy of the opening of God’s forgiving fountain would be
Jesus, the long-ago promised coming of a Savior:
All of
us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths
to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. Isaiah 53:6(NLT)
This morning I’d like to let 17th century poet William Cowper hold-out
Zechariah’s image of God’s fountain for us:
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:
The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in His day;
And there have I, though vile as he,
Washed all my sins away:
That fountain in His day;
And there have I, though vile as he,
Washed all my sins away:
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its pow’r,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Are safe, to sin no more:
Shall never lose its pow’r,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Are safe, to sin no more:
E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die:
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die:
When this poor, lisping, stamm’ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save:
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save:
For You
Today
As we begin a new year in the Christian cycle of worship, thank God for
the cleansing-healing power of the blood of Christ. That fountain is what births you into the
family of God, and it is the only reason you can stay there.
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