The Command to Hope

“Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;” (Zec 9:12 AV)

 

Or, as some commentators say, prisoners yet not without hope.  Zechariah was a prophet to the captivity.  Along with Daniel, Jeremiah, and others, Zechariah also shared hope with the people of God’s correction.  They may have been prisoners.  But not without hope.  Even though they had disappointed the LORD, this did not mean God had abandoned them.  There was still the hope of the covenants.  They would always be in force.  Circumstances may have been not to their liking, but there was always hope.  This should be the attitude of any saint.  Life is not perfect.  It never will be.  What we have which the world has none, is hope. The statement above is a command.  It is a command to take hold of that which they can because they should have hope.  It is a command of exhortation.  Yes, it is an encouraging statement.  But more to the point, it is a command to be encouraged.

There were many life lessons learned in the middle of a pool.  My father signed us up for swimming lessons as soon as we were tall enough.  I have told the story of my instructor and how he threatened to push us in if we didn’t jump in.  When we started, the instructor had us watch as more advanced swimmers were jumping off the diving board into the deep end.  What an ominous name.  The deep end.  We knew what that meant.  Certain death!  No matter how much evidence of others successfully navigating the deep end, somehow, we thought we would be the exception.  I dreaded the day when this mean instructor would have us line up at the deep end and march towards the diving board.  Half our class was in tears.  At first, we wore life preservers as we jumped off the board and swam to the side.  Then off came the vest.  Terror struck our hearts.  We were prisoners to this man’s sick ideas.  Imagine!  Making the eight-year-olds jump into twelve feet of water and survive.  What kind of nut was this guy?  There had to be a graveyard full of students with his name on it.  The thing is, when we came up for air, the first thing our instructor did was to focus our attention on him and the pole of assistance he offered.  He slapped the water with it and yelled at us to strive towards the wall.  We turned towards the stronghold of the edge.  We were told to take heart because we would be ok.

We construct hope in the wrong fashion.  Hope does not come because our circumstances are resolved.  Hope is necessary because our circumstances are not resolved.  We don’t need hope after the fact.  We need hope before.  We don’t need hope when the need is met.  We need hope when we are prisoners of our circumstances.  What we need to accept is the command to have hope.  The requires we stop allowing our circumstances to be the only lens by which we view reality.  The strongholds are what we need to keep in view.  If Israel would have given up hope while in captivity, there would be no nation today.  They cannot give up hope.  Neither can we.