Zechariah, earlier in his letter, describes this time as a day of small things.
The people are described as prisoners in a waterless pit.
Not drowning, but dry, stuck, going nowhere.
The hope and the optimism of the fresh start had given way to discouragement and pessimism.
They were right to hope that under a new administration, the Persians, that things would improve, because they did.
Freed from the Babylonian rule, life was better.
Good policy matters. Good leadership matters.
But every administration eventually disappoints.
Every leader eventually reveals his limits, even his lack of character.
We celebrate the wins, but we live with an uneasiness.
Knowing that what we really hope for, what we really long for, can't be delivered by any earthly power.
Zechariah goes on to describe this people.
He describes them as prisoners of hope.
Not prisoners of failure, or despair, or defeat, or prisoners of their circumstances, but prisoners of hope.
What an interesting combination to bring together there.
Prisoners, yes, but still of hope.
He describes this people as people who are still limited and locked in to the things of this world,
and the limitations they can't fully satisfy, and yet, not defined by their circumstances.
They still have hope, based not on their circumstances, but on the promise.
And that's what prisoners of hope do.
They don't deny the reality around them. They don't deny that this is not the ideal that they had dreamed of.
They're not optimists who deny reality, but neither are they cynics,
who say all is lost, and all must be torn down.
Prisoners of hope live in that tension of the promise that has been received, and yet not fully fulfilled.
Zechariah's prisoners of hope aren't waiting for a better government.
They're not waiting for what comes after the Persians.
They're waiting for a king.
Now, the irony of the Old Testament reading suggesting that our hope is in a king,
the day after we celebrate 250 years of being free from the rule of kings, is kind of funny.
But, of course, this king that Zechariah speaks of is no King George.
In fact, there's never been an earthly king like this king that he holds out as Israel's true hope.
Listen to how he describes him. This king is righteous.
He's not merely not as bad as the last guy. He is truly good, truly just.
This king brings with him salvation.
He doesn't promise a grand plan that might happen someday, but actually his very coming is salvation.
And he's humble. He's humble mounted on a donkey.
A beast of burden, one that's used for work and daily living, not a mighty war horse.
In fact, he's going to cut off the war horses and the chariots and the battle bows,
the instruments of power used by rulers in this life.
This king's power, this king's weapon will be his word.
He shall speak peace to the nations. He speaks and it is accomplished.
But this king doesn't secure peace by conquering you.
No, he in fact fights for you to free you.
The battlefield wasn't a harbor in Boston or a field in Virginia, but across outside Jerusalem.
This king fought the battle that we could not fight.
And he's given us lasting peace, a rest which no nation, no political leader could provide.
The one who rode a donkey into Jerusalem while the crowd spread out their cloaks and cried out,
Hosanna, save us, is the one who saves.
Just not quite the way they had anticipated.
Which brings us to verse 11.
Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
The blood of the covenant.
This, this is what truly sets free.
This is what truly secures the peace.
This peace is secured with no less conflict,
no less outpouring of blood than peace is secured among the nations in this life.
The promised king comes and wages war against sin, death, and the devil.
And he pays a terrible price.
And yet in paying that price, he secures our peace.
In rising from the dead, the empty tomb stands as our assurance
that the blood of the covenant has secured what our hearts long for.
Yesterday was a great day to celebrate the gift of freedom granted to this nation.
Today we celebrate the gift of freedom we have from our sin, from this world, from the devil himself.
Won by our great king, the long promised Messiah.
The call is to return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope.
Return.
That word suggest implies that God's people had perhaps begun looking elsewhere for their deliverance.
Their eyes had drifted.
The waterless pit had tempted them to take matters into their own hands
or perhaps just to make peace with the way things were.
Rather than trust in a promise.
It's worth asking, where is our stronghold?
Where do we look for peace and security and for hope in a future?
A particular leader, a particular party, a particular political outcome?
Those aren't strongholds, those are useful tools at best.
At worst, they're waterless pits that keep us from faith in the true king.
Our stronghold is the one who entered humbly on a donkey and was crowned with thorns.
Our stronghold is the one who spoke peace through the shedding of his blood,
establishing a covenant that can never be overcome.
And then God declares the promise.
Today I declare that I will restore to you double.
Those who return to their stronghold, those prisoners of hope,
that continue to hope in the promise, the promise is they will be restored double.
Whatever's been lost, whatever disappointment, whatever has left you dry and in a waterless pit,
God says I'm not done.
I have more for you, much more.
In fact, you will be restored.
But not just restored back to what you once had, you will be restored double.
It rests on the blood of the covenant.
It's not dependent upon any election or any leader or any nation getting its act together.
It's done, it's secured, and it is coming.
We celebrate 250 years of a remarkable experiment in our nation.
As we're celebrating, the American experiment has been an extraordinary gift.
It's been a great blessing to its people and in fact to the world.
The ideas encoded in those founding documents of human dignity, God-given rights, liberty worth fighting for,
have made the world genuinely a better place.
That ought to be celebrated.
We ought to give thanks.
Can we keep it for another 250 years?
I don't know.
Under God's providence, nations rise, nations fall.
I do know that if we do, I suspect it will be in part because of Lutherans who live as they claim to believe.
150 years ago, G.K. Chesterton from England described America as a creedal nation,
a people brought together not by blood, not by birth, not by geography, but by creed.
Lutherans are creedal people.
We confess every week what we believe.
We understand that even as we confess, we don't always live up to the ideal of what we're confessing.
And yet we continue to confess what we believe, we continue to ask for God to have mercy on us,
that we might more and more live up to what we say we believe, to what we say we value.
America needs that understanding of being a creedal people.
Lutherans understand that God works through two kingdoms, both the church and the governments of this world.
Lutherans understand that regardless of who's in the White House, God is at work.
God is accomplishing his purposes.
God is bringing about good.
And so Lutherans can be faithful citizens.
They can vote.
They can root.
They can campaign.
And at the end of the day, they can rest,
knowing that the ultimate destiny of nations and peoples is not in the hands of human kings,
but rest alone in the hands of God Almighty.
Lutherans in particular understand that we are saints and sinners.
We are greatly blessed, and yet we don't always live up to that blessing.
And yet we can join our fellow citizens in reminding ourselves of the great blessings we've received
and calling one another to live more faithfully to the ideals that we say we believe.
A king is coming, a king whose reign will stretch from sea to sea,
but not just in America, to the whole world.
The day is coming when every nation on earth will bend its knee to the one true king.
It allows us to give thanks for the blessings we've received
without placing our ultimate hope in the kingdoms of this world,
knowing that we have been secured for us a much better king that endures forever.
Father, we do pause to give you thanks that in your wisdom and your mercy and your grace,
you have showered this nation with many blessings.
Father, make us good stewards of those blessings.
May the freedom you allow us to enjoy not be used for our indulgence,
but be used to be actively involved in loving our neighbor and spreading freedom,
in particular the freedom that comes through the proclaiming of the gospel.
Father, may we make use of the blessings that you've secured for us in our days
that our neighbor and fellow nations may know as well,
the great love of a father who has sent a king for our redemption.
We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
I invite you to please rise.