Zechariah 8:1-5: in context

After the exile, when Jerusalem lay largely in ruins and its people were beaten down and few, God speaks a promise through Zechariah about what he will make of the city. It begins with intensity: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, God says, and, I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. You might expect the vision that follows to be one of might and grandeur, restored armies, gleaming palaces, dominion over enemies. Instead, God paints a picture that is almost startlingly homely.

Here is what the restored city looks like in God's own description. Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one with a staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city will be full of boys and girls playing in them. That is it. That is the glory God promises: the very old, living long enough to grow frail and lean on a cane, sitting out safely in public, and children, filling the streets with their games. Notice who these are. They are the most vulnerable people at both ends of life, the elderly and the little ones, the two groups a violent or broken city fails first. In a place that had known siege and exile, where the streets had been dangerous and lives cut short, the sign of true peace is that grandparents can sit outside without fear and children can play in the open. God measures the health of his restored city not by its power but by the safety and ease of its weakest.

That is a quietly beautiful correction to how I tend to imagine the good future, whether for a nation, a community, or my own life. I picture success, things running impressively. God pictures the vulnerable at rest, the old unhurried in the street and the children playing without fear. When I dream of restoration and peace, is my vision grand and impressive, or is it Zechariah's, the homely, humane safety of the most vulnerable, and do I measure the health of the places I belong to by whether their old and their young are safe and at ease?