Zechariah 14:12-21: a reflection

12This will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have fought against Jerusalem: their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth. 13It will happen in that day that a great panic from the LORD will be among them; and they will each seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will rise up against the hand of his neighbor. 14Judah also will fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered together: gold, silver, and clothing, in great abundance. 15A plague like this will fall on the horse, on the mule, on the camel, on the donkey, and on all the animals that will be in those camps. 16It will happen that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of Armies, and to keep the feast of booths. 17It will be that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn’t go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of Armies, on them there will be no rain. 18If the family of Egypt doesn’t go up and doesn’t come, neither will it rain on them. This will be the plague with which the LORD will strike the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of booths. 19This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of booths. 20In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “HOLY TO THE LORD”; and the pots in the LORD’s house will be like the bowls before the altar. 21Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of Armies; and all those who sacrifice will come and take of them, and cook in them. In that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of Armies.

Zechariah's vision of the future ends with a startling picture of holiness spreading to everything. In that day, he says, even the bells on the horses will be inscribed Holy to the LORD, and the ordinary cooking pots in Jerusalem will be as holy as the sacred bowls at the altar. The inscription once reserved for the high priest's crown, Holy to the LORD, will be written, in effect, on the most common things, horses' bells, kitchen pots. The whole of life, down to the most ordinary object, is consecrated.

Notice the vision: the erasing of the line between sacred and secular. In the old order, some things were holy, the altar, the priestly garments, the sacred vessels, and everything else was common. But Zechariah sees a day when even the most ordinary things, the bells on a horse, the pot in a kitchen, are Holy to the LORD, consecrated, no longer a separate common realm at all. Everything is drawn into holiness; the whole of life becomes sacred.

That vision reaches toward something already beginning for those in Christ. There is no longer a small sacred corner of life and a large secular remainder; the whole of a life belongs to God and can be made holy, the ordinary work, the daily meal, the common routines, all Holy to the LORD. Do not confine God to a religious compartment while the rest of life stays merely secular. In Christ, even the horses' bells are holy. Let the whole of your life, your work, your meals, your ordinary days, be consecrated to God, Holy to the LORD, with nothing left in a purely common realm.

Lord, Zechariah saw a day when even the bells on the horses and the pots in the kitchen would be Holy to the LORD, the whole of life consecrated, the line between sacred and common erased. Keep me from confining you to a religious compartment while the rest of my life stays merely secular. In Christ, help me offer the whole of my life to you, my work, my meals, my ordinary days, all Holy to the LORD. Let nothing be left in a purely common realm; consecrate all of it to you.