A Word in Season: The Stricken Shepherd (Zechariah 13:7)

The Fountain Opened for Sin and Uncleanness

The prophet Zechariah spoke of a day in which the Lord should open a fountain for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. The Lord had appointed a time at which he would provide salvation, where there would be a cleansing from sin and from transgression.

The Lord himself would open a way for people who were foul in their souls from rebellion against him to be made clean and whole. But such a fountain could not be opened without cost. And Zechariah goes on to speak again in the name of the Lord and to say in chapter 13 and verse 7, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts.

Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Then I will turn my hand against the little ones. Consider here that it is God himself who is acting. It is God whose sword is awoken against his shepherd.

The sword comes at God's command. The shepherd upon whom the sword falls is God's shepherd. He is the man who is God's companion. The Lord Christ shows that he understands these things of himself as we should understand them when he picks up the language of the shepherd being struck and the sheep being scattered in the last few hours of his life before his arrest and his trial and his crucifixion.

He warned his disciples that these were the things that were being fulfilled in him at that time. God was at work. And the one with whom he was at work and toward whom he would act was his own shepherd, the man he had appointed to take care of his flock, the one who would come in order to save us from our sins, who was God's own companion.

The Person of Christ as God and Man

There's at the very least here something of the wonder of the person of Jesus Christ, the God and man, those two distinct natures in one person forever. And it was this one, God's beloved son, the one who had been appointed, David's great son, in order to suffer and die in the place of his people against whom the sword would now be raised.

God called it forth. God is in control of it. The sword of justice must fall. And God has appointed that it will fall upon his shepherd rather than upon the sheep. But notice that the Lord of hosts also tells us that the shepherd will be struck and the sheep will be scattered.

The Shepherd Struck and the Sheep Scattered

Then I will turn my hand against the little ones. That's literally fulfilled immediately in the experience of the disciples when the mob comes to take the Lord Jesus and they scatter into the night. Peter denies him.

The people are found hiding or fleeing away. The sheep are scattered and the Lord turns his hand against the little ones. Now there are some who suggest that that phrase means that despite the pressures and the distresses of those days, God will preserve his flock.

We wouldn't deny that that is the case for one moment. It's evident from elsewhere in the scriptures. But there are others who suggest that the phrase has its more normal sense and it is a reminder that those who are scattered when the shepherd is struck, that they are going to truly suffer, that there will be this season of sifting and distress.

It's not a declaration of divine abandonment, but it is a reminder of divine control. Now Christ the shepherd, having been struck, rose again from the dead and he continues to gather his people. He continues to watch over them.

Suffering Under God's Appointment and the Hope of Salvation

But the animosity of the world toward Christ remains. And it's important for us to remember that it is by God's appointment that the church goes through the trials that it faces. That nothing from the very death of Christ itself, which remember, is God's great act of salvation, the moment in which that fountain is opened for sin and for uncleanness.

That what looks like the sword falling upon the shepherd is both truly that and at one and the same time, God's appointment for salvation. That all these trials and sufferings come under God's command and from God's hand and for God's purposes.

Let us not forget that in days of trial.