How accustomed we are to thinking that fasting is something heavy and dark, something we have to get through so that afterward we can rejoice more in the bright Resurrection of Christ. Even the priests' vestments are dark and the veil in the church...
How accustomed we are to thinking that fasting is something heavy and dark, something we have to get through so that afterward we can rejoice more in the bright Resurrection of Christ. Even the priests' vestments are dark and the veil in the church is black, mourning-colored. Of course, fasting is pain. But on the other hand, it is easy for us here to fall into a somewhat childish attitude toward fasting. Easter is not candy given for good behavior during the fast. But fasting, people will say, takes so much of what is familiar from us! Yet is it not a joy to give something out of love for God? If not, then it is still too early to fast. For fasting - fasting itself, as the greatest spiritual joy - must be earned (precisely fasting, not Easter, because Easter joy is given to all "who fasted and who did not fast," as it says in the catechetical homily of our father among the saints John Chrysostom).
This joy is probably what the prophet Zechariah speaks of in the words: "the fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall become joy and gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah." When we feel exactly this during the fast, no matter how hard it is, then we have reached something true. But what about, people will say, the Cross, the nails, the spear? Yes, but they are for the sake of life.
On the other hand, people very often say that during a fast they feel a special vigor of spirit, and then Easter comes and there is nothing but slackness and fatigue, like a runner who has run a marathon. There are many fine distinctions here.
8 A promise that Jerusalem shall be restored, Zec 8:1-8.
That the whole church shall be established and increased, Zec 8:9-23.
8:2 Jealousy - With great care that she should not, as formerly, sin against my love, and her own welfare, and with a great desire to do her good, and to rescue her from her enemies. Fury - With heat of anger against her enemies.
8:3 Shall be called a city of truth - Her citizens shall love the truth and speak it, shall worship me in truth of heart, as well as in the true manner prescribed to them.
8:4 Old men - Formerly war, or famine or pestilence, and wasting diseases, cut off men and women before they came to old age.
8:6 Marvellous - These things may seem strange to this people.
8:7 The east - country - Persia and Media, which lay east from Jerusalem, and were now masters of Babylon.
8:8 In truth and in righteousness - This signifies both God's part, and their part; on God's part truth, on their's righteousness, obedience to God's righteous law.
8:9 The prophets - Haggai and Zechariah.
8:10 Before these days - For eighteen years together.No hire - No profit by the labour of man or beast, no sowing or planting.Affliction - Distress, and want, through the barrenness, which attended all their labour.
8:11 I will not be - That is, I will not deal with them as in former days.
8:14 I repented not - I did not fail to do it.
8:15 So - So with like steadiness of mind I have purposed to do well to you.
8:16 Judgment of truth - True judgment. Peace - That may restore, and settle peace among you. Gates - The places of judicature, where the judges sat.
8:19 Thus saith the Lord - This verse is a final decision of the case: provided they do these things required, ver. Zec 8:16-17, then shall the fasting cease, and turn into joyful feasts. The fourth month - Wherein the city was taken by the Babylonians. The fifth - In which the temple was burnt. The seventh - Wherein Gedaliah was killed.The tenth - On the tenth day whereof the king of Babylon's army sat down before the city.
8:20 People - Multitudes.
8:21 I will go also - The invited, shall with as much zeal embrace the motion, as others made it.
8:22 In Jerusalem - Literally understood, you have the first fruits of them mentioned, Act 2:10-12. Mystically, Jerusalem is the church of Christ. To pray - To perform all gospel - worship.
8:23 Ten men - That is, many men. All languages - No nation is any longer excluded. A Jew - To whom the gospel was first preached.We have heard - And now see, and are assured. That God - The true God, the only true God, whom to know is life eternal.