Joshua’s Dirty
Record
What an
interesting prophecy we have tonight from the pen of Zechariah! The Lord gave this prophet an incredible
vision of what would happen in the future, played out by three main
characters. First of all there was
Joshua, the high priest, the spiritual leader of God’s people whose job it was
to stand before the Lord on behalf of the nation. There was the Lord himself, also called “the
Angel of the LORD” in this vision, acting as the judge in a courtroom. And finally there was Satan, the head of the
evil angels, presenting himself as a lawyer with incriminating evidence against
Joshua ready and waiting in his hands.
And with these three key characters on stage, here’s what Zechariah saw:
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest
standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to
accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, “The
LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not
this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as
he stood before the angel. The angel
said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken
away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.”
As high
priest, Joshua was supposed to have the cleanest, the most ceremonially pure
clothes of anyone. Every Old Testament
high priest had special clothes from head to feet that he was supposed to wear
whenever he entered the temple, clothes that were designed to be pure and clean
in God’s sight. But in this vision
Zechariah sees Joshua with dirty clothes, disgusting clothes, soiled
clothes. And so Joshua was not pure, he
was not clean, he was not worthy to go into God’s house and stand before the
Lord as he was supposed to do. And, of
course, since this was a vision, the dirty clothes weren’t just soiled because
of mud or stains, they were soiled because of sin. And, conveniently, Satan was right there by
his side ready to accuse him.
What do
you think Satan could have accused Joshua of?
This vision doesn’t give us any details about what kind of accusations
Satan had on hand or how many exhibits of evidence he was planning to present
to the court, but I’m sure we could come up with some fairly accurate
guesses. Because the accusations that Satan
could have brought against Joshua would be very similar to the accusations that
he could bring against us. And he
wouldn’t even have to make anything up!
Charges Against
Us
Satan is
a liar - there’s no doubt about that. In
the New Testament Jesus calls Satan “the father of lies.” Satan does not like to tell the truth, does
not want to tell the truth, he has no qualms about ignoring the truth. But if Satan were to stand right be our side
and accuse us of things in front of our Lord, he wouldn’t have to lie, would he! He wouldn’t even have to stretch the
truth! Satan could be perfectly honest
and entirely truthful about our sins without making up a thing - and we would
be guilty! There would be nothing we
could say in our defense. There would be
nothing that we could argue against. The
evidence would be so overwhelmingly against us that there would be no plea we
could make other than “guilty as charged.”
I don’t
even want to imagine what Satan could bring up if he were going to accuse me
before my Lord. All of those things that
I have done… All of those words that I
have said… All of those thoughts - those
terrible, unChristinan-like thoughts that have wandered through my mind… And not only could Satan speak about them for
everyone to hear, but he could produce pictures of those offenses, recordings
of those conversations, and transcripts of each and every one of my thoughts. And if that case was actually being made
against me, all I could do would be to sink down in my chair as far as I could
go and hang my head in shame. Because I
would have to agree with every single charge.
I could give no excuse. It would
be the Lord himself judging the case, after all. And what would I be able to say? He knows what I’ve done already! There’s nothing that I could hide from
him! There’s nothing that I could cover
up or deny! He knows! He knows how dirty my clothes are without
even having to look at them!
Charges
Dismissed
This was
the situation Joshua was in as Zechariah watched this vision. But as the high priest, Joshua represented
the people. And so it wasn’t just him
standing there before the Lord with filthy clothes, he was carrying the
people’s sins, the people’s faults, the people’s future. And Satan was standing right there ready to
accuse him. But notice that Satan
doesn’t even get a word out. Not a single
word. Who is the only one who speaks in
this entire section? The Lord, the Judge. And the first thing the Judge says is: “The
LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD who has
chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!” The Lord
knew what Satan was able to accuse his people of. The Lord was aware of all of the evidence
stacked against them. But it didn’t
matter. “The LORD rebuke you,
Satan! How dare you come before me and
attempt to accuse my people of what they have done and who they are! I know what you’re going to say. I know about their filthiness. But they are like a stick snatched from the
fire. And look what I’m going to
do. Take off his filthy clothes.” And then to Joshua, “See, I have taken off
your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.”
There
was no doubt that Joshua was dirty.
There was no doubt that God’s people were filthy. There is no doubt that we are covered in the
muck and mire of sin and our spiritual clothes are stained to the point of ruin
- and it’s all our fault. But the Lord
fixed the problem. He took those
disgustingly grimy clothes off of us and gave us some beautifully clean clothes
from his own wardrobe. But understand
that the Lord doesn’t ignore sin. And he
doesn’t excuse sin either. And so he didn’t
just throw those nasty repulsive clothes away.
As a just God he cannot. Instead,
where did he put them? He put those filthy
clothes on Christ. And in effect he
turns to Satan and says, “If you’re going to accuse anyone, accuse my Son. If you’re going to attack anyone, attack
Jesus. If you’re going to condemn
anyone, condemn the Innocent One I love.”
And
that’s exactly what happened. Jesus was
the one who stood on trial before the Jewish leaders, not us. Jesus was the one who was accused by none
other than the current high priest of his time, not us. Jesus was the one who was condemned by
Pontius Pilate, not us. Jesus was the
one sentenced to the death penalty to be carried out on that same day, not us. Do you remember when Jesus was stripped of
his clothing so that the soldiers could throw a purple robe on his shoulders in
mockery? That happened because Jesus was
carrying our filthy sinful clothes on his back.
Do you remember when he was naked as he bled to death on that
cross? That happened because he was
covered in our sinfully saturated clothing so we didn’t have to be. Do you remember when he was wrapped up in
those burial cloths after he died? That
happened because he was still wrapped up in our spiritually stained clothes for
which his own Father had condemned him.
This is
what Lent is all about: our sickening sin and our sacrificial Savior. It’s about Jesus taking it for us - and
taking it all. It’s about Satan not
being able to accuse us of a thing because Jesus has already suffered the
punishment. Lent is about every charge
against us being dismissed. Enjoy this
time of year. Because Lent is the
overriding theme of every Sunday, the undercurrent of every hymn, the
foundational stone of your faith. And
know that as you walk through this life, you are have been clothed with new,
clean, and beautiful clothes, washed in the blood of your Savior. Because Christ wore those filthy clothes for
you. And then he left them behind in his
empty tomb. Amen.
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