For the past five weeks, I’ve been teaching through chapter 12 of Zechariah in my Old Testament fellowship group on Sunday mornings. This is by far the longest I’ve spent in any one section of this book, and for good reason.

The entire book of Zechariah seeps with Messianic theology. Perhaps next to Isaiah, the prophecies of Zechariah deal in a central way with Israel’s shepherd and king and his intersection with their future as a nation. In particular, chapter 12 zeroes in on the future salvation to come to Israel at the end of the age, as they experience a supernatural deliverance from what would otherwise be the end of their earthly existence.

But verses 10-14 of this chapter move to something far deeper than their physical salvation. It describes how their eyes will be opened to see spiritually for the first time. In particular, the words of Zechariah 12:10 are central to this event:

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, and him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)

Now, any discussion of this one verse could quickly and easily become academic. We could discuss in detail, as I have with my class, about Israel’s recalcitrant history, of their obstinance toward God and his word, and to the reality of their future salvation.

But there’s something deeply personal in this text. It describes something real and personal for every individual who knows and loves Christ as savior and lord. It’s more than just an Old Testament prophecy about a future event in Israel’s life. It’s personal.

I grew up going to church as a kid, attending Sunday School with my sister, often taught by my own mom. There was a strong Christian influence in our home, particularly in my early teens, after my mom became a Christian. There was a marked difference at that point, and a renewed focus on church, on the Bible, and on morality.

That influence continued on until I graduated from high school and left home to attend college (kind of…home was three miles away). Living outside the home in the college dorms, I was quickly exposed to all kinds of influences. They weren’t so much temptations leading me away as much as they were invitations to live out who I was. Without that biblical influence, I was free for the first time to be the person I really was, and I lived it in full.

But then something happened. God brought all of that to an end, and while the details aren’t important at the moment, the effect was to bring me to my knees and to the end of myself. I was broken-hearted, and broken in spirit, and this was exactly where God wanted me to be. At my lowest point, my mom gave me a book to read, and the opening chapter of that book was a short but clearly-outlined gospel message.

I had grown up in the church. I’m sure I had heard the message of the gospel a thousand times. I’m sure the cross and the death of Christ to pay for sin as a substitute for me was reiterated time and time again. But to me, I had never recognized the message until I read that chapter. It’s as if I was hearing the gospel for the first time, and everything suddenly made sense; like those thousand-and-one gospels I had heard in the past had never entered my ears until this moment and there was absolute clarity.

That’s the clarity described in Zechariah 12:10. This is where it gets personal. How can a nation witness the incarnate God, see his miracles, hear his teachings, and yet miss who he is? But they did. In their hatred for true righteousness and blindness toward God and the truth, they mistook him for a criminal and a sinner and they crucified him. John 19:37 clearly links Jesus’ crucifixion with Zechariah 12:10.

And we can scoff at Israel’s blindness, but each of us who remembers their own conversion story recognizes how blind we were until the moment the scales fell from our eyes and we saw “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4). In that moment, we saw “him whom we have pierced,” and we realize with horror who we really are and what we’ve done.

Israel will experience that moment as a nation sometime in the future. But it’s important to remember that every believer has, in their own spiritual life, gone from darkness to light, and has seen the true identity of the one hanging on that cross. And in the same way, they have experienced the heartache that flows from that realization. That’s the biblical process of repentance, and it’s a process that leads to life and forgiveness and cleansing from sin (Zech 13:1). Spiritual life begins with a true and realistic sense of self juxtaposed to the transcendent and magnificence holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps no one said it better than the puritan writer who penned this prayer which has come to be known as The Valley of Vision:

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,

Thou has brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox

that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,.
that to have nothing is to possess all.
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells, and the deeper the wells, the brighter the stars shine; Let me find thy light in my darkness, thy life in my death, thy joy in my sorrow, thy grace in my sin, thy riches in my poverty, thy glory in my valley.