Hypocrisy is a yucky word, and for good reason. It describes people who are inconsistent, whose “inner” and “outer” persons are out of sync. Hypocrites are people whose hearts are far from the Lord, who only pay lip service to him, who don’t practice what they preach, and who are more concerned with other people think about them than with God knows about them. Hypocrites spend all their time trying to look good, thinking that they are pleasing the Lord, when in fact they are doing the very things that God despises, and failing to do what he actually desires.
A good example of hypocrisy and true religion can be found in Zechariah 7. This chapter is a story about fasting, but at the heart of this story is the reminder that God does not want mere outward religion, but a life characterized by repentance, remembrance, and reflecting God’s own character of mercy and compassion.
A Question About Fasting
Two years after Zechariah started prophesying, when the temple was close to being completed (Ezra 6:15), the people of Bethel sent a delegation to “entreat the favor of the Lord” by inquiring of the priests and prophets in Jerusalem (Zech. 7:1-3). This phrase is used in contexts where Lord had turned his face away in anger (Jer. 26:19; Ex. 32:11), which suggests that these guys were coming to Jerusalem not simply to ask questions but to seek an end to the covenant curses they were facing fresh out of exile.
Their question to the priests and prophets whether they should continue weep and fast in the fifth month, as they had throughout the 70 years of exile (Zech. 7:3). In Zechariah 8:19 we learn that there were fasts in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months, each related to commemorating the tragic fall of Jerusalem in 587-586 (2 Kings 25:1-25). Since the temple was being rebuilt, was the time for fasting over? Was it time to rejoice? Was their exile really over? It’s important to note that these fasts were not explicitly commanded in the Law. Other than the Day of Atonement, fasting was voluntary. So, we could say these were “traditions of men,” things that were initially observed for good reasons that were not unlawful in and of themselves. Did they need to keep commemorating the destruction of the temple now that it was about to be rebuilt?
In response, the Lord asks them a series of questions that get to the heart behind their question (Zech. 8:5-7). Rather than answering yes or no, the Lord asks if their fasting was for him or for themselves. The Lord essentially asks, “Have you been fasting for the right reasons?” The implication of these questions is that their fasting and even their festival feasting became all about self, and not the occasion for repentance or remembrance that led to obedience. Their fasting became an empty ritual, just one more thing on the calendar. Despite returning from exile, this generation was in danger of repeating the same mistakes of their fathers, the ones the former prophets addressed (see Isaiah 58). As Reed Lessing puts it, “The heart of the issue is not the occasion for fasting but the motives for fasting.”1R. Reed Lessing, Zechariah, ed. Christopher W. Mitchell, Concordia Commentary (Concordia Publishing House, 2021), 285. Emphasis original.
The Fasting the Lord Desires
Zechariah 7:8-10 we see the true fasting that the Yahweh requires, and it is exactly what the prophets had told Israel, and what Moses had told the people when he received the law. The fasting the Lord desires is abstaining from sin and self. The four commands given echo what the prophet Jeremiah said in his famous temple sermon (Jer. 7):
- Render true judgments. This means to administer justice faithfully, without bias, according to God’s law.
- Show kindness and mercy to one another. This means living according to the letter of the law must (justice) be paired with the spirit of the law (grace). Kindness is the word that means lovingkindness, faithful love, or loving loyalty; it’s the word that characterized Ruth and Boaz. Mercy is the word that describes the compassion Joseph had for his brothers (Gen. 43:30) and that a father has for his children (Ps. 103:13). It is the word that describes the mother who stood before Solomon whose “heart yearned for her son” (1 Kgs. 3:26).
- Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor. These were the most burdensome and easily exploitable people, and the law made extensive provisions for them. The treatment of these groups served as the indicator for justice and mercy in the land.
- Let none of you devise evil against another in your heart. The Lord is not merely interested in outward behavior but the heart. Harboring evil in the heart, stewing and grumbling in malice towards others, is just as wicked as outward sin.
God didn’t just want a rebuilt temple; he wanted a restored people. Israel was meant to be characterized by these things because these things describe the Yahweh himself: “For the Lord…is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” (Deut. 10:17-18). God’s relationship with us is a relationship of mercy and compassion, and our relationships with one another must be characterized in the same way.
Zechariah then gives them a history lesson, outlining the tragic turn of events for Israel (Zech. 7:11-14). After they were called out for their hypocrisy, they refused to listen and God sent them into exile. They thought they were safe and secure as long as they had their temple, as long as they had their religious rituals. They were a cup filled with filth, absolutely unusable for drinking, but they looked great on the outside, and God saw right through them. The implication is that, if they’re fasting like a whitewashed tomb or a cup that’s clean on the outside but dirty on the inside, God will not hear them or pay attention even now. Even though they had returned from exile, and God had promised to return to dwell with them and restore the Davidic kingship, judgment and exile for covenant unfaithfulness was still a possibility. Would they learn their lesson? Or would they be like their deaf and stiff-necked fathers?
Israel’s Failure to Learn
As we come to the end of the chapter, Zechariah does not directly answer their question because it’s not a simple matter of yes or no. It’s the wrong question. Fasting is fine, so long as its tied to repentance. But, as Samuel told Saul, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams” (1 Sam 15:22). This does not mean God did not want sacrifices; after all, they were his idea and his gracious gift to a sinful people. Rather, it means that God wanted the sacrifices to be paired with humble and grateful obedience.
The saddest part is that Israel, by and large, did not listen to the warnings of Zechariah for long. Their initial repentance and renewal in response to the ministries of Zechariah and Haggai went cold. By the days of Malachi, who wrote a few decades later, the priesthood was corrupt (Mal. 2:7-9), worship was routine (Mal. 1:6-10), social justice was being ignored, God was being wearied with their hypocrisy. In response, God promised to come to his people in judgment, and his way will be prepared by a messenger, who will warn Israel of their unfaithfulness and need for repentance (Mal. 3:1-5). This promise for God to return to his people and for his way to be prepared by a messenger, was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus. John the Baptist was the messenger who prepared the way for the Lord, and he sang the same tune as Israel’s prophets, calling the people to bear fruit in keeping with repentance, warning of impending judgment for those who did not show mercy, compassion, righteousness (Luke 3:8-14).
By the days of Jesus, the Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, scribes, and all the religious leaders were guilty of the same hypocritical, ritualistic religion and mechanical view of the temple. Jesus called them hypocrites, who prioritized man-made traditions at the expense of “weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness,” which they neglected (Matt. 15:6-9; 23:23-25). When the Pharisees saw Jesus having table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus quoted Hosea, reminding them God desired mercy, not sacrifice. The very thing to which they objected—his mercy and compassion—is actually what God desired most, and their superficial religion was the very thing God despised (Matt. 9:10-13; Hos. 6:6). Hosea said Israel had turned their religious rituals into a cover for their social injustice and covenant unfaithfulness, and Jesus applied the same thing to his own generation. As a result, Jesus followed in the footsteps of Jeremiah and predicted judgment on Jerusalem. All the Jews who had returned from exile, who were waiting for God’s long-awaited return, missed it (Luke 19:41-46), and like Israel of old, they experienced the wrath and judgment of God when their temple was destroyed.
True Religion: Holiness and Love
Hypocrisy is deceiving. It deceives others into thinking that our outward holiness automatically means God is surely pleased with us. But hypocrisy also deceives us because we think things like prayer, fasting, and church attendance mean we are denying self. Yet, our prayers can be self-righteous, our fasting can be for attention or to treat God like a vending machine, and our church attendance becomes a way of impressing others. All those things are worthless if not paired with a life of justice and compassion for the outcast, vulnerable, exploitable, those who are difficult to love. If we do all those good things but fail to uphold justice and love the unlovable; if we fail to show mercy and compassion to the last, the least, and the lost, we weary God and should shut our church doors.
Far too often it is easier to maintain our cozy and comfy American Christianity, where we go through our religious routines and love those who are easy to love, while paying no mind to the broken, the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the foreigners. But James reminds us what God desires:
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory (James 1:26-2:1)
True religion is holiness and love. It’s caring for the outcast and vulnerable and keeping ourselves unstained from the world. Our problem is that we often pick one or the other, but the gospel empowers us to do both. God forbid we become like Pharisees, who are too busy being unstained by the world and lost in prayer that we actually neglect the weightier matters of the law, which is the law of love (John 13:34; Rom. 13:8)
Conclusion
Zechariah 7 is not a call to abandon all traditions and rituals in worship. After all, Jesus gave us a prayer to pray, a supper to eat, a day to worship and rest, a church to gather with, a baptism to undergo, Scriptures to read, songs to sing, and a church to support financially. Rather we must work to ensure our worship and our rituals do not become “avenues for hypocrisy”2Mark J. Boda, Haggai, Zechariah, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2004), 371. It is not a matter of relationship instead of religion but religion and relationship. We perform the rituals our God has prescribed (prayer, worship, fasting, etc.), but we perform them from a place of humility and gratitude for what God has done for us. The Lord’s commands for the life and worship of his people must be obeyed, but this obedience must come from the heart, and the good news is that this what the gospel enables us to do: “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed” (Rom. 6:17).
The good news is that God sent his Son and Spirit to smash our diamond-hard hearts and give us hearts of flesh so that we hear God’s word and respond with daily repentance, humility, holiness and love. It is as we behold Jesus Christ in the gospel, that our hearts can be transformed, and we find all the strength and motivation to live worthy of the gospel and the mercy we’ve been shown.
