Zechariah 4:10 For who has despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice… It was but a small and feeble remnant that returned from the captivity in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. Their spirits broken by slavery, their cohesion imperfect, their resources limited, their well wishers few; the adversaries arrogant and numerous, the difficulties manifold and dispiriting. It was as if a fraction of a swarm of bees were striving to rebuild their hive under the ceaseless attacks of a cloud of malignant wasps or hornets. Their souls were exceedingly filled with contempt by the scorn of Sanballat, who cried aloud, "What do these feeble Jews? Will they revive the stones of the temple out of the heaps of burned rubbish? If a fox shall go up even he shall break down their stone wall." Now this contempt of Sanballat well represents the scorn with which the great world regards all religious beginnings both in individual lives and in society. The notion which prevails so wisely as to the hopes of Christians might be expressed thus: "These aspirations of yours after union with the Infinite and Everlasting Cause, after an indestructible life in God, are too absurd. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and consider their magnificence, look upon the illimitable vastness of that celestial machinery, the number of those worlds on worlds, which shine through the eternal darkness; and then look down on yourselves, and at mankind, a cloud of ephemeral insects passing away. Who can believe that such 'minims of nature' have any permanent relation with the universe, much less with its Maker? Face the inevitable, and do not shrink from the nothingness which is your doom." The one all-sufficing answer to these degrading counsels is to be found in the words of the prophet of the restoration. "Who hath despised the clay of small things?" The law of the Divine action is evolution from small beginnings, the development of all organic growths from germs, and the gradual transformation of lower into higher forms of being. Suppose the seeds of all the flora of the world in all its latitudes could be offered to our view in one panoramic vision. Who could suppose, apart from experience, that out of such a collection of black or grey or yellow dots, or tiny cones, or coloured berries, could spring the cloud-piercing forests of the tropics, or of the American Andes, and all the radiant glories of the flowers, shrubs, and trees of the temperate zones? Who could believe that such a marvellous universe of lovely form and lovelier colour lay hid under the appearance of such insignificant beginnings? Extend the thought to the world of birds, to the development of their airy figures and varied plumages, and places of abode, and modes of living, all springing from invisible vital germs concealed in eggs throughout all their uncountable millions of millions; and finally enlarge the conception by taking in the whole animal world similarly developed. Who after such a review could rationally despise the day of small things? It is a world unceasingly renewed from invisible points of life — points of life developed under a Divine pervading power into the universe of wonders that we see around us. The visible and material is a type of the unseen. "First the seed, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. So is the kingdom of God." And this leads us directly to the Divine lessons inculcated by the prophet in the name of the living God: "Who hath despised the day of small things?" — the lessons learned from God Himself and His own loving procedure (1) Of respect for all early growths in the days of their feebleness; (2) Of toleration for all the defects of their early stages; and (3) Of patience with undeveloped natures. 1. The old Latin proverb teaches us that "great reverence is due to the young." Oftentimes there is very little of this shown to them. Many of the most unpleasant qualities of children are frequently the direct result of the infamous treatment which they receive from their elders. Try to be a sun to your planets, not raining down on them only the cold light of instruction and reproof, but the warmer rays of a beneficent friendship. Wise words cannot take the place of loving deeds. Flowers must have sunshine. Souls must have tenderness. If you "despise the day of small things" here, you despise the foundations of the future structures of the temple of the Lord. 2. In the same manner respect the beginnings of early religion. Many adult Christians appear to have no faith in the reality and value of early piety. Let us never despise the day of small things, but understanding our Lord's regard for elementary faith and love, never be detected in breaking, as unworthy of reliance, the bruised reed of childhood, or quenching the tiny spark on its smoking flax. 3. In the same manner we have to learn, if ourselves established Christians, to understand and sympathise with the imperfect development of character in the earlier stages of adhesion to the Son of God. It would be delightful if all Christians were suddenly struck into perfection, as a disc of gold is struck with some heroic image on one side, and with St. George's victory over the dragon on the other. But it is not so. The plant of righteousness is a growth. The temple slowly rises. The formation of the Divine likeness is both a creative and an imitative process. Children are childish in both worlds. But who hath despised the immature stages of development? It is as if you enter a sculptor's studio. You see here an almost shapeless lump of clay; there a mass beginning to put on the human form; there a bust beginning to speak with the lines of nobleness or beauty; there a piece of marble undergoing the first rougher process of assimilation; there an artist at work with hammer and chisel, striking frequent blows with passionate ardour, as said Michael Angelo, as if he would "set free the imprisoned angel"; there the master hand at work on his final touches, which are to breathe soul into the stone, and beauty and life into the dead material, and to impress on it, perhaps, a likeness which shall transmit to future ages the countenance which overawed or delighted contemporary generations. Even so in the Church you see souls in all stages of progress under the Supreme Artist's touch. Learn, then, to tolerate the defects of incipient development. We know not what we shall be, and we see not what others will be. Simon, the passionate fisherman of Bethsaida, became the steadfast and devoted Rock, or Petra, on which Christ has built His Church. The Son of thunder became the Apostle of love. The ferocious and murderous Saul became the gentle and all-embracing father of the Gentile Churches. God only knows what He will bring out of any thing. Man can bring light out of the blackest coal, and the colours of the rainbow in the aniline dyes are extracted from gas tar. And so God can convert carbon into the diamond, and souls swarming with many devils, into the "sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty." How hopeful as well as tolerant should such a retrospect make us in relation to the unfinished individualities around us. We must see the "end of the Lord" before we judge of tits work. There is but one Eye that sees the end from the beginning, and that is the eye of the Eternal. That which is last to our thought is first to Him. The evolutionary prospect is ever before Him, and in looking at each creature He sees what that creature shall become in all the stages of its future eternity. We know not what we shall be; but we know that to despise small things now is to contradict the processes of Divine thought, and to flout the methods of Divine procedure. Each soul is the subject of a work which will never end, under the hand of the Omnipotent Designer. And that which will satisfy us, when we awake in His likeness, and will satisfy Him when He rests with delight, and sees His work to be "very good," in the endless Sabbath, will also satiate the desires of His under-workmen. Oh, what will be the heaven of such a man as St. Paul! It is this vision, in its different degrees of glory, which the Omniscient Mind sees beforehand for all God's servants in the eternal future; and it is because He sees it, that He warns us never to "despise the day of small things"; because each soul is what God sees it to be, not only now, but in its future development. (Edward White.) Parallel Verses KJV: For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth. |
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