July 5, 2026
Sermon for Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, 2026, from Zechariah 9:9-12
Pastor Peter Ziebell
The text for our sermon today is our First Reading from before, Zechariah 9:9-12:
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12 Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.
Lord God, heavenly Father, sanctify us through Your truth, Your Word is truth. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ,
Have you noticed that things aren’t how they should be? Have a look at the world around you. There’s selfishness, tragedy, heartbreak, pain, evil, and injustice. Not only in the world – but also in the church. When Paul wrote his Second Letter to the Corinthians, he had the fear that among the Corinthian Christians there might be “quarrelling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder” (12:20). Not only in the church – but also in us as individuals. Quoting Paul again, we find him crying out in today’s Second Reading, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom 7:19). There’s not a night we can put our heads on the pillow saying, “Thank you, God, for enabling me to live a perfect day.” Every day, sin afflicts us. Every day, we fail even those we love. Every day, others fail us too. The world’s a mess that deserves God’s punishment now and forever. Wretched people, we are. Who will deliver us from our troubles and woes?
Today, we are given the answer. Thankfully, the Lord announces through Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He.”
These words remind us of Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, but they also remind us of Advent, when we remember how the Lord will come again victoriously with all His angels. Indeed, our King Jesus comes to bring us under His reign of peace, freedom, and hope.
When the Lord brought His people out of Egypt, He wasn’t just their God; He was also their King. But God’s people weren’t content having God as their King. As they looked around, they saw that other nations had earthly kings, and so, they wanted one too. They came to the prophet Samuel, who at that time had appointed his two sons as judges over Israel, and said, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8:5). Samuel took their request to God who then warned them that a king would tax them, send their sons to war, take their daughters to himself, and fail them. Still, Israel insisted, and so God gave them a king, Saul, who failed them terribly. After Saul, David was anointed as king, and the Lord promised that one of David’s descendants would rule on his throne forever.
Yet, even David failed. He desired another man’s wife. We are familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba. Then there is Solomon, David’s son, who was given great wisdom, yet he failed, being led by his many wives into allowing the worship of false gods. After Solomon, the kingdom was divided and grew weaker. King after king couldn’t measure up to Israel’s true King, the maker of heaven and earth. Eventually, the last king, Zedekiah, was taken to Babylon in chains, where he died in captivity, all alone (Jer. 52:11).
In the time of Zechariah, it looked as though God’s promise had failed. The Jews had no king and had been in exile for seventy years. Although they had now returned, and the temple was being rebuilt, Jerusalem was still in ruins. Yet, Zechariah was given this powerful promise by the Lord: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He.”
A King is coming, but He is no ordinary king. He is the Lord Himself coming to save us! He is a righteous, faithful, good King who will sit on David’s throne. He is bringing salvation. All things that have gone wrong will be set right. Zechariah’s words are filled with joy, peace, freedom, and hope. They are a breath of fresh air for God’s people. These words were fulfilled on Palm Sunday as Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem. Jesus was coming to be King and Saviour for all, to restore God as our King.
As we see Jesus entering Jerusalem, He is not mounted on a warhorse or in a chariot, as if He were riding impressively into battle. No, Jesus is a humble King who rides a donkey, choosing to serve in humility.
“Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Furthermore, our King doesn’t tax us but freely gives forgiveness and mercy. Our King doesn’t send our sons or us into battle first. No, first, He makes Himself an army of one to defeat sin, death, and Satan by humbly bearing the sins of the world and their deserved punishment and damnation. Then He enlists us to follow Him in His eternal victory. Our righteous King perfectly fulfils all that is demanded of us and credits that righteousness to us as we receive Him in His Holy Word, Holy Baptism, and His holy body and blood. Our King doesn’t force subjects to bow down to Him; He graciously serves us with His word of forgiveness and peace, which causes us to rejoice in His abundant mercy and eagerly receive Him in reverence and joy.
Our King looks so utterly gentle and lowly as He first reigns on the cross, but there He establishes a kingdom that will never fail. Though humble, He is powerful. He alone defends us, cutting off the chariots and warhorses and battle bows. He destroys death from the inside so that it is only an empty shell of itself. He is a powerful Warrior, able to set us free! So Zechariah rejoices. He says, “He shall speak peace to the nations.”
King Jesus is king for all people, whose peace will reach the east and west, north and south. Oddly, Israel wanted a king so they could be like all the nations, but now, in Christ Jesus, God the Father has given His people a King who is for all nations, One whom all the nations desperately need. We have the peace of God through the blood of the Son, all won through the agreement instigated by God Himself: “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son” (John 3:16). Those were the divinely established terms of the covenant. The Apostle Paul writes, “God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19-20). Truly, as verse 11 of Zechariah says, “because of the blood of My covenant with you, I shall set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.” That is the only reason for peace — then or now. The “waterless pit” symbolises the hopeless condition of being under the curse of the Law. God is a God who rescues His people out of pits from which they could never escape by themselves.
Through His saving death and resurrection, Jesus speaks peace to us right now: forgiveness and restoration as His dearly beloved brothers and sisters. He also guarantees that the day of resurrection is coming when, as we remain in Him, all illness, weakness, and pain will be banished, and we shall be set free from sin forever, basking in His eternal peace.
Jesus comes humbly into our midst. Today, when we confessed our sins, we heard Jesus speak peace in His word of absolution, cleansing our sin from us, and, whenever we partake of the Lord’s Supper, in “the blood of My covenant with you,” He rides in on bread and wine, His very body and His blood of the new covenant—the new testament—the blood-bought promise of God Himself, given for us.
From the world’s point of view, the Lord’s Supper isn’t a powerful event. It appears to be a very small meal, but we know from the words of King Jesus what’s actually happening. Heaven invades earth. Jesus comes in His body and blood. Make no mistake about it: He is a powerful King coming into our midst, a King who can destroy and condemn eternally. But thankfully, to all who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus’ saving work, He comes gently to touch us and cleanse us from the inside out. He forgives and strengthens. In this holy meal, He meets with us, dines with us, and encourages us. He gathers us at the table with His Father and the Holy Spirit. We heard Jesus say in our Gospel before, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I shall give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). The “labour” and the burden signify contrition, anxiety, and terrors of sin and death. To “come to” Christ is to believe that sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. When we partake of the Lord’s Supper, our sins are forgiven, and our faith is strengthened.
King Jesus sets us right again with the Father. Our mighty King defends us from Satan’s attacks. Zechariah writes how this King “will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and He shall speak peace to the nations.”
We are kept safe in His peace. In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther wrote something to encourage Christians to look to the Sacrament of the Altar as a defence against Satan, the world, and our sinful nature. He said, “If you could see how many knives, darts, and arrows are every moment aimed at you [Ephesians 6:16], you would be glad to come to the Sacrament as often as possible.
But there is no reason why we walk about so securely and carelessly, except that we neither think nor believe that we are in the flesh and in this wicked world or in the devil’s kingdom” (LC V 82). No truer words could be spoken. Thus, we dwell “in the shelter of the Most High” and “abide in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1) by letting Jesus defend us and fight for us in His saving body and blood.
Finally, the Lord urges us through Zechariah to “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.”
Zechariah started his book with the Lord’s call, “return to Me” (1:3). To return to the Lord is to repent, to turn from our sin, to turn from trying to save ourselves, to turn from despair and hopelessness, to come home again trusting our gracious Father, who longs to greet us. In a sense, every time we’re gathering around our Lord’s Word, we’re returning home. We confess our failure, rejoice in our Lord’s mercy, and turn back to the only One who can rescue and deliver us. We come out of exile into the joyful liberty of God’s holy people.
Admittedly, we cannot see the reign of Jesus. All we see around us is increasing chaos. We are heartbroken by sin and what sin has destroyed. Nevertheless, our Lord’s Word does not fail us. He keeps His promises. He is reigning and will visibly return to set His faithful forever free.
In the meantime, we’re “prisoners of hope.” That is, we have hope — not the vague wish for a better future. We have the certain, joyful confidence of what is coming in Christ. Our certain hope is that Jesus will visibly return, the dead will rise, and we shall be changed; that sin will be no more; that death will no more burden us; that pain, heartbreak, and trial will be over; that we shall sin, disappoint, and fail no more. The clock is not ticking down to our end but to the fullness of the reign of our eternal King. Our King has come and continues to come for us. This hope in Christ holds us, keeps us, guards us in protective custody until our hope becomes sight. Thanks be to God! King Jesus comes to bring us under His reign of peace, freedom, and hope.
So how do we live under Jesus’ reign? We gather to celebrate His reign over us and to receive Him. We rejoice and shout aloud, encouraging one another by our Lord’s song of victory. We generously forgive those who sin against us, knowing the fullness of Jesus’ forgiveness for us. We live as those confident of our joyful future: every burden, heartbreak, trouble, and pain will not last,
but our life under King Jesus’ reign will flourish. Like our King, we long for all to live with us under His reign, and we wait in joyful, confident hope. Our King has come, still comes, and will come to set us free. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.