Zechariah had predicted a day when the inhabitants of Jerusalem would look on the one they had pierced and mourn for him (12:10). Their sensibilities would stir them from their spiritual stupor. They would come to their senses, realizing what they had done in crucifying the promised Messiah. The grief of guilt would replace the bliss of ignorance.
In the book of Revelation, the reach of this realization extends to all people. “Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.” The most resistant heart and the most rebellious spirit will break.
Yet amidst the feelings of grief and mourning shared by the people of John’s world and ours, this greeting from John to the seven churches (and to us) comes: “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.” Though we suffer from the guilt of our sin, God brings peace. The greeting comes also from “him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.” This same Jesus Christ has made us, even in our sin, “to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father.”
Paul wrote to the Philippian church, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend . . . and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11). Surely the choice to repent of our waywardness and disobedience is ours. Will we continue to search aimlessly for some kind of life that holds purpose for us? Will we still be searching when the One “who is to come” returns?
Our search will be over when we bow before God and allow God, the Alpha and Omega, to be the beginning and the end of each of our days.