A Man Called Branch
Zechariah I:L-6, t4-L7 ; 3: 1-1-0; 6:11-L3
Jamie Maciejewski
November 2,2025
God longs to live with us. This longing threads through the whole story of Scripture, from the Garden of Eden
to the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven at the very end of the book of Revelation.
The tabernacle during the wilderness years. King Solomon's temple that filled with God's glory. The command
to rebuild the temple at the time of Zechariah and Haggai. The Apostle John says of Jesus' incarnation, "the
Word became flesh and lived among us." (John 1:14) Even the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when God births
the church, demonstrated God's desire to live with his people. And all of this moves us closer to the final Day,
when God will at last live among us forever.
God's jealous yearning for his people's undivided hearts is at the core of the Great Commandment to love God
with everything that is in us. lt undergirds every warning against idolatry spoken by every prophet in the Bible.
God even gives us the gift of marriage as a picture of the union between God and his people.
God longs for us. He yearns for our freely given love. He aches for our responsive obedience.
Zechariah paints remarkable pictures, many of which return to this theme. lnstead of an essay or a three-point
sermon, Zechariah shares eight visions God gave him. These visions apparently came to him in a single night,
the night of February L5, in the 51-9th year before the birth of Christ. Who here has a February birthday?
Anyone born on the 15th of February?
February 15, 519, was only a few weeks after the prophet Haggai preached his message. Pastor Don shared
Haggai with us last Sunday. Both Haggai and Zechariah were charged with urging the discouraged residents of
Jerusalem to responsive obedience to God. This obedience included rebuilding the ruined temple of God, the
temple where God lived among them. We didn't read this today, but here's two verses from chapter two:
"Shout and be glad, Daughter Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you," declares the Lord.
"Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you
and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you." (Zech 2:10-11)
The Hebrew word for "live among" can also mean "settle or nest." I love that picture. God wants to nest
among his people. The Message says, "Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion! l'm on my way. l'm moving into
your neighborhood l"
Zechariah's visions are a lot like the parables that Jesus told. Visions and parables aren't meant to correspond
precisely to specific events. They're meant to plant seeds in our hearts. They're meant to take us by surprise.
They might confuse us, intrigue us, delight us, make us laugh. But the seeds they plant are intended to grow
stealthily and then burst open with meaning. Like parables, visions show us that God's truths are larger than
we can grasp with didactic prose.
For example, even though ltrust Jesus and the apostles when they say that the coming of Jesus is prophesied
in the Old Testament, I don't think it's easy to see that. Much of it is hidden or only hinted at. I remember Fred
once saying how much he would love to have heard iesus on the road to Emmaus. Two confused and
disappointed disciples are walking along when the risen Jesus joins them, but they don't recognize him. Luke
1tells us, "Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted all the things about himself in all
the scriptures." (Luke 24:27)
I bet Jesus shared Zechariah's visions on the Emmaus road.
This morning we're going to pay special attention to the vision we read in chapter 3. lt involves God, Satan,
Joshua, and a man called Branch. Joshua the high priest is standing before the angelof the LORD. Satan is
standing by to accuse him. ln the OI the Hebrew word "satan" means adversary or accuser. Satan, the Accuser;
is presumably there to point out to God that Joshua isn't fit for duty. No high priest can wear filthy clothes.
He's a fraud.
That's an important detail in this vision. Since the time of Moses, the high priest has represented the people
before God. lt's crucial he keeps himself ritually clean. He must marry a virgin daughter of a priest. He can't
come near a dead body or eat anything unclean. He must dress in the elaborate and beautifulgarments of the
high priest. His cleanness before God is critical, because he's responsible to keep the people right before God.
Otherwise, God can't live with them. And as we've seen, God wants to live with them.
But Joshua the high priest is a mess. ln Zechariah's vision he's in no condition to stand before God, and Satan is
ready to accuse him on the spot. "This man is a fraudl He's totally undeserving of being the high priest. He
couldn't represent a dog, let alone God's people!"
Wow. Do you ever feel that way? I know I do. What makes you think you can...? You fill in the blank. I have
plentyof fraud accusationsthat run in my head if lgivethem room. Not a good enough Christian, parent, pray-
er, friend, wife, sister, leader, follower. Fraudl
Joshua is standing in front of the angel of the LORD in his filthy clothes, and the Accuser is ready to let loose.
But before he can get a single accusation out-surpriselGod speaksl "The Lord rebuke you, Satan!The Lord,
who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! ls not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?" (7ech3:I-2\
There's such a beautiful passage in C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." Edmund has
completely failed, betraying all the good beasts, his own brother and sisters, even Aslan himself. The Witch
stands in front of Aslan to accuse Edmund.
"You have a traitor there, Aslan," said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant
Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he'd been through and afterthe talk
he'd had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. lt didn't seem to matter what the Witch said.
With high priest Joshua, just like with Edmund, it didn't matter what the Accuser had to say. lt didn't even
matter that the accusations were truel Did you get that? The Accuser wasn't going to lie about Joshua's
unfitness. Joshua had no business being high priest. lt wasn't just the dirty outfit. The clothes were symbolic of
something much more serious. Joshua should have been disqualified because of sin.
But before the Accuser gets a single word out, God acts. God snatches high priest Joshua out of the fire.
Rescues him from his unfixable predicament. God saves Joshua.
The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes." Then he said to
2Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you." (Zech 3:4)
ln Zechariah God reveals that he will deal with his people's sin himself, and Joshua is the symbol of God's
intended activity. When the Accuser gets ready to point out the impossibility of Joshua being high priest, God
himself saves Joshua, pulling him out of the fire.
Does the Accuser insist on reminding you of your failures or calling you a fraud? Remember these words: "The
LORD rebuke you, Satan!" This is God's work.
But we aren't done. The vision continues:
"'Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things
to come: lam goingto bring myservant, the Branch."'(Zech 3:8)
"Branch" was understood in Zechariah's dayto referto the coming Messiah. The prophet lsaiah spoke of a
branch that would grow out of Jesse's roots, Jesse being King David's dad. (lsa 1-1:1-3)Jeremiah also spoke of
the Messiah as Branch. (Jer 23:5, 33:15)
Zechariah continues:
"'See, the stone I have set in front of Joshual There are seven eyeson that one stone, and I willengrave
an inscription on it,'says the Lord Almighty,'and lwill remove the sin of this land in a single day."'(Zech
3:9)
ln the same way that the angel stripped Joshua of his filthy clothes, God will strip the whole land of its filthy
sin. ln a single day. ln Zechariah's vision, God buries a seed pointing to the work he will do through Jesus at the
cross, when he will strip the land of its sin in a single day.
Zechariah's visions point God's people to what's to come. They let us peel back the layers to see how the
salvation story was God's plan long before Christ's birth. Zechariah prepares God's people for the lncarnation,
when God will be made flesh and live among us. (John 1:L4) But he doesn't stop there. He points us to the
consummation of all history, the crowning of the man called Branch that we read about in Zechariah 6, Jesus
our Messiah.
God longs to live among us. He always has. The whole of Scripture moves patiently but inescapably toward this
end. Yes, our disobedience, sin and guilt are serious obstacles; we are rightly accused. But through Jesus, the
man called Branch, God strips us of our guilt and dresses us in clean clothes.
Oh, how we need God to save us. The Accuser is not wrong about our sin, but he is wrong about something
else. He fails to understand God's great longing to live with his people, or to anticipate how that longing leads
God to take salvation into his own hands.
God's salvation act at the cross is the great rebuke to our Accuser. lndeed
"The LORD rebuke you, Satanl"