Background notes
Zechariah is written shortly after God’s people returned from exile. They’re settling into life back home but things aren’t particularly encouraging. They still haven’t rebuilt the temple, despite laying the foundations years ago, and they’re still part of a foreign empire. Worse still, even after all God had done to them by exiling them, the people still don’t seem to have any drive for God’s glory or their own holiness.
Zechariah is given encouraging visions and words so that the Israelites won’t lose heart but would turn to God. The visions aren’t straightforward (Zechariah 5:5 is particularly bizarre), but they are there to point towards the coming redemption of God’s people through his son Jesus Christ. We can share the same encouragement, that Jesus is coming back soon to redeem his people from the worry, sin, and brokenness of the world.
I had a dream
10 mins
Give your young people a piece of A4 paper folded over width ways at least five times (so it looks like a concertina). Get each person to write on the top fold ‘I had a dream, in the dream I…’ then get them to secretly finish the sentence with one thing that happened in a real or made up dream. Fold the paper over so the line is hidden, pass the paper on, and get the next person to write ‘then I…’ in the next section. Pass it on again and again until the paper is full (in a similar way to the game ‘consequences’). Now open up the papers and get the young people to read out the ‘dreams’. They should be, like most dreams, nonsensical.
Say: We’re going to look at the book of Zechariah which is full of odd dreams. These dreams aren’t random or made-up like your dreams, they were given by God. Zechariah knew these were visions given for God’s people. Because they’re given by God, they can be understood, even if they’re hard to understand.
Draw a vision
15 mins
In the first six chapters of Zechariah there are eight visions. Assign your young people a vision each and get them to read it and draw, act or explain it back to the group. Encourage them to use as much detail as possible, but don’t ask for any interpretation of the dreams. After sharing with the whole group, ask for any thoughts on what each vision could mean.
Bible study one
15 mins
Read Zechariah 3:1-10 together. Ask some comprehension questions such as: who is in the dream? Who says what? What are they wearing? Does anyone know what a high priest is? Who could ‘the branch’ be?
Say: God’s people have just come back from exile and feel sinful and unclean. Dirty clothing is frequently used in the Bible as a symbol of uncleanliness (Genesis 3:7-9, 21, Revelation 9:13-14). Satan accuses God’s people of this and makes them feel guilty. God’s solution is not to pretend the high priest is clean, but to take away his sin and give the high priest clean garments to wear.
Get the young people to look at verse nine and see how God is promising to one day come and make his people clean in a single day. Ask them what they think the ‘day of the Lord’ is.
Key Point 1
The first time Jesus came, he made a way to make his people clean and remove their sin. If we know Jesus, we can stand clean before God, no matter what sins we’ve committed.
Bible study two
10 mins
Read Zechariah 14. You may want to split it into sections or read it in turns. If you really don’t think your group can cope with all of it, read 14:1- 3, 9-11, 20-21.
Ask: What day of the Lord is this? Say: this is a picture of judgement day, where Jesus will return and throw out the other powers that oppose him and his people. It will become a safe place where there won’t be any sin. Ask your young people if the thought of Jesus defeating his enemies is encouraging or scary? Does this sound like the sort of thing Jesus would do?
Key Point 2
The second time Jesus comes, he’ll make a kingdom where everything is clean and holy. Our cleansing from sin becomes true of every aspect of reality: even the frying pans will be holy!
No More Guilt
5 mins
Get the young people to think of a time in the last week or month where they’ve felt guilty and unclean (make sure they know that you won’t ask them to share it). Suggest that sometimes we do things that make us feel guilty but aren’t wrong (we might feel guilty that we reported another student to a teacher even if it was right to do it), other times we feel guilty because we’ve done something we know is wrong.
Say: In Jesus, your guilt is gone, because whatever you did, Jesus died to get rid of that. This week, when you think of that guilt, tell yourself that your sin died with Jesus on the cross and your guilt is gone. One day, when Jesus makes everything new, we’ll be free from sinning. Pray for the group to know this.
Challenge
5 mins
As your young people go away, ask them to think about the vision they had to draw / act. For the next session, can they explain what it could mean? The best place to start is to look-up good cross references (Use Biblegateway and check the ‘cross references’ box in the settings options).
