I. These visions of earthly blessing have their heavenly substance. They show us the joy and the feast of the old creation; God's people rejoicing under His benign Fatherhood, eating the fruits of the earth with a holy gladness. But what are all these the joy of God's people in Jerusalem, the holy mountain, the cities of peace, the fair lands, the fruitful vineyards, the corn and the wine, the harvest and the vintage, the shouting and the feast of ingathering what are they all but one great prophecy, a symbol and a sacrament, the old creation in its earthly festival witnessing and waiting for the new? The text is a luminous prophecy of the Word made flesh, revealed first by personal manifestation upon earth, and then by His Spirit through the Church. What is this goodness and this beauty but the perfect mystery of His Divine manhood? They are not so much two attributes as two aspects of His Person. Goodness is inward beauty; beauty is outward goodness. They are inseparable, and express to us the perfection of Him who is God and man; perfect alike in both; in majesty and meekness, in love and in humility, in His passion and in His power.
II. And as it is a prophecy of the incarnation, so it is also of the Holy Eucharist, the feast of the new creation. Consider the blessings which the Lord of the harvest pours out on those who come to this supper, where He is both the Master and the Feast. (1) The first grace He gives is rest. He gives rest from the burden of sin, assuring us of forgiveness. The consciousness of past guilt remains, but it is suspended in the consciousness of present rest. The holy communion also sets the heart and will free from the misery of inward faults. (2) When God gives rest, He gives also refreshment. He renews our strength for labours yet to come. The soul wastes faster than the body. Every night gives back to the body what every day takes from it; but with the soul, not so. The spiritual decays run on into to-morrow, and to-morrow begins with an inclination to a lower tone; its own temptations swell the evil; one day heaps its sin upon another, and our spiritual decline gains in speed as it gains in time. These decays are always advancing in every soul not supported by habitual communion with Christ. (3) In this great feast of joy He gives us the constant perception of His love. Love alone, by its own kindred perception, feels love. And this crowning grace the Master gives to His servants at this feast of rest. His love falls as a light of fire, making hearts that long for Him to burn.
H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 228.
References: Zechariah 10:6. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi,p. 374.Zechariah 10:12. Ibid.,p. 377; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxx., No. 1805.Zechariah 10 W. Lindsay Alexander, Homiletic Magazine,vol. viii., p. 356. Zechariah 11:1-8. Ibid.,vol. ix., p. 178.