If you read a devotional regularly that starts with a short passage of Scripture and a reflection to follow, I’m happy for you! But I’m 99.9% sure that no devotional will ever use Zechariah 5:5-11 as the opening passage. It is simply too weird! Much like the book of Revelation, Zechariah has a few good one-liners, but there are chapters that don’t make any sense at first glance. What do you do with such passages if you read your Bible cover-to-cover other than read through them and wonder what you just read? Zechariah has some unmistakable references to Jesus. Zechariah 9:9 references a victorious and righteous king riding a donkey, prophesying Palm Sunday. Zechariah 11 speaks of 30 pieces of silver, which is also what Judas betrayed Jesus for. Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7 in his own betrayal of the sheep being scattered when the shepherd is struck. But what on earth do we do with Zechariah 5:5-11? Wickedness in a basket, women with wings like storks carrying wickedness away to “Shinar” or “Babylonia” depending on your Bible’s translation. First, we need to accept that every detail in this passage is intentional in describing what God has done and is doing, foreshadowing between the lines what God will do next, and Zechariah’s hearers would pick up on some unmistakable meanings of the symbols. God is in the details. The basket has a cover made of lead. As modern readers, we might see that as fitting for something so toxic. Wickedness and iniquity and sin are radioactive, so a lead cover keeps the danger inside. I like the thought, but we're a few millenia early for that to be understood by Zechariah’s audience. Lead was used in balancing scales, making sure that things were right and just. The idea of wickedness being sealed with lead would communicate to people in Zechariah’s day that the price had been paid, the scales were balanced. Hence the lead cover is over a basket, specifically an “ephah” (a study Bible will point this detail out). Much how we know a “bushel” to be a standard measurement, the Israelites would know an ephah to be a standard. An ephah of flour was a “full measure.” Therefore the full measure of their penalty had been paid and set. Jeremiah 29:10 gives direct attention to the 70 years of exile as the price that was to be paid. In Zechariah’s day, it is finished. It’s in the past, and it’s time to move on. Which is why the women with stork-like wings take the basket, the iniquity of all the people with wickedness inside to Shinar or Babylonia. At this point, Babylon is no longer the reigning empire; they’ve been defeated and replaced by the Persians, and it is the Persian kings who have generously let the exiles return to Israel. So why “Shinar?” It’s the last place they’d ever want to go back to! Though not the country itself by proper name, that land is no longer their home, for God has led them back to their true home. Yet Zechariah is inspired to speak of this in a way that people in his day couldn’t miss. Remember when the Lord led the Israelites out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery? They’d never want to go back there, right? Except they did want to…repeatedly. Zechariah is warning the current generation to not make the mistake of their ancestors. When God calls us forward in faith, we instinctively want to go back, play it safe, and stick with what is familiar even if it isn’t good. The lesson? Don’t go looking for that basket! It’s in the last place you should ever want to go. It belongs there, you belong here. Wickedness can have its own pedestal somewhere else–you need to worship the Lord here! For Zechariah’s generation, that was in the very temple that was being rebuilt. Don’t carry the basket around any more either. Consider forgiveness: when someone has forgiven you and you still walk around with guilt and shame, that is carrying the basket after the scales have been made right. Or when we say we have forgiven someone else but carry a bitter grudge in our heart and aren’t quite over it, then we are carrying a basket that we said we had set down, but clearly didn’t. There’s lots of wickedness in our individual baskets, but it’s meant to be kept far away. Don’t reach back into it! It might be the addiction we’ve kicked, but we tell ourselves “just one won’t be so bad” as we reach into the basket. It might be the recovering gambler who wants to make just a small bet, the hoarder who says they just want to buy a few things to comfort themselves after a hard week, the recovering alcoholic who just wants one drink, or the person whose internet search history has been clean for awhile but they want to see the old familiar images again. Don’t touch the basket! Yet we are only seeing another “sin management system” in Zechariah, and it isn’t perfect and won’t last forever. In Christ we see the full measure, truly. Not in lead weights to balance scales, but in his blood shed for us. Not in a basket as a full measure, but his body crucified for us, paying the full measure for our iniquity. Wickedness wasn’t just brought far away; it died on the cross and Jesus rose victorious from the empty tomb. Don’t resurrect what has been crucified with Christ; live into the hope and peace of his resurrection. And when God leads you forward to leave the old behind, beware of the temptation to turn back. But truly, let go of what was and follow Jesus faithfully into the next step. - Pastor Steven