The Fountain of Godly Grief Text: Zechariah 12:10-14
Introduction: The Great Reversal
The prophet Zechariah is writing to a people who have returned from exile. They are a remnant, a shadow of their former glory, and they are busy rebuilding the ruins. But God, through His prophet, does not just give them architectural blueprints. He gives them a blueprint for the cosmos. He shows them that the future is not a mere repetition of the past, but a glorious reversal. The day is coming when Jerusalem, the city of strife, will be a burdensome stone for all nations. The day is coming when the feeble in Jerusalem will be like David. And the day is coming when God will pour out His Spirit, and the result will be a grief so profound, so personal, and so pervasive that it will utterly transform the people of God.
We live in an age that is terrified of grief. We medicate it, we distract ourselves from it, we psychologize it away. We think of grief as a problem to be solved. But the Bible presents a certain kind of grief, a godly grief, as a gift to be received. Worldly sorrow is a dead end street that leads to death. It is the sorrow of Judas, a remorse that ends in a rope. But godly sorrow is a thoroughfare, a highway that leads to life. It is the sorrow of Peter, a bitter weeping that leads to restoration and a renewed commission.
This passage in Zechariah is one of the most potent prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in applying the work of Christ. It describes a national turning point, a moment when the blinders come off and the heart breaks. And it is not just a prophecy about something that happened once, long ago. It is a prophecy about the engine room of Christian conversion. This is what happens every time a sinner is brought from death to life. And because we believe that the gospel will triumph in history, we believe that what is described here is not just a picture of individual conversions, but a portrait of the future of the nations.
The Text
"And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land will mourn, each family alone; the family of the house of David alone and their wives alone; the family of the house of Nathan alone and their wives alone; the family of the house of Levi alone and their wives alone; the family of the Shimeites alone and their wives alone; all the families that remain, each family alone and their wives alone."
(Zechariah 12:10-14 LSB)
The Divine Initiative (v. 10a)
We begin with the source of this great transformation.
"And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication..." (Zechariah 12:10a)
Notice the first word: "I." This is a sovereign work from start to finish. Revival, repentance, mourning, faith, it is not something that man works up. It is something that God pours down. The language of "pouring out" is the characteristic language of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant. This is Joel's prophecy, which Peter declared fulfilled at Pentecost. This is the promise of the Father.
And what is poured out? "The Spirit of grace and of supplication." This is not the spirit of bootstrap-pulling. It is not the spirit of self-improvement. It is the Spirit of grace, which is to say, the Spirit of unmerited, unearned, one-way love from God to man. And this grace is not a passive thing; it is an active, working grace that produces something in us. It produces supplication. It produces prayer. A man who has received the Spirit of grace becomes a man who prays. Why? Because for the first time, he understands his utter bankruptcy. He sees that he has nothing, is nothing, and can do nothing apart from the free gift of God. And so he asks. He pleads. He makes supplication.
This is the engine of the Christian life. We do not get grace by praying; we are enabled to pray because we have been given the Spirit of grace. The prayer is the evidence of the grace, not the cause of it. This is a divine invasion. God does not wait for an invitation. He kicks the door in.
The Piercing Gaze (v. 10b)
This outpouring of the Spirit has a very specific, Christ-centered effect.
"...so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10b)
The Spirit opens their eyes. And what do they see? They look upon the one they have pierced. The speaker here is Yahweh Himself. "They will look on Me whom they have pierced." This is one of those staggering Old Testament verses where the deity of the Messiah shines through with blinding clarity. God says that He Himself will be the one who is pierced.
The Apostle John tells us precisely when this was fulfilled. When the Roman soldier thrust his spear into the side of the crucified Christ, John says, "these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture... 'THEY SHALL LOOK ON HIM WHOM THEY PIERCED'" (John 19:36-37). The cross is the focal point of all history. But the looking here is more than just a physical glance. This is a look of recognition. It is the look of faith. The Spirit enables them to see that the one hanging on that tree is not just a failed revolutionary, but is in fact Yahweh in the flesh, and that their sin, our sin, is what put Him there.
And the result of this seeing is mourning. This is not a sentimental sadness. This is a gut-wrenching, world-shattering grief. The text compares it to the mourning for an only son, for a firstborn. In that culture, this was the most catastrophic loss imaginable. It meant the end of the family line, the end of the name, the end of the inheritance. This is a grief that empties you out completely. This is what true repentance feels like. It is the recognition that your sin murdered the Son of God. It is to see the nails and the spear in your own hands.
This is precisely what happened at Pentecost. When Peter preached Christ crucified and risen, the crowd was "pierced to the heart" (Acts 2:37). The one who was pierced now pierces the hearts of His people. The Holy Spirit takes the spear from the soldier's hand and applies it to the conscience of the sinner. And their cry is, "Brothers, what shall we do?" This is the cry of supplication, brought about by the Spirit of grace.
A Grief Both Public and Private (v. 11-14)
Zechariah then describes the scope and nature of this mourning.
"In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo." (Zechariah 12:11)
To give his audience a sense of the scale of this grief, he compares it to a famous historical event. The mourning of Hadadrimmon was most likely the national lamentation for the death of the good king Josiah, who was killed in battle at Megiddo (2 Chron. 35:22-25). This was a national catastrophe. The last great reforming king was dead, and the nation was plunged into sorrow. Zechariah is saying that the grief for the pierced Messiah will be like that, a sorrow that grips the entire capital city.
But then he drills down. This national, public grief is made up of countless private, individual acts of repentance.
"And the land will mourn, each family alone; the family of the house of David alone and their wives alone... all the families that remain, each family alone and their wives alone." (Zechariah 12:12-14)
This is a remarkable detail. The mourning is comprehensive. It touches every part of the society, represented by the key families: the royal house of David, the prophetic line of Nathan, the priestly tribe of Levi, and a representative clan, the Shimeites. It is a top-to-bottom revival.
But notice the refrain: "each family alone," "their wives alone." Why the separation? This is not about some kind of monastic withdrawal. This is about the intensely personal nature of sin and repentance. While we are part of a corporate body, sin is not something you can deal with by proxy. You cannot repent in a committee. Every man, every woman, must come to terms with their own sin before God. The husband cannot repent for the wife, nor the wife for the husband. Each must look upon the one they have pierced. Each heart must break individually before it can be healed corporately.
This is a picture of true, deep, authentic revival. It is not manufactured hype or emotional manipulation. It is a quiet, profound, and intensely personal reckoning with the cross of Jesus Christ, happening simultaneously in thousands of hearts. It is a grief that isolates you in your own conscience before it unites you in a common salvation.
Conclusion: The Fountain Opened
This passage does not end in grief. The very next verse says, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness" (Zechariah 13:1). The godly grief of chapter 12 leads directly to the cleansing fountain of chapter 13. This is the logic of the gospel. You cannot come to the fountain until you have first seen your filth. You cannot appreciate the cleansing until you have mourned your defilement.
The Spirit of grace is poured out so that we might look. We look at the one we pierced, and that look of faith breaks our hearts. We mourn, family by family, person by person. And that mourning drives us to the only place our grief can be answered, the only place our sin can be washed away, which is the fountain of Christ's own blood, flowing from His pierced side.
This is the pattern of conversion for every soul. But as postmillennialists, we believe this is also the pattern for the nations. The day is coming when the Spirit will be poured out on a global scale. The day is coming when the Jewish people will look upon their Messiah whom they pierced and will mourn. The day is coming when the nations of the earth, family by family, will see their complicity in the death of the King and will weep. And this great, global grief will lead to a great, global cleansing. The knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, because the Spirit will first show the nations the one they pierced, and they will mourn.