Zechariah was a prophet living in Jerusalem about 520 BC. Some twenty years earlier the exiles had returned from Babylon and began to make life anew in the city, and for a time they had even begun the laborious task of rebuilding the Temple, which had been destroyed during the conquest. But the work becomes stalled; the project becomes stuck in neutral. But the inability to complete the Temple is only symptomatic of a broader malaise that has paralyzed the entire city, leading all to despair that things would ever get any better. And then God’s word comes to Zechariah….

And yet Zechariah’s vision starts not with the children, but with their parents and grandparents. “Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age.” This is one short sentence for us, but to a beleaguered, broken community, it is a vision of wellness for the people, of wholeness for the entire community.

Old people sit in the streets, leaning on staffs, because, first of all, they have managed to live to a ripe old age. Formerly, rampant infant mortality took many before puberty; famine took men and women in their prime; the desolation of the streets and the crippling of the city’s infrastructure created breeding grounds for deadly disease; economic exploitation and injustice, which allowed a fraction of the population to live in luxury while the rest scraped to get by, was the grim reaper’s chief henchman. But now the healing of society has led to wholeness for the people, and nothing prevents men and women from living out their biblical threescore and ten in peace and in freedom from hunger, disease, and oppression.

And yet there is more to this vision of healing and wholeness than simply long life. Note that the elderly are not closeted away, not an embarrassment to be kept out of sight and mind. Serenely they sit there amid the activity in the street, heads held up, arms supported by their staffs, an integral part of the ecosystem of the city. They carefully watch over the playing youngsters, ready to help if there is a skinned knee, set to step in if there are hurt feelings and the need for guidance in how to play together well, always on the look for safety. And they are available as sources of tradition and wisdom, not forcing their opinions on those now having the reins of authority, but available to share their counsel when asked.

We know that we are privileged to live in a time and place in many ways far removed from the desolation of Jerusalem way back in 520 BC, and yet in many ways we still fall far short of Zechariah’s vision for the restored city – and not in the least in the way we as a society think of and treat those of advancing years. For we are very much a youth-oriented culture, and, as such, we tend to favor ushering the older generation off-stage as quickly and quietly as possible – not only so that they do not inconvenience us, or cause us to take our gaze off that mirror in which we so lovingly admire ourselves, but also so that they do not linger as poignant reminders of our own mortality. And yet, the truth of the matter is that we are all on that road to an advanced age. As one commentator aptly notes, “The ageing aren’t only the old; the ageing are all of us.”

Proverbs reminds us that the biblical view of the old is far different than that espoused by our youth-centric culture. Proverbs like “the beauty of the aged is their gray hair”, and “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life”, affirm that being old is not necessarily the same as being stale, that no longer being spry does not equate with going soft in the head, that the inability to remember the minutia of modern-day life is not equal to having no wisdom to share.

Growing old is often viewed as a journey away from home, a gradual divestment of many of the things that were known as hallmarks of living. Over time there can be an increasing loss of independence (this is why losing the privilege to drive can be so distressing for some people), a loss of privacy (go to the doctor’s office enough and you what I mean), a loss of freedom from chronic pain, the loss of family and friends. These losses are real, and they are to be mourned – but they do not constitute the sum of who we are.

For despite all the losses, we each remain unique, special, a one-of-a-kind child of God, ever precious in God’s sight. We each continue to have something to offer to the world – be it our wisdom, our counsel, our love, our caring, our smile, our faith, our example, our truthfulness, our sense that this time we have, little as it may be, is ever so precious. Even as we down-size, what we have to offer each other and the world becomes increasingly refined, and precious.

And, finally, our worth is independent of all vital social usefulness. Our essential value derives from our identity as children of God, not from what we do, not from how much we make, not from how much care we take of others. At bottom, you are worthy or respect and love just because you are.

As you age and as all that other “stuff” begins to get cleared away, perhaps there will be room to see what had been there all along, though at times so buried underneath everything else that you could scarcely believe it.

It is a longing, a longing in your soul, a longing for relationship to the God who is ever transcendent, ever beyond all that is, and ever immanent, ever as close to you as your very breathing.

It is a longing voiced by Psalm 42 (“My soul thirsts for the living God”), and by Augustine of Hippo, who long ago wrote, “Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee, O God.”

It is a longing, even as you find yourself more and more leaving the homes you have made here, to find your true home with the One who promises to make all things new, to raise us up out of our graves, and to restore our cities, where we might sit together in peace, staff in hand, watching the children play.

Amen.