Zech.12:10 – And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.
This verse has stood out to me over many years as God calling and anointing His elect to pray. If you pay close attention you can see the original focus of this Spirit of prayer that the Lord pours out on His own. Our repentance is connected to the death of Christ. Zechariah prophesied by the Holy Spirit that there would be mourning and repentance when the death of Christ becomes real to us. We see clearly that He died for our sins and this brings us to a place of repentance which is where our true prayer life begins. Here are comments from the Wycliffe Commentary followed by Adam Clarke on this verse.
Wycliffe
“A spirit of compassion and supplication. The source of this new attitude of heart is the Lord, I will pour out. Compassion (Heb. ḥēn) is literally ‘grace’, but in this context the particular grace demonstrated is repentance for a murder committed, and so the free rendering is justified.”
Adam Clarke
“They shall have the spirit of grace,” God will show them that he yet bears favor to them. They shall be excited to fervent and continual prayer for the restoration of the Divine favor. Christ shall be preached unto them; and they shall look upon and believe in him whom they pierced, whom they crucified at Jerusalem. This shall produce deep and sincere repentance; they shall mourn, and be in bitterness of soul, to think that they had crucified the Lord of life and glory, and so long continued to contradict and blaspheme, since that time.”
When we see the love of God through the death of His Son for our sins as personal, true repentance begins to take hold of our lives. I often think of the cruel beating that Jesus endured followed by His crucifixion at the hands of the wicked Roman soldiers. Watching those scenes in the movie THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST had a huge impact on me. I remember going from anger at the Roman soldiers’ cruelty to the conviction of my own sin as I saw again that it was my sins that brought Jesus to Calvary. Repentance is a gift of God’s grace that grabs us when we become aware of the mercy of God for ourselves. This gift of repentance starts us on our life of prayer.
