SUNDAY SERMON
REJOICING WITH GOD
Advent III, Yr C
December 14, 2003
The Old Testament: Zephaniah 3.14-20, 12.14.03
How many times have you heard it said that the God of the OT is a God of wrath and judgment and the God of the NT is a God of love and forgiveness? Now, please listen again to several lines you have already heard in today's readings.
[READ Zephaniah 3.14-15 and Luke 3.7-9,17]
The words, flee the wrath to come and the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire, are in the NT and the words, the Lord has taken away the judgments against you are in the OT. Who is this God we worship? Is there a "God of the OT vs. a God of the NT"?
Zephaniah is one of the minor prophets. They are called minor not because they are less important but just a lot shorter than Isaiah or Jeremiah. Zephaniah is only three chapters compared to their sixty or fifty. Since Zephaniah makes only this one cameo appearance in our three-year cycle of readings, it would be easy to blink and miss him.
How then can Zephaniah help us know God better and know better how to live as the people of God? Was he a prophet of doom and gloom or a prophet of comfort and joy?
The first two of the three chapters sound pretty bleak. The lead-in [Zeph.1.2] pronounces judgment on Judah [the insiders]: I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord. Then judgment is leveled at the outsiders-Philistines, Moabites, Ethiopians and all the enemies of Israel.
Judgment was appropriate in Zephaniah's society. It was 640 BC and there was an eight year old boy named Josiah who became king when his grandfather died. He grew up to be a good leader but he inherited a total mess of a nation from his grandfather, Manasseh. Grandpa had been fanatically committed to worshipping idols of the sun and moon and practicing human sacrifice! Rich people tromped on poor people and morality was in the gutter.
In spite of all this evil in Judah and in the surrounding nations, God's plan stays strong. God is working on his people. God is like a centrifuge, says Zephaniah, flinging out evil and leaving the humble in the center. In the verses just before today's reading the Lord says, On that day…I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. For I will leave in the midst of you a people humble and lowly. [Zephaniah 3.11-12]
It is this humble remnant which in the next verse [look at your bulletin insert] is called to rejoice and sing, no, shout for joy.
This third Sunday of Advent is called "Gaudate Sunday"-let-us-rejoice Sunday. It comes from this verse in Zephaniah as well as from the Philippians reading. Rejoicing doesn't come easily for some of us. When I hear the words of Paul to his Philippian friends, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice, I want to say, wait a minute, Paul.
How can I rejoice always? How can we rejoice in the face of so much seasonal stress-shopping and wrapping, cooking and cleaning, pleasing and partying-so much credit card frenzy? Or how can someone rejoice who has a low-grade depression which just won't go away? Or how can we rejoice in the face of renewed violence in Israel and even with the capture last night of Saddam Hussein the continuing killings in Iraq of their people and our forces? Or the ongoing AIDS epidemic in so much of Africa? How can we rejoice?
The answer is: on our own, we can't. Rejoicing happens because God intervenes. God reverses his judgments against us and promises to "turn away our enemies," just as God did in the time of the prophet Zephaniah. Rejoicing happens when we are shaken awake by the incredible good news that God first rejoices over us.
Zephaniah says that God is in our midst, celebrating [rejoicing over us with gladness, v. 17]. Or we might think of another scene, a New Testament scene where God is like that father who throws a giant homecoming party to rejoice for a son who was lost but now is found. Or again, God is like that shepherd who calls his friends and neighbors to rejoice and celebrate because the one lost sheep has been found.
God intervenes; God rejoices over us. Until we get that right, we may struggle to heed the call of Zephaniah and St. Paul to rejoice with all our heart. Zephaniah calls us to refocus back on God in Advent…God who is in the midst of us, not far away or uninvolved. Zephaniah offers words of comfort; words which point to the character of God.
*God is strong like a warrior. God removes barriers-takes away judgments
against you. Do not fear.
*God is loving like a mother who quiets you like a child on her breast
and renews you in her love.
*God is like a bridegroom, singing on a festival day going to meet his
beloved.
*God is in the homecoming business, bringing you safely home to himself.
This is surely worth rejoicing about. These images of God's character come right out of Zephaniah. So I now return to my opening question: do we find in Zephaniah a God of wrath or a God of love? is there a God of the OT vs. a God of the NT?
My resounding answer is no. There is one God in this book. The message of repentance and judgment as well as the message of grace and forgiveness run throughout the story. It is one message as surely as there is one God. Again and again I believe we need to hear Karl Barth's summary of the story; the Cliff notes version of the whole Bible: grace precedes forgiveness.
So, rejoice daughters of Zion…and you sons, rejoice, too. For this is
the good news: the Lord your God is in your midst and his name is Emmanuel,
God with us. And soon, this God will come to Bethlehem, a baby in a receiving
blanket, and yet a newborn king; and soon, he will come again a second time
with power and great glory to take us home to live with God forever.
Sermon preached Advent III, December 14, 2003, Church of the Holy Communion by the Rev. Blair Both.