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Sermon for III Advent, Yr C
14/12/2003 Based on Zephaniah 3:14-20 Grace Lutheran Church, Medicine Hat,
AB By Pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson “The Gift Of Joy” On one occasion, a pastor asked one of his parishioners: “Do you believe in the hereafter?”
The parishioner replied: “You bet I
do. I often go in a room and say, ‘What am I here after?’”
Then maybe you heard about this one:
Above the massive front doors of a cathedral these words were inscribed: THE
GATE OF HEAVEN. Below was a small sign, which read: PLEASE USE OTHER
ENTRANCE. J
Way back in ancient Judah during the
days when King Josiah ruled from 640 to 609 B.C., there lived a prophet named
Zephaniah. He preached a series of prophetic oracles—warning the people of
Judah, Jerusalem and the nations of God’s coming Day of Judgement. He
confronted his fellow citizens of Judah and Jerusalem—charging them with the
sins of corruption and idolatry. When they went into God’s temple, they
had forgotten what they were here after. Guilty of the sin of idolatry, they
had thought they could enter heaven not by the main doors but by other
entrances, worshipping other gods.
As God’s spokesperson, the prophet
Zephaniah railed against the Canaanite Baal worship and the adoption of the
gods of Assyria and other nations; which was rampant among the people of
Judah and Jerusalem at that time. God’s people had engaged in temple
prostitution and even had made child sacrifices to these foreign gods. Many
believed that to be safe, they needed to place their eggs in several baskets—so
why not worship every deity rather than just one? Surely this would offer
them their security now and in the hereafter. Not so, said the prophet
Zephaniah! There was only One God, the True God, and all of these other gods
must be abandoned if God’s chosen people were to survive and be blessed by
the LORD. How could Judah, Jerusalem or the other nations for that matter
expect the True God to bless them when they had become so corrupt—not caring
about justice, practicing such sinful and evil rituals, forsaking the poor,
the orphan and the widow, and even believing that the True God was helpless
to act in the historical events of Judah and the rest of the world. According
to Zephaniah, Judah, Jerusalem and the nations were on a collision course
with God’s wrath and judgement, which would bring them punishment, death and
disaster. Unless they would repent of their sins, and turn with all of their
heart, soul, mind and strength back to the LORD God, they were doomed. It was
a difficult message, a very sober message, and a message that must have been
difficult both to preach and to be on the receiving end of.
Then, all of a sudden, these oracles
of doom and gloom stop and the book of Zephaniah ends with today’s first
lesson, which is a hymn of joy. Even though the consequences of Judah and
Jerusalem’s sin must be suffered; nonetheless, Zephaniah sees the day when
the LORD with his gift of joy will bless a remnant of God’s people. The
prophet says: “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has taken away the judgements against you.” God’s anger and
punishment did not last forever. God offers Judah and Jerusalem his love and
delivers them from their suffering.
God would not be far away from his
people—“The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear
disaster no more.” God in other words, will be our Emmanuel, God-with-us. The
prophet looks ahead to that wonderful time when God sends his Son, Jesus to
dwell among us as our Saviour and Messiah. Pastor David Peterson tells about a time when he was preparing his sermon. His little daughter came in and said, “Daddy, can we play?” He answered, “I’m awfully
sorry, Sweetheart, but I’m right in the middle of preparing this sermon. In
about an hour I can play.” She said, “Okay, when
you’re finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a great big hug.” He said, “Thank you very
much.” She went to the door and then, says Pastor Peterson, “she did a U-turn
and came back and gave me a chiropractic, bone-breaking hug.” Pastor Peterson
said to her, “Darling, you said you were going to give me a hug after I
finished.” She answered, “Daddy, I
just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to!” 1
So too, during this third Sunday in Advent, Zephaniah speaks the LORD’s words of joy, embracing us with the promise of fulfillment as we wait for with joy and hope the coming of Jesus our Emmanuel. God is like that little girl, giving us a foretaste of the time to look ahead with joy when Jesus shall come to be with us and embrace us in his all encompassing love.
One of the pictures Zephaniah gives
us in this oracle of joy is that of music and singing. The prophet
open the oracle by inviting the citizens of Judah and Jerusalem to express
their joy, to “Sing aloud.” And then in verse seventeen, the LORD will
express his joy: “he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of
festival.”
Jewish writer, Chaim Potok, captures
this wonderful atmosphere of joy in describing it like this: The little synagogue was
crowded and tumultuous with joy. I remember the white-bearded Torah reader
dancing with one of those heavy scrolls as if he had miraculously shed his
years. My father and uncle danced for what seemed to me an interminable
length of time, circling about one another with their Torah scrolls,
advancing upon one another, backing off, singing… The noise inside the
synagogue poured out into the night, an undulating, swelling and receding and
thinning and growing sound. The joy of dancing with the Torah, holding it
close to you, the words of God to Moses at Sinai. I wondered if Gentiles ever
danced with their Bible. 2
In today’s second lesson from
Philippians, the apostle Paul would indeed give us Gentiles the permission to
sing and dance with our Bible, when he exhorts the church at Philippi and us
to: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” Notice that
little word always; at every time, in every circumstance, in every
place, Paul instructs us to rejoice, be filled with the joy of Christ always.
In his reflection of this passage
from Philippians, I like the way Dr William Barclay describes this joy in
Christ: It is as if having said,
“Rejoice!” there flashed into (Paul’s) mind a picture of all that was to
come. He himself was lying in prison with almost certain death awaiting him;
the Philippians were setting out on the Christian way, and dark days, dangers
and persecutions inevitably lay ahead. So Paul says, “I know what I’m saying.
I’ve thought of everything that can possibly happen. And still I say
it—Rejoice!” Christian joy is independent of all things on earth because it
has its source in the continual presence of Christ. Two lovers are always
happy when they are together, no matter where they are. The Christian can
never lose (her or) his joy because (s)he can never lose Christ. 3
As for Paul and Zephaniah, so it is
with us—rejoice always! No one or nothing can take the presence of God
away from us. Christ is with us so we can live with joy, knowing and
trusting that we are always in good company and that we are safe and secure
in his arms no matter what troubles, sufferings sorrows and hardships we
face. Amen. 1 Cited from: Dale Brunner, “Is Jesus Inclusive or Exclusive?” Theology, News, and Notes, October 1999, p. 3. 2
Cited from: Chaim Potok, In The Beginning. 3 Cited from: Wm. Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians (Burlington, ON: G.R. Welch Co. Ltd., 1975), p. 75. |
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