The Third Sunday in Advent 2012
Romans 12:9-17; Zephaniah 3:14-20
There were several
sort of dinosaur looking yet still quite talented creatures making quite a
raucous in my living room late last Wednesday night. They
were strutting. They were
vocalizing. They were making loud
clashing noises. They demonstrated
durability and tenacity for living, as their very presence before me exclaimed,
“We aren’t extinct! We’ve survived
personal and world disasters and so can you!”
The creatures weren’t
exactly in my living room. They were on
the T.V. And they had world famous names
such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton. Paul McCartney was there too, along with
New Jersey’s own rock legends Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi. This 12-12-12
televised gathering form Madison Square Garden of music greats and many other performers
was a fundraising concert benefitting Super Storm Sandy relief. Through television, online computer streaming
video, and good ‘ol radio, it’s estimated that some 2 billion people had a
chance to experience and support this event.
It was a bold, big way to broadcast some hope and even joy in the
aftermath of this natural disaster that struck our metropolitan area and is
still striking our home spaces and our hearts.
There is another
specific broadcast of hope and joy that I paid good attention to this
week. Although it’s available all the time, this one
can be easily missed. It’s from the Bible, and even if you keep an
open Bible right in your living room, I’m guessing it’s not ever open to the
Book of Zephaniah.
Oh, this is a very
small section of the Old Testament and it truly doesn’t command much attention
at all. One Bible commentator light heartedly wrote
that “lodged between Haggai and Habukkuk – if the book were called ‘Hephania’
at least we would have a shot at finding it.”[i] It is certainly dwarfed by more famous
prophetic names, such as Isaiah, who prophesied fifty years earlier, as well as
Jeremiah, whose oracles arrived after Zephaniah’s day.
In typical prophetic
fashion, Zephaniah’s bold words to the Hebrews in seventh century BC Jerusalem
are about disaster. The book is only
three chapters long but really packs an emotional punch. Most of it is very hard to read warnings
about awful disasters to come upon humankind from the hand of our very angry Creator. This terrible forecast of divine judgment
needs to be considered within the context of what Zephaniah declares are the
causes of such holy indignation. He has
quite a list, a list that really should also make us unsettled and upset.
At the root of all these is a single, ancient epic disaster. If this disaster hadn’t happened, there would be no need for scare-us-straight prophetic words, words that convey just how seriously God cares about humankind, and, which, deeper down are really all about God experiencing great frustration, grief and sadness. The disaster that set off the domino effect of drastic consequences can be summed up in one small word – sin.
At the root of all these is a single, ancient epic disaster. If this disaster hadn’t happened, there would be no need for scare-us-straight prophetic words, words that convey just how seriously God cares about humankind, and, which, deeper down are really all about God experiencing great frustration, grief and sadness. The disaster that set off the domino effect of drastic consequences can be summed up in one small word – sin.
Have you ever given
thought to sin being a great disaster?
I find it can help our understanding of just how devastating it is to
God, to humankind and to our world. The
Life with God edition of the Bible, a favorite of mine for personal study and
devotional reading, makes it clear that Zephaniah’s writing is about the
disaster of sin, about the devastations of “a people indifferent toward God,
living as though God didn’t really exist and looking after themselves as
independent of God.”[ii] It’s
about people failing “to live as though God mattered,” failing to keep in mind
and heart the good truth that their loving God is present in every moment of
every day. It’s about people who had become
self-centered and disastrously apathetic towards God’s sacred prescriptions for
life-sustaining love, unity, peace and justice.
In Zephaniah’s own words, his people had shamelessly lept over a
sacred threshold to fill “their master’s house with violence and fraud” (1:9)
and become like dregs, the least valuable part of anything (1:12). He calls the holy city of Jerusalem a “soiled,
defiled, oppressing city,” that had not “trusted in the Lord.” (3:1). His prophetic despair came from this vita
understanding that people’s gross sin isn't merely offensive to God -- it is absolutely disastrous to all the
innocence, beauty and goodness God originally intended us in our world to be.
All in all, Zephaniah’s
original hearers were held accountable for being rebellious, negligent foreigners
to their own historic faith, for following false gods, and for prizing
self-sufficiency above all else.
Despite identifying themselves in their tradition as faithful Hebrews,
they had become “practical atheists.”
What wasn’t there for God to be angry about?
Yet despite strongly calling
our sin to account by boldly describing God’s understandable anger, Zephaniah’s
prophecy is, after all, and above all, about disaster relief. He may not have a big stage -- his being tucked
there between the more famous prophets and so hard to find -- but his voice is ultimately
one that loudly heralds “hope, rejoicing and reprieve.”[iii]
And so after we read the holy indictment against the disaster of sin, we are given a wonderfully surprising verdict from God. It comes in the form of a promise about a day of holy judgment that instead of wrath instead offers a gracious, renewing, rejoicing new beginning. This new beginning pointed to a time in history when sinners would not be put to shame because of rebellious deeds. It pointed to a time in history when God would take away judgments, rejoice over us with gladness and renew us with holy love. This would be the divinely appointed time when, according to Zephaniah 3:20, God would bring us safely home from all sin-disaster. After the arrival of this promised day, humankind would joyfully “offer true worship to God, experience new unity, be freed from fear, oppression, and the pursuit of things that corrupt and spoil,” and “know that they are loved and secure in God.”[iv]
And so after we read the holy indictment against the disaster of sin, we are given a wonderfully surprising verdict from God. It comes in the form of a promise about a day of holy judgment that instead of wrath instead offers a gracious, renewing, rejoicing new beginning. This new beginning pointed to a time in history when sinners would not be put to shame because of rebellious deeds. It pointed to a time in history when God would take away judgments, rejoice over us with gladness and renew us with holy love. This would be the divinely appointed time when, according to Zephaniah 3:20, God would bring us safely home from all sin-disaster. After the arrival of this promised day, humankind would joyfully “offer true worship to God, experience new unity, be freed from fear, oppression, and the pursuit of things that corrupt and spoil,” and “know that they are loved and secure in God.”[iv]
You may be wondering
-- why read Zephaniah so close to Christmas?
Because, and in the words of one Bible professor, “Jesus was born into a
world very like the world of Zephaniah, a world of idolatry and rapaciousness
and false religious practice.”[v] Every moment and every year that we
celebrate the long promised day of His birth, we joyfully acknowledge it as the
very personal arrival of God’s forgiving, renewing, restoring love. In this we find hope, for Jesus was born to
rescue us, forgive us, shepherd us, and lead us to our promised holy home. In Him, our Messiah, sin’s darkness and
disaster and death are not allowed the final word.
And we visit Zephaniah
because even though we’ve been celebrating the birth of our Savior for over
2,000 years, even though that holy day long ago arrived to give peace,
forgiveness, freedom, justice and unity to all of humanity, all of our kind on
all kinds of levels have continued to freely choose the disaster of sin. Be it passive
complacency, knowing complicity, or almost unimaginable crime, we continue to
need holy rescue.
This past Friday, we,
along with the whole world, took painful notice of yet another horrible,
heart-wrenching manifestation of this sad fact. The weight of our personal and collective
grief about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT is
unbearable. Heartsick doesn’t come close to expressing how
we feel. We are soul sick. The precious part of us so personally
fashioned by and forever connected to and love by our Creator feels crushed and
crippled by this loss of innocent life from the systemic hand of gun
violence. Twenty children. Six adults.
These were not somebody else’s kids and school staff, they were brothers
and sisters in our human family. The
survivors aren’t strangers to us, for we recognize ourselves in their
devastation. And, yes, alongside our rage and demand for
answers, we can also find grief for all that went so tragically wrong within the
mind of the suicidal young adult shooter and for his other victims -- his mother
and the survivors of his entire family.
After reading
countless news reports and Facebook updates, one word seemed to pop up again
and again. It’s the word
“incomprehensible.” I understand this word choice, because who
among us wants to ever admit we find anything understandable about this horror?
Well, I’ll faithfully admit
it. I’ll admit it because I admit that
evil exists, and that I personally understand this to be the accumulated mass
of all human sin that is always spilling over into human lives and societies. It spills over through disastrous choices
with deep consequences that end up covering us all. And I’ll admit to some understanding because
prophets like Zephaniah help me to recognize and to teach that our rage and
sorrow are an extension of the angry, grieving heart of God who rightly judges
against every instance and avenue of evil.
But then I come
back. I come back again and again to the
delivering divine verdict. I come back and we come back by God’s grace
and through our faith to the advent of our Savior, of God with us. In coming back, we affirm the peaceable
reign of Christ alive in our communities, our nation, our world; a renewing,
restoring, and life rejoicing love that no disaster of sin can conquer. As Rev. Mark Moore of St. John’s Episcopal
church in Sandy Hook declared a day ago, "Evil
is a choice. It does not come from God.
Even though evil can overcome us, it cannot overcome God.”
As we continue to prepare for Christmas, may we not neglect to center
this season on Christ Jesus, who is ultimately and eternally our disaster
relief. We respond to every awful,
horrendous expression of evil by faithfully coming together in His name.
We do so to pray by
the power of the Holy Spirit that the deep peace and justice Jesus made
possible to us through His voluntary violent death is known and shared when and
where it is most needed.
We do so to pray His eternal,
loving arms receive every victim of deadly violence, welcoming them to the life-restoring
rooms prepared for them in glory.
We do so to pray His
amazing grace will heal and sustain witnesses and survivors of evil, that all will
be able to regain hope and trust in goodness, in the human race, in God.
We do so to pray for
courageous inspiration and clear instruction about how we can be in concert
with our Savior’s sin-disaster relief – how we can let love be genuine, hate
what is evil, hold fast to what is good, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep
with those who weep and live in harmony with one another (Roman 12:9-17).
And we do so to
recognize and rejoice in His historic incarnation while also further awaiting
the advent of His second coming, when there will be no more sorrow, no more sin,
and only eternal restoration and jubilation.
Amen.
[i]
http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Hope-Scarce-John-Holbert-12-09-2012.html
[ii]
Foster, Richard J.; Peterson, Eugene H.; Willard, Dallas; Brueggemann, Walter;
Demarest, Bruce; Renovare; Howard, Evan; Massey, James Earl; Taylor, Catherine
(2010-06-18). The Life with God Bible NRSV--Old Testament (Kindle Location
56628). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
[iii]
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=12/16/2012&tab=1
[iv]
Ibid, Foster, et al.
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