Rejoice, for the Lord is Here!
Sermon Text || Year C: Advent 3
Rejoice, for the Lord is Here!
Winter as Exile
The days are growing short, and the temperature is cold. We are in a kind of exile now, an exile apart from our gardens, favorite fishing spots, and afternoons in the hammock. For many, this time of the year is not just a season of exile from the outdoors; it’s an exile in the land of despair, anxiety, and depression.
Israel’s exile was marked by darkness, despair, feelings of abandonment, mourning, and anxiety. The psalms and prophets are filled with people crying out to God, wondering where God could be.
I know many of us have felt like that at one time or another—maybe even now.
“God, I’ve done everything right. I go to church, I read my Bible, I pray, and I try to do good deeds. Why has this happened to me? Where are you?”
This pain is real, and these questions are important to sit with.
For the exiles in Babylon as well as those living under Roman oppression after the return from exile, these feelings were amplified by the apparent slowness of God in fulfilling the promises made to Abraham, Moses, and David (e.g. Psalm 88-89).
Where is God?
The Hope of Zephaniah
Zephaniah was a prophet who lived in the pre-exilic time. That is, his ministry took place just before Judah fell to Babylon. Despite his proximity to one of the greatest disasters in Jewish history, his short book ends in hope with a song of joy (Zephaniah 3:14-20).
This song teaches the soon-to-be captives that God saves, God heals, God includes, and God restores.
God Saves!
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away the judgments against you; he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. Zephaniah 3:14–16
Even though Judah was headed into exile, Zephaniah encouraged the people that God would be victorious. He would take away their judgments, turn away their enemies, and rule, once again, as their king.
The children of promise were then told to not fear because the Lord is in their midst.
How could they not fear?
How could they not recoil at the disaster to come?
I’ve never been in a situation like that myself, but I know that some of them put all of their trust in God. They faced fires, lions’ dens, and harsh judgment from rulers all because of their faith in God.
The church was in a similar situation in the first century. When the apostle Paul knew turbulent times were coming, he authored these lines from prison:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4–7
Like Zephaniah, Paul was saying, “God saves, so do not fear.”
God Heals!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.” I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. Zephaniah 3:17–18
God renews, rejoices, and removes disaster. In other words, God heals. For a people headed for exile who probably felt abandoned, unclean, and unworthy, I can only imagine what this must have meant for them.
But in my own life, I need healing. I desire to be renewed in God’s love. The idea that God would shout for joy over me is mind-blowing, but it is the picture Jesus presents of God in passages like Luke 15 where the three main characters in the parables throw parties over recovering what they lost.
We are loved by God, and God loves nothing more than to see the ones whom he loves restored to himself by his love.
In Isaiah 12, this restoration is pictured as a well that never runs dry.
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and will not be afraid, for the LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say on that day: “Give thanks to the LORD; call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 12:2–6
Give thanks to the Lord! Shout and aloud and sing for joy! He restores us with his love.
God heals, so drink from the well.
God Includes!
I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. Zephaniah 3:19
Who is invited to this party of healing, salvation, and restoration? Everyone. God gathers the outcast into his house and transforms their shame into praise.
This is a picture of the Cross, isn’t it?
God took something shameful, something we esteemed smitten of God and afflicted, and God turned it into something glorious. Now the whole world knows the symbol of the cross, not as a torture device, but as a means of salvation, healing, and renewal.
What does this do for the outcasts?
Well, outcasts tend to live a life of self-fulfilling prophecy. Just like the teenager who leans into their awkwardness or quirkiness, the outcasts may embrace the image others have of them.
In Luke, a group of outcasts came to John the Baptist, and when they realized John was offering salvation to anyone willing to change their mind, they wanted to know what they could do. The crowds, the tax collectors, and the soldiers all wanted to know how they could drink of this well that never runs dry. Luke recorded the interaction for us:
And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” Luke 3:10–14
There is room for everyone in the kingdom of heaven.
God includes, so don’t let others perception of you or your perception of yourself keep you out! Come on in, and bring fellow outcasts with you!
God Restores!
At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the LORD. Zephaniah 3:20
Finally, the prophet Zephaniah knows that God is a God who restores.
No matter how far into exile, into the far country, into our sin, into our misery we might go, we know that God will go the distance to bring us back home. Jesus’s death on the cross shows us that God’s love and identification with us in our sorrows knows no bounds.
He is able to comfort us because he has been there himself. To give us the greatest comfort of all, God offers us his own self, his very Spirit.
When the expectant crowds came to John, he told them,
“I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” Luke 3:15–16.
This promise of the Holy Spirit is what they all had been waiting for. It was the signal that God’s program of salvation, healing, inclusion, and restoration had really begun. And now here we are in our own kinds of exile.
Will we put our trust into this God who saves, heals, includes, and restores? Do we have hope that “the Lord is in our midst”?
If we do, then we’ll have cause for unending joy, unbelievable peace, and fellowship with God. Come, drink from the well.
Lectionary Reading: December 15, 2024 - Third Sunday of Advent
Old Testament: Zephaniah 3:14-20
Psalm: Isaiah 12:2-6
New Testament: Philippians 4:4-7
Gospel: Luke 3:7-18
Weekly Church Bulletin: Peace that Guards the Heart
You and I have talked before how counterintuitive is for Paul to have written the line “Rejoice in the lord always; again I will say, rejoice” when he was in prison. Yet, for Paul, his imprisonment was an occasion on which to rejoice because he was imprisoned for his faith in Jesus. Peter similarly said, “Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name” (1 Peter 4:16).
We might think to ourselves that Paul and Peter may have been able to rejoice in this situations because they are super-christians while we are just normal everyday Christians. This outlook misses a critical truth about Paul and Peter’s suffering: their peace and joy didn’t come from anything they did but through the Spirit of God.
Paul explained it like this: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).
When we make our requests known to God, our requests do not fall on deaf ears. While we may not see our prayers answered in the way we expect, want, or even need, what we can experience is the presence of God during these trials. I can’t explain why God appears to grant some requests and deny others, but I have felt this kind of peace in the midst of my unanswered prayers.
This peace surpasses understanding. And while this may seem like a convenient excuse, to me it is a source of comfort because I simply don’t have all the answers and probably couldn’t bear them if I did. But if we surrender to this peace, then God promises to guard our hearts and minds. Thanks be to God.