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"JOY TO THE
WORLD” ADVENT 3
Scripture
Readings: Isaiah 12:2-6, Zephaniah 3:14-20,
Phillipians4:4-7, Luke 3:7-18 Preached at Baldwin Presbyterian Church, December 13th
2009 Zephaniah
is not the best known of the prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, maybe, even Jonah,
well we know a little about them. But the oracles of Zephania ben Cushi
remain on the sidelines.He addresses the nation at the time King Josiah is on
the throne, who was setting about reforming the nation. The bulk
of Zephaniahs message has to do with avoiding the sins of the surrounding
nations and for the people to seek the Lord. If they didn’t things (which
weren’t that good right then) would get worse. However our passage dealt with
his concluding words which are not ones of doom and gloom but of joy and
victory for those who belong to God. Central to
his proclamation of joy is the idea of God as “The Mighty One” (or as it is
translated in some versions, “The Warrior”), who will save the people from
their enemies, deal with their oppressors and bring them home. We are
familiar with the idea of Jesus being the one who offers joy, but less
familiar with the picture that Zephaniah gives us. A picture of God, the God
of the Old Testament, being the Joy Bringer. Maybe
we’ve watched to many Hollywood Bible productions in which God is the one
thundering commands from clouds and raining down fire and brimstone on evil
ones. We don’t expect to hear that same God described as exuberantly singing
songs of joy over those He calls His children. But that’s precisely the
picture that Zephaniah ben Cushi places before us. Chapter 3: Verse 17; The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take
great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over
you with singing."
(Zephaniah 3:17) What
tremendous words of promise these are to consider as we travel through the
Advent season.
The LORD your God is with you.
What an
amazing encouragement this can be when we are traveling through hard times.
To know that we do not walk alone, but God walks with us. Of course that
doesn’t mean that we always sense or feel God’s presence. It doesn’t means
there does not come to us days when things get all out of place and don’t
seem to go according to any plan. But just
to know, God is with us, can make all the difference. Such knowledge can
change the most mundane tasks into Divine appointments. Such is a promise to
claim, to speak to our souls. It’s not a sign of going crazy to speak to
yourself! Sometimes we need to offer ourselves encouraging words and say to
ourselves, that despite evidence that suggests the opposite, the truth is
that the Lord our God is with us. More than just with us… He is
mighty to save. Salvation
is a whole lot more than just being able to affirm belief in God. I realize
that some Christian traditions put a tremendous emphasis on persuading people
to confess Jesus Christ so that they can be saved and there’s nothing wrong
in that; moments of commitment and claiming our inheritance in Christ are
important. But salvation is a whole lot more than any individual personal
confession of faith. The very
word salvation derives from a root word that means healing, a word from which
we construe the English word “Salve”; meaning something that soothes or
restores. It’s a word to do with wholeness and fullness and equally
applicable to communities as it is to individuals. It’s a word that conveys
well-being and safety. Zephania
ben Cushi pictures God as One who walks with us and in a warrior like
fashion, battles on our behalf that we may be safe. A God who ultimately
reigns victorious over all that would destroy and decimate life. Again, we
may not sense the results of God’s victory immediately applying to the
situations we walk through, but it will come, in God’s time, in God’s way, as
we put our trust in God. Why? Because He is mighty to save! There’s more. He
will take great delight in you
The way
we sometimes speak about God must surely give the impression that God is
constantly mad at the world. Some
speak so much of God’s wrath and judgment that the thought that God might
actually be on our side becomes lost, and the notion that God may actually
take great delight in us becomes obscured. We need to
go back to those early chapters of Genesis in which we are told that God
created man, looked upon the man and woman and thought, “Yep, It’s good!”. Not that
everything man does is good, nor that man is not a sinful creature that
constantly makes the wrong choices, but just to reaffirm that God is actually
incredibly, head over heels in love with humanity (rather than out to get the
world) can be a liberating thought. Jesus was
not born in a stable in Bethlehem to start a campaign of God’s anger, but to
demonstrate through words actions and deeds that God is crazy madly in love
with God’s creation! The next part informs us there is a purpose to such
love. He
will quiet you with His love
In this
crazy world we can be just churning up inside. Worries can overwhelm us. What
if? How come? When will? How can?
Concerns about everything; money, people, situations, wars and rumors
of wars, getting through the day, flu jabs, sickness, bills to pay, things we
have to do… the list can be endless and can completely stress us out. The
purpose to God’s mighty initiative to save? “He will quiet you with His
love”. To our churning worrying hearts God comes and offers assurance that
Christ walks with us, that He has our best interests at heart, and that we
can rest in His love, for His love is strong and his purposes do not fail.
Can there be any greater security in life than knowing our lives are in the
hands of a loving God? Money
can’t give us that security. Friends can’t do it. Even the church can’t do
it. A prayer I came across expressed it; “Lord our hearts remain restless
until they find their rest in thee!” He will quiet you with His love. And
from out of that quiet place, in time there will come little trickles of joy
that may even swell to full blown streams of rejoicing. Don’t miss the last
part of this verse! He
will rejoice over you with singing
Our God
is a singing God! When we worship, when we sing our hymns and carols, our
psalms and spiritual songs, we are giving expression to values and ideas that
orientate our hearts towards God. Music and singing is an expression of our
deepest feelings and thoughts to God. Music can sometimes touch is in a way
that words and images fail to do. We are moved. We are taken somewhere else. This
verse tells us that God has composed a song that has our name on it, and that
it’s a love song and He sings it over us. “He will rejoice over you with
singing”. During
this Christmas season when we hear some of the great and uplifting music,
reflect for a moment on the thought that God sings a love song over you. Such
may well lift any Christmas blues and put a joyful spring in your shoes! The
message of Zephania ben Cushi.. “Joy to the World” – God is on our side, God
walks with us and desires our best, God is mighty to save and rejoices over
us with singing. Now that sounds like Good News to me! So let us seek for such “Good News that
brings great joy” to
be born in our lives! AMEN. Adrian
Pratt |