“Rejoice!” Zeph. 3.14-20, Advent 3C, Dec. ’15

 

1.                Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our redeemer.  Amen.  The Third Sunday in Advent has traditionally been called by the Latin word, Gaudete, meaning “Rejoice!”  That’s why traditionally many Christian churches throughout the world light a pink candle on their Advent wreaths for this particular Sunday. For as you’re called to repentance, so also you’re urged to rejoice in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. By His own Cross, He’s accomplished salvation for you and has come to rule in your midst.  As the prophet Zephaniah tells us today from Zephaniah 3:14-20, He rejoices over you with gladness! That’s why, even from prison St. Paul in Philippians chapter 4 encourages us to “rejoice in the Lord always,” knowing that the peace of God will keep us in Christ Jesus. We also find encouragement in John the Baptist. As he suffers in prison, he calls upon Jesus and is strengthened by the Word of the Gospel that he receives. The same good news is preached to you, by which all things are made new and even “the dead are raised up.” The message today is entitled, “Rejoice!” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                Depressed. Feeling blue, stressed out, frustrated. These are not the words we use to describe a joyful time such as Christmas. But, some people feel this way at this time of year. Part of it comes from unrealistic expectations. Part of it comes from a misunderstanding of what this season is all about. Part of it comes from cramming too much activity into too little time.  Still, we come to church and hear God calling us to rejoice and be glad. That’s easy for him to say! He’s up there in heaven, where everything’s safe and bright, unhurried, unhassled. Let him come down here and see how it feels. Then we’ll see who’s rejoicing, celebrating!  Well, in our text this morning, the prophet Zephaniah gives us God’s answer: God did come down here, and he does celebrate, and we can rejoice because the Lord came here and rejoices over us.

3.                It’s a great story.  A British fleet stood off Baltimore, bombing the fort that guarded its harbor. All through the night the guns roared.  Through the clouds of smoke explosions could be seen over the fort.  The darkness covered the stone walls of the fort, but the sounds of war—convinced every shipboard witness that the fort must fall and Baltimore would be overtaken.  And then as the morning’s first light appeared, the witnesses saw an astonishing sight.  The fort still stood!  And there, flying proudly above the fort was the American flag. Hurrying down below one witness seized a pen and dashed off lines that every citizen has heard a thousand times.  “O Say can you see,” wrote Francis Scott Key, a prisoner that night on the British flagship, “through the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.”  The fort and the flag had survived.

4.                What a picture of the scene we see in Zephaniah chapter 3.  The city of Jerusalem was under siege, being punished for her many sins.  The Lord Himself was the assailing force, pouring out his wrath and striking the city with his anger.  The devastation seemed enough to consume the entire world.

5.                And then in the rest of the chapter we make an amazing discovery.  As that dreadful night of judgment comes to an end and a new day dawns we realize there are survivors!  We see God’s scattered people, purified, return to worship their God.  We realize that the pride that characterized Jerusalem had been burned away and the city now held only the humble, those who feared the LORD.  And then we hear a voice rise in song singing in Zephaniah 3:14-20, “¹⁴Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel!  Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!  ¹⁵The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies.  The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. ¹⁶On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak.  ¹⁷The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.  ¹⁸I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach.  ¹⁹Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.  ²⁰At that time I will bring you in, at the time when I gather you together; 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.”

6.                Here in Zephaniah 3, we see how God gives His people the honor and praise they thought that they had forfeited forever by their sins of idolatry and wickedness.  Zephaniah reminds the people that they should rejoice in the Lord.  The reason is simple.  He says that the Lord has taken away the judgments against you and cleared away your enemies.  Scripture tells us in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.”  But, if the punishment of sin is gone and if that great enemy death has been removed, then what remains is simply the sleep of the body until the day of resurrection when our Lord Jesus promises to return.  One thing we look forward to during the season of Advent the coming of our Lord Jesus on the clouds on the Last Day.

7.                This is exactly what has happened.  The prophet Isaiah speaks of the work of Christ in these words.  Isaiah 53:5 says, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by His wounds we are healed.”  The punishment our sin deserved has been placed on Christ.  That’s a cause for rejoicing my friends.  That’s why Zephaniah can speak the way he does in verse 15 because the Lord has taken away the sins of the world through His Son.  They are removed in Christ.  Death and hell are no longer a threat to the one who clings to Christ in faith.

8.                The second result of the removal of sin is that God is present with his people with his protecting power.  The prophet says in Isaiah 59:2, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”  God hates sin and he won’t dwell among a sinful people who lie, cheat, swear, worship after false gods, commit sexual immorality, disobey their leaders, hate their neighbor and fail to worship the Lord and serve Him only.  That’s why Isaiah speaks the way he does.  But when sin is forgiven and its guilt has been removed by Christ there’s no reason why the Lord must stay separated from us any longer.  That’s why Zephaniah now says in chapter three, “The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you.”

9.                Rejoice dear friends in Christ!  The LORD God is with YOU!  He is protecting you from harm, delivering you from evil and comforting you in your fears and worries.  In fact, the Lord rejoices with singing because we are living with him.  What a glorious revelation of our God.  We’re the ones who should be filled with joy and singing, because we have the privilege in Christ of living with our God for eternity.  But, Zephaniah says that the Lord is just as happy as we are.  God is happy because the goal of his work of salvation in saving us has been completed by our Savior Jesus.  The LORD is joyful because the crown of His creation, mankind, can live in his presence forever.

10.             As we move ever closer to Christmas during this Advent season we know that there are those who are dreading that day.  People without families anticipate another lonely Christmas.  Fathers and mothers who are unemployed are disappointed that they can’t buy gifts for their children.  Still others, because of a death in the family are spending their first Christmas without their loved one.  It can be easy to think that there’s nothing to be excited about.  But, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, we remember today from the prophet Zephaniah that God gives us a reason to REJOICE!  God is near to us to forgive, sustain and support us.  With the assurance of his love and presence in Christ Jesus we can rejoice in his grace and mercy toward us.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.

 

 

“The Song of Elizabeth” Luke 1.39–45 Advent Mid2 Dec. ‘24

 

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we continue our Advent Midweek Service on, The Nativity: Songs of God and Men, is taken from Luke 1:39-45 and is entitled, “The Song of Elizabeth,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.               Sinful men have a habit of treating glory as a zero-sum game. The way we obtain glory, we often think, is to take it from someone else. The more glory our neighbor has, the less we have, or so we think. To use a musical analogy, we don’t believe in glory duets. If someone else is singing, the only way to make ourselves more glorious is to take the microphone and sing a song in praise of ourselves.

3.               This is why, I suppose, our society has a bunch of unwritten rules trying to regulate this impulse. It’s why we warn people with a variety of figurative phrases like “Don’t upstage him” or “Quit stealing her thunder.” This is why women other than the bride aren’t supposed to wear white at the wedding. It’s why you don’t start boasting of your own work-related accomplishments at a man’s retirement ceremony. It’s why a young woman shouldn’t announce her pregnancy at her friend’s baby shower.

4.               And yet, that last thing is essentially what the virgin Mary does when she greets her cousin Elizabeth. Granted, Elizabeth may not exactly be having a bridal shower at this moment. But her whole pregnancy is essentially a prolonged celebration, for a couple reasons. One, Elizabeth is old, far too old to be having children, especially when you consider that she’s been barren her entire life—something like  Sarah’s conception of Isaac in the Old Testament. And on top of this, an angel told her husband that the child Elizabeth is going to bear is going to be a prophet, as I mentioned last week, something the Israelites haven’t seen in about three hundred years.

5.               So, this is all pretty amazing. There’s a spotlight that’s glowing on Elizabeth in this moment. This is her moment to sing the song of glory, the song of the wonderful things God has done for her. But when Mary comes to visit, our Gospel text strongly implies that Mary immediately tells Elizabeth what she’s just heard from the angel Gabriel, tells Elizabeth that she’s going to give birth to the Christ Child, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Mary essentially walks into her cousin’s bridal shower, grabs the microphone, and sings, “My pregnancy is even more miraculous than yours, and my baby is going to be even more important than your baby.”

6.               But instead of being filled with sorrow or jealousy in this moment, Elizabeth is filled with joy because, as a Christian, as a believer in the promise of salvation growing in Mary’s womb, Elizabeth doesn’t see glory as a zero-sum game. She doesn’t see it as a song she needs to sing instead of Mary. She sees it as a song she sings with Mary. “When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy’ ” (Luke 1:41–44). Elizabeth knows that Mary’s baby is her—Elizabeth’s—glory too. That’s why Elizabeth says what she says after feeling John the Baptist leap for joy in her womb as the mother of God comes into their presence. That’s why Elizabeth is filled with humility and asks the question, “Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth responds with humility and wonder, she gladly shares the spotlight with Mary and even gives it to her, because she knows that the Man who is going to save her from her sins is now the little unborn child in Mary’s womb.

7.               We don’t think like Elizabeth. Instead, we think like the world and follow its zero-sum game, its song-of-glory ways. When Christ and his Word come into our presence, we don’t want to yield the spotlight, even when that spotlight is illuminating things that are far less glorious than what Elizabeth had surrounding her. So the Word says, “Look, Jesus is here forgiving your sins. Jesus is here to heal your broken hearts and cast out your demons and to give you the gift of eternal life. So put away your pride. Let go of your sins. And come find rest in the arms of God.”

 

8.               But we don’t. Instead of singing the praises of Mary’s Son, we sing our own praises. We worship our own pride, boasting of our own righteousness before the world. We sing the songs of anger toward those who have sinned against us, thinking that tearing them down will clothe us in more glory. We sing songs of despair as we look out at the world, thinking that lamenting the filth of our neighbors can somehow make us clean. In all of this, we think if we can rip the microphones out of other people’s hands, we can make their glory our own and become someone worthy of love and attention. In all of this, we hear Christ singing to us, calling us to turn from our sins, and we sing, “I don’t care how good your news is. I’m the important one right now. This is my day, my moment.”

9.               But it’s not your moment. In fact, the very existence of your life belongs to Jesus, the same Jesus who was born of the virgin Mary, and the same Jesus who came into this world not to take the spotlight away from you but to welcome you into his spotlight. The child in Elizabeth’s womb grew up to be John the Baptist, the one who prepared the way for the Christ who would die for the sins of the world. And the child in Mary’s womb grew up to be that crucified and risen Savior.

10.            With the spotlight firmly fixed on Christ, the nails were pierced into his hands and feet. And as he hung on that cross with those lights burning onto his head, Jesus shed his blood and took away your sins, took away your pride, your arrogance, took away your refusal to hear his Word. As his body was broken apart on that cross, Jesus took away all your self-worship and idolatry. And as he took his final breath, as he cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46), Jesus sang the song that made you a sinner no more, the song that wrapped you in his glory and made it your own possession.

11.            Then after hanging—and three days of lying—lifeless with that spotlight shining on him, Jesus began to move again. He lifted up his head, picked his life back up, cleared his throat, and told you that the hour had come for you to sing with him forever, for you to join the song Elizabeth sang with and to his mother, the song of salvation for all who believe.

12.            “Blessed is Mary among all women,” Elizabeth sang, “and blessed is the fruit of her womb.” Now we can sing that song too, because the holy fruit, the Lamb of God, has made you blessed. He’s washed you clean, fed you with salvation, and shown you that you don’t have a God who competes with you for glory. Elizabeth sings that you have a God who has given you His glory. So sing with him forever. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.