The Third Sunday of Advent

ZEPHANIAH 3:14-20: This powerful poem from the prophecy of Zechariah deserves a place in anyone's Advent celebration. This prophet, who was a near contemporary of Jeremiah and perhaps a cousin to Josiah the king, drew upon the traditions of both Israel and Judah in forming his song. From the northern kingdom of Israel he recited the promise that Yahweh was a divine warrior who would deliver his people in time of trouble. From the southern kingdom of Judah come his ideas of God as creator and king. Zephaniah combines all these ideas in this beautiful song that concludes his prophecies.

Note what the Lord has done for both Israel and Judah, northern and southern kingdom respectively:

The Lord has taken away the judgments against you

He has cast out your enemies

He, the warrior. gives you victory

He rejoices over you with gladness

He renews you in his covenant-love

He exults over you with loud singing in the day of festival

The Lord becomes more tender to his people:

I will save the lame, he says,

I will gather the outcast

I will bring you home

I will restore your fortunes before your very eyes

I will make you renowned among all the people of the earth

What a change this is from the opening oracles of Zephaniah. In chapter one he had said,

The great day of the Lord is near.

A day of wrath, of distress and anguish,

of ruin and devastation,

of darkness and gloom, of clouds and thick darkness,

a day of trumpet blast and battle cry

against the fortified cities (1:14-16).

Do these opening words of the oracle come from the same voice as the concluding ones, or is this latter oracle added to the text, as some scholars suggest? Has Zephaniah changed his mind and given a hopeful prophecy to replace the voice of doom? Has God changed his mind and brought light to the people instead of anguish and distress? It could be any of these. What is clear however is that a mighty change has taken place in the fortunes of God's people. Instead of defeat at the hands of enemies, the warrior-God gives his people victory. Instead of lives filled with sadness, God is bringing joy. Instead of a mute voice on the hills of a devastated Jerusalem, God introduces singing. The lame will walk, the outcasts will be gathered in, God will bring us home. This is the promise of Advent.

ISAIAH 12:2-6: Once again, as last week, we have a song from the Old Testament in our lectionary to take the place of a psalm. This song comes from Isaiah of Jerusalem (to distinguish him from Isaiah of Babylon, whose prophecies are found in chapter forty and those following). The song concludes the first twelve chapters of Isaiah's prophecy and in some measure recapitulates some of the themes found in those chapters.

This is a confessional song, as Isaiah sings of the God who has spoken to him and through him. "God is my salvation," he says. "The Lord God is my strength and my song. . . . He has done gloriously. Sing praises to the Lord, for great in our midst is the Holy One of Israel."

The prophet and the people have a task to do. They are to give thanks to the Lord. They are to call upon his name. They are to make his deeds known among the nations. They are to proclaim that his name will be exalted. They are to sing and shout for joy.

We need comment on these commands only in a brief manner.

- God is gracious, therefore we are to be grateful; grace and gratitude constitute one of the main themes in all scripture.

- God speaks to us, therefore we are to speak with him, to call upon his name.

-We are to make his deeds known among the nations. The great deeds of God are those of the exodus, when God led the people from slavery. These are the deeds of the exile, when God restored the people to his own presence. They are the deeds of the resurrection, when God brought the crucified Christ back from the dead and set him to finishing the work that he had performed in his ministry among us. They are the deeds of the Holy Spirit of Christ, let loose upon the church, to proclaim forgiveness of sins, strength for our God-given tasks, and hope for the life to come.

- We are to exalt his name forever; God in Christ is the center of our lives, and we will make that center known to others.

-We are to sing and shout for joy. The church at its best has always been a singing movement. It sang the glorious songs of salvation found in the birth stories of Luke's gospel: Elizabeth's song, Mary's song, Zechariah's song, the angel's song, Simeon's song. It sang in the early centuries of its life, and we have the marvelous "plain songs" that come from that time. In the Reformation it sang the songs of Martin Luther in Germany and Louis Bourgeois in Geneva and the Psalm Paraphrases of the Scotch Presbyterians. It sang with the Wesleys and the Watts as they brought an exciting gospel to England. It sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" through the Christians in Hitler's Germany and it sang "We Shall Overcome" with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. Let it always be singing. When we sing, God's name is exalted in all the earth.

We do all this, because, as Isaiah says, "God is in our midst."

PHILIPPIANS 4:4-7: "Rejoice," said Paul, a word that he used frequently in Philippians. 490 years before Christ, the Greeks had defeated an enormously superior force of invading Persians at the plain of Marathon. The news of this almost incredible and world-changing victory was sent back to Athens by a runner, named in legend Phidippides. He had about 25 miles to cover; no doubt he sprinted much of the way. Arriving at the city gates, he could gasp out only one word: chairete, rejoice. He fell dead as Athen's answering cry -- its goodbye to despair and glad hello to a new glorious destiny -- went up. In that cry western civilization was born. Paul's cry announced the Christian message to a waiting and anxious world, and in that cry all the world could say goodbye to despair and a glad hello to its glorious new destiny.

"Let all know of your forbearance." This is one of the most fascinating and important words in the Greek language, as you will see when each commentator tries to make something of it. Aristotle, in Nichomachaean Ethics, used the word in a discussion of law. Over against justice, which is never absolute, he put "equity" or epieikes: a quality of life that takes into consideration all the facts and circumstances and seeks to "equalize" things in favor of the condemned. To do this, the person involved has to yield up certain real rights. Martin Luther noted that Christians are people who have been made lenient, mellow, "beaten to a pulp," as Luther said, as opposed to non-recipients of grace, who can be stiff and bristly. Luther added, "Before God be glad at all times, but before others be lenient!" William Tyndale, in his early English translation of the Bible, said "Let your softness be known to all." Matthew Arnold called it "sweet reasonableness." Twentieth century scholars have tried to translate it, also. Karl Barth: This denotes a disposition that can hardly be translated into a single word; it is gentleness, openness, considerateness, vitality, benevolence, moderation. E. F. Scott: "firm-mindedness," a willingness to give and take instead of standing up for our own rights. A scholar named Duchatelez says that three meanings of this word emerge from lexicography: 1) fitness, from the physical, intellectual, social and moral standpoints; 2) fairness, forbearance, moderation and clemency; 3) modesty and gentleness. Douglas Hare points out that Paul uses agape (unconditional love) and related words for what happens within the Christian community; epieikes is what the outsiders see, the forbearance within the fellowship that can be known to people outside. In the Christian life this spirit is due to those higher claims of love which Christ has set before us. Christ shows forbearance and graciousness to us, and we are to show it to others. Whatever else the word may mean, as a concept it strikes directly against the "get tough, treat 'em rough" philosophies of our day.

"The Lord is at hand." Paul and other participants in the early church expected the Lord to return at any time. Whatever our personal position on this issue, all Christians need to live as if Jesus Christ is present with us and is apt to come into our lives with power at any moment.

"Have no anxiety about anything, don't be fretful." This is far removed from the Stoic ideal dominant in Paul's day. Don't care about life, the Stoics counseled. Instead, be apathetic - don't let anything touch you or hurt you, be passive in the face of life's crises. We in our generation have learned neither the Stoic lesson nor the Christian lesson. W. H. Auden, the poet, called our time "The Age of Anxiety," and it is true that we are anxious about many things. Reinhold Niebuhr responded by saying that anxiety in itself is not sin. It is the point in life in which either sin or grace may enter, the point at which we may respond to the sinfulness inherent in all things or to the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

"In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." The key to this is "thanksgiving." As E. P. Sanders wrote, "If prayer is offered in the context of gratitude that in everything God can work for the good of his children, then our requests are framed in a different way. We are not to set God's agenda for action, but (we are) to seek help in grateful remembrance of divine favors in the past and assurance of continuing care in the present and future."

"And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." The image is of a citadel beset by foes without, manned by a garrison often turbulent and unreliable. In these circumstances, it is the "peace of God" which both subdues the enemy and disciplines the defenders. E. F. Scott changes the image slightly to say that this verse carries the idea of an armed escort protecting the traveler from danger. When we have this, we have nothing to fear. No outward danger can assail us. Kennedy, in his commentary (The Expositor's Greek New Testament), reminds us that "This is the figure of a garrison keeping watch over a town. One of the most important elements in the history of the Hellenistic period was the garrisoning of cities both in Greece and Asia Minor by the successors of Alexander. The peace of God is the garrison of the soul, defending it from external assaults of temptation or anxiety, disciplining the lawless desires and imaginations within that war against its higher purposes."

LUKE 3:7-18: As far as the people who heard him were concerned, the words of John the Baptist did not seem like good news at all. But to a prophet like John, it was good news, for his message told what God was about to do to restore the fortunes of his people.

He began his message in a manner guaranteed not to comfort his hearers. "You brood of vipers," he called them, "nest of poisonous snakes, who warned you to flee the wrath to come?" Instead John demanded that they face the wrath, look squarely at the coming fire and walk through it. Baptism was a sign of this. The water rushed down the narrow valley of the Jordan River in the spring of the year when the sun melted the snows of the Lebanon Mountains. It reminded John and his listeners of the fire to come. Plunge into it, said John, show your willingness to cleanse impurities and sins from your lives.

He was specific in the sins he meant. The multitudes asked, "What shall we do?" "Do you have two coats?" asked John. "Give one of them to someone who has no coat." "Do you have food? Give to someone who does not." Tax collectors asked him, "What shall we do?" John replied, knowing the habits of tax collectors, "Collect no more than is appointed to you." Soldiers, protectors of the peace, of law and order, said to him, "What shall we do?" John answered them, "Rob no one by violence, accuse no one falsely, be content with your wages." John knew that the police were poorly paid. Even that was no excuse for them to rob and extort. These are the fruits of repentance, he said.

They had excuses for what they had done. After all, were they not the children of Abraham, inheritors of the promises of God? Surely God will not let them down. "From these very stones," said John in scorn, "God can raise up children to Abraham." In other words, the children of Abraham are not those who trace their lineage back to him. They are the ones who do the will of God, as Abraham did. With this one explanation John wiped away generations of self-deceit. With his next word he told what God was about to do. "Even now the ax is laid to the root of the tree," the purging is about to begin. "Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

"Who are you?" the people asked of John. "Are you the Christ?" John answered, "I baptize you with water, but one is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." John had another function as well. He was to prepare the way for "the one who is to come." This one would be stronger than John. He would attack the powers of evil, and he could bind and plunder them. In his presence John was humbled. He could not even "stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals," an act that only the humblest of slaves was expected to perform. This one would baptize with the Holy Spirit. John seems to mean that the one who will come after him will cleanse evil with this judgment of fire and fill the good with a purifying spirit, a new breath of life.

Jesus gave John's words another meaning. He seemed to believe that his baptism would be an act of consecration to his role as the Suffering Servant of God. It would culminate in his death. From his death would come a spirit of commitment and self-sacrifice that would inflame his followers with zeal to continue to incorporate the spirit of the Christ within themselves - baptism by the Holy Spirit.