Zephaniah 3:14-20; Luke 3:7-18
The Third Sunday in Addvant | 15 December 2024 | A Sermon on Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 3:7-18 | by the Rev, Beth A. Schlegel |
text English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles (or other version)
7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics[a] is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
Rejoice!
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Rejoice!
I suspect, if any of us walked into a coffee shop, hair salon, doctor’s office, or even church and simply shouted, “Rejoice!” we might be met with perplexed and even grumpy responses.
What is there to rejoice about?
Prices are going up
Politics are a mess
My family is in crisis
The world is at war.
I don’t know what I am going to do if my rent goes up.
This world is going down the tubes.
Rejoice? Bah! Humbug!
For someone who just tuned into the prophet Zephaniah’s words in today’s first reading, this might have also been the response.
But for those who heard the prophet from the beginning,
the call to rejoice has a different tone – a quality of hope.
Then, as now, the world was a mess.
God’s beloved people –God’s chosen people –
- Had turned their backs on their identity
- They were worshiping other gods,
- sacrificing to idols,
- tolerating corruption,
- and had become despicably immoral.
From the standpoint of God’s covenant, they were condemned.
They brought on themselves the ultimate sentence of God’s judgment.
Unlike our world, where presidents can pardon turkeys and criminals,
when it comes to sin against God, only God can pardon.
But God is also righteous and just.
God’s pardon is not a matter of dismissing human wickedness, saying, “Oh, that’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
No, sin is serious. God will not be mocked.
The consequences of sin must be satisfied.
Sometimes, God allows his people to experience the consequences of their sin in this life –
As my mother often said when I made a poor decision, “You made your bed, now lie in it.”
Living in a troubled world is an experience of the consequences of human sin and the brokenness of creation.
But that is not where God ends the story.
Our loving heavenly Father places a limit on the consequences we experience. They do not last forever.
Our world will not be in turmoil forever – our lives will not be in chaos forever.
The Father sends his Son into our broken world, our painful lives
to end the time of our bondage to sin and set us free.
Therefore, we rejoice with hope:
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
he has turned away your enemies.
The day is coming when God’s Messiah, the Christ, takes upon himself the fatal consequences of all human sin and destroys it by rising from the dead to eternal life.
16 On that day it shall be said to God’s people:
Do not fear…;
do not let your hands grow weak.
17 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
18 as on a day of festival.
rejoice!
Our rejoicing begins with God’s rejoicing over us in love in the person of Jesus Christ.
With his forgiveness and mercy, Jesus loves us so deeply that he sings out our names in joy!
We are pardoned! Our sins no longer separate us from God.
Jesus throws a party for us, hosting it with his own lifeblood and flesh.
I will remove disaster from among you,
so that no one may recount your disgrace.
19 At that time I will deal
with all who oppress you;
I will save the lame,
and assemble the outcasts; NAB
Rejoice!
….
To rejoice is more than a feeling of happy anticipation.
It is also a call to action.
In this Advent season, we look both backward in time
to the fulfillment of the prophecies in the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ,
and forward in time to the day when God’s redemptive work is completed on the day of Christ’s coming again.
And as long as we are in time
– between that wonderful past of God’s incarnation and the glorious eternal future
– we act in joyful confidence that the Lord Jesus, Immanuel, is in our midst.
This is why John the Baptizer gives practical instructions to those eagerly awaiting the glorious future of God:
- Provide for the poor
- Be honest in all aspects of life
- Do not seek personal gain at the expense of others
- Be content with what you have
These are good things for anyone.
Yet, I wonder what John might say to us in our modern world:
- share time with those who are lonely, grieving, or imprisoned
- Do not trust social media, and be honest in your own dealings online
- Be careful not to damage someone else’s reputation – or your own
- Be wise with your finances and work to overcome addictions and any impulse to be greedy
- Care for the earth and God’s creatures
We cannot save ourselves, and we certainly cannot save our world from its own destruction.
We can, however, trust in God to keep his promises and bring to completion the saving work begun in Jesus.
We can live in joy that Jesus is present in our world and look for the signs of love and peace that point us to God.
We can respond to the voices of despair and Bah humbug
with a witness to the victory of Jesus over all the forces of evil
and an attitude of confidence that in Christ, whatever turmoil we face, “this too shall pass.”
We can rejoice!
For the day is coming when Christ will gather God’s people together for the victory parade into the Father’s eternal realm.
Rejoice – you and I are included in that number, when the saints go marching in.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
—
©The Rev. Beth A. Schlegel, STS
pastorschlegel@live.com
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
York, PA, USA