"The 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" (Zeph. 3.17). For obvious reasons, I have been thinking a lot about Advent over the past few weeks, about how it pushes the person of Jesus, the Messiah constantly to the periphery. In his place we see all the people he affected - the patriarchs, the prophets, John the Baptist, Mary - all the people who lived their lives in light of him. In the Advent wreath I grew up with, the Christ candle always sat in the middle. Around it sat the other four. All the figures of Advent point towards Christ, always reminding us that we, too, are waiting for his return. And in the same way, all of our readings - in one way or another - revolve around this fixed point of the Messiah, the word we are more familiar with as 'Christ'. He is never seen; he always lies just off the page, just out of the frame, reminding us that we, too, are waiting for him.
In Zephaniah, for instance, the prophet has been warning of the impending judgment of God, the Day of the Lord, the day that Judah is sent into exile. But, God says. But I myself will come to save you. I will rejoice over you. I will turn your shame into praise. I will bring you home, gather you together, restore your fortunes. So they are commanded to rejoice, to sing aloud and praise the Lord. And yet. And yet they must still go into exile, must still suffer. These are bleak words, a reminder that rejoicing is not always connected to material blessing. Rejoicing, Zephaniah insists, is about knowing who's in control, trusting that God's final purposes are redemptive and righteous, that he is the God who saves, who loves his creation.
And in our Gospel this morning, we are struck by the towering figure of John the Baptist, standing before the crowds and warning them that they better do more than be baptized and trust that being an Israelite will help them avoid the coming judgment. They better act well. In short, they should love their neighbours as themselves. And if we had enough time to walk through the whole of Zephaniah, we could begin to see traces of John the Baptist there. Father Jonathan helpfully reminded us last week that John is the last of the prophets, the last to come before the Messiah. But John's forceful personality and his prophetic words make the people begin to wonder if he is the promised Messiah, the promised Christ. Has God finally come to deliver his people? We can understand the Jews' fascination with him. This is the kind of person they read about, standing here before them in his camel hair, eating locusts. He suddenly arrives on the scene preaching repentance. And how easy it would have been to assume he was just another of the self-proclaimed messiahs. But there is something about this man, something the people respond to. But rather than accept the attention, John points away from himself. This larger-than-life figure, this man who attracts people by the multitudes, he insists that he is not the promised one. The one coming will be someone that even John himself - as impressive as he is - is not worthy to untie the thongs of his sandals. Like Zephaniah, John points forward to one coming. And like Zephaniah again, John tells the people what they should do in light of this person's coming. The one who has extra clothing should give to the one who has none. The tax collector should not collect more than they were commanded to. The soldiers should not act like violent first-century soldiers. They must act in accordance with repentance, in accordance with the ethics John teaches them, like those who await the Messiah. John is the forerunner, constantly pointing away from himself, constantly preparing the people for the arrival of the Messiah, for the arrival of God himself. But all of this is in the distance. It is just outside of our view.
Paul on the other hand has seen the Messiah, Jesus. And unlike Zephaniah, he doesn't write with exile on the horizon. In fact, he writes after the Messiah has come, after God himself has come down from heaven, lived, died, and been raised again. The prophecy in Zephaniah has been fulfilled. And yet. And yet Paul sits in prison, writing back to his beloved family in Philippi, themselves suffering for their faith in Messiah Jesus. Rejoice, he insists like Zephaniah. 'Rejoice in the Lord always.' And while Paul is like us, on the other side of the Incarnation, we are all like Zephaniah and John the Baptist, looking forward to God returning, to Messiah Jesus returning to establish his kingdom on earth. The Lord is at hand, Paul insists, but he is not here yet. Paul tells us the same thing Zephaniah tells his readers: no matter what it looks like now, there is always cause to rejoice because the God we believe in fulfils his promises. Unlike Zephaniah and John, Paul (and we) have Christ as proof of God's faithfulness. We know that God prefers to come and suffer for us, rather than let us destroy ourselves. We know that no matter how bad things were for Jesus, at the end, there was resurrection and ascension. That is why Paul can remind his readers that, though they are suffering, they should remain steadfast, so that the world sees how different they are. That's why Paul can say to us that-no matter how bad things look-we can rejoice in the midst of them.
Rejoicing, Paul and Zephaniah insist, is not about being happy or glad something has happened. 'Rejoice', both of them say to us, 'Rejoice even when everything looks like it is falling apart.' That is not to say Paul never despaired. One need only read 2 Corinthians. Indeed, it's not to say Israel never despaired in the exile. Just read Lamentations or some of the Psalms. But it is to say that at the core of our faith lies the belief that God is bringing together his merciful purposes for us, even when we can't see it, even when it is tempting to think, 'I can't take anything else.' Rejoicing is a mindset, not an emotion. And it all hinges on this Messiah person; it all hinges on what he has done and will do. And, as I said, Paul looks forward while he's looking backwards. He can rejoice because he knows that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead will raise Paul himself up on the last day. But as with Zephaniah, this event is some way off in the future, at some unknown time.
So all three of our readings look forward to an event that is yet to come. And all three insist that we live in light of this future event. Zephaniah and Paul point out the positive: God himself comes and saves us. God himself is in control and will redeem his world. For that reason, they insist, 'Rejoice!' But John has more sobering words: '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' (Luke 3.9). So while we can rejoice because God is with us, while we can take comfort in the fact of Christ's death and resurrection, we need to take a good long look at ourselves.
And that brings us back to Advent. I have talked about how the Messiah, how the reality of Jesus should actually affect our outlook. But it is important that in all of our readings he does not make an appearance. It's what Advent is all about. We live in light of two realities: the first reality is the one that Zephaniah and John point towards-the Incarnation of the Word. Jesus of Nazareth, God in flesh. The second reality is the one that Paul points to: the return of Messiah Jesus. Advent forces us back into the role of expectant Israel and by doing so, it forces us to realize that we are now in that role. We don't just sing 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel' because it's a nice song. We sing it because we are calling for our Saviour to come back. This world is not what it should be. And we are calling for him to come back to make it right. We have to face the reality that it has been nearly 2,000 years since the Ascension. We have to face the reality that we-at least we in the technologically advanced regions of the world-find ourselves pretty comfortable. It's not that hard to forget that the world we live in is a world we're supposed to be changing. Instead, we start to think of it as not that bad, as a pretty good world. And these four weeks leading up to Christmas force us to face the reality that we are actually waiting for something. We can be lulled into thinking this is what it's about: money in the bank, college degrees, new books, new clothes, and on and on. None of these is bad in and of itself. But Advent reminds us that the world is not as it should be. The world is meant to be a place where God's love and peace reign. John the Baptist called his listeners to live differently than the prevailing culture allowed. Sure, it was okay for a tax collector to charge a little more, to skim a bit off the top. Sure, it was okay for a soldier to take money from people by force. But John says no. John tells them to live in light of what is coming, the Messiah. And he says to us to live in light of what is coming: God's reign on earth. It's our job to start bringing this about. It's our job to get out there and love people and provide for them, to bring God's kingdom to them. This is what John tells us. This is what Advent forces us to realize. We do not belong in this world. We are here precisely to make it a different world, living in light of the return of our God, a God who loved us enough to come and live with us, to come and die for us, to give us his Holy Spirit to help us make the world what he wants it to be. And the more we work towards this end, the more we live in light of it, the more we will be able to agree with Zephaniah and Paul, who realize that in the end, it is God working through us; it is God himself who-through us-brings these things to pass. And with Paul and Zephaniah, we can live in light of what we do not yet see, rejoicing always in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
Sermon by: Jake Andrews