3rd Sunday
of Advent
December 16, 2012
8:00 and 9:00 only
Zephaniah 3:14-20; Luke
3:7-18
The End of the World as We Know It: Exile and Hope
There’s a saying that I always
thought I followed pretty well: listen to your elders. Ever since I knew I was preaching this
morning, Pastor Ken tried to advise me to go with the Old Testament reading,
the passage from Zephaniah that we just read.
But I said no, I’m going to continue the Gospel narrative, continue the
story of John the Baptist and the end of the world as we know it. Well, yesterday morning I realized that that
wasn’t the focus of the Word of God for us this morning. I needed to concentrate on the passage from Zephaniah. Y’all needed to hear the Good News found in
this passage from Zephaniah, not lessons that we learned in kindergarten about
saying you’re sorry, and sharing, and playing fair. That’s a good Word, too, but the Word of the
Lord for us this morning isn’t about what John tells the crowds gathered at the
river for baptism. The Word of the Lord
for us this morning is what Zephaniah has to say to those in exile, and that is
a word of hope.
We need hope today. Our world is in desperate need of hope. Our lives are in desperate need of hope. Our church is in desperate need of hope. Hope.
In the poem by Emily Dickinson, in which she compares hope to a bird, “hope
is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune,
without the words…” It is scriptural to
sing without words, because sometimes the Spirit intercedes for us with groans
that are too deep for words.[1] Sometimes there aren’t words. However, this morning, we’re going to try to
put some words to hope.
We’re going to use the words from
Zephaniah. He’s one of the minor
prophets, stuck in there between Habakkuk and Haggai. He’s one of the prophets who writes in exile
to those who are in exile. Ever felt
like you’ve been in exile? It’s the
phrase that’s stuck with me from the song we sing when lighting the Advent
candles – “O come, O come Emanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in
lonely exile here.” Have you known that
mourning of lonely exile? That
barrenness? That depth of despair? “Until the Son of God appear.” The Son of God, Jesus, appears and ransoms us
in his coming. Jesus brings hope and
healing and restoration and an end to our exile, an end to our isolation, an
end to our despair. Eventually. Israel
was in exile for hundreds of years. The
words of hope that Zephaniah offers come during exile, but not even at the
worst point of exile. It gets worse for Israel
before it gets better. Exile is not an
easy place to be. It’s like limbo. An in-between place. Somewhere between that already and not yet
that we talked about a few weeks ago. Exile
is not a place where you want to be, it is not home, and yet there you are,
trying to hold on to hope. It can feel
like the end of the world.
What does Zephaniah say to those in
exile? “The king of Israel,
the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst,” do
not fear. The Lord “will remove disaster from you.” The Lord “will remove disaster from you.” Promise.
“You shall fear disaster no more.” Promise.
The Revised Standard Version says, “you shall fear evil no more.” The Lord “will save the lame and gather the
outcast, and will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.” In that day, the Lord will change our sorrows
into joy. The Lord will do this. He has promised.
There are three things here to grab
onto. First, “the Lord, your God, is in your midst.” God is present with God’s people. Emanuel means God with us, God is here. God is in our midst. God’s in the midst of our mourning. God’s in the midst of our pain. God’s in the midst of our questions and anger
and despair. God is here, in our place
of exile. God has not abandoned
us. God sent his Son, in the form of a
baby, a sign of hope, a reminder of his presence. God is here with us.
Second, God is in active
relationship with us. Not only is Israel
called to action, but God acts as well.
It’s a two-way street. The
relationship goes both ways, just like any healthy relationship. There’s open communication and time spent
together and mutual love and respect. You
get mad at each other sometimes, yeah, but you keep talking, you work things
out. You stay committed to the
relationship. There’s a tendency in our
culture today to leave something if you don’t like it. Don’t like where you live? Move.
Don’t like your job? Get a new
one. Don’t like the hard work of
marriage? Get divorced. Don’t like the preacher? Leave the church. Well that’s
not God. God is faithful, even when
we aren’t. God hangs around, even when
we don’t. God keeps the communication
channels open, even when we don’t want to talk or to listen. God loves and respects you even when you
don’t love or respect him. God isn’t
just present, but is active.
Third, in the final verse from Zephaniah
is the promise that God will bring us home.
God will gather us in. We are not
abandoned. We will not be left in exile
forever. Grief may be where you are now,
and that’s ok. You may not even want to
be comforted now. But God will wait, and
keeps his arms open for when you’re ready.
The psalmist wrote that “weeping lasts for the night, but joy comes in
the morning,”[2] and the morning will come. I don’t know when. But I will hold out that hope for you and
keep the candle burning for you if you cannot do it yourself right now. The morning will come. God will bring you home. Promise.
In the meantime, hold on to the
words from Zephaniah. Do not fear. Do not let your hands grow weak. Hold on.
Keep the faith. The Lord your God
is in your midst. Ask him the hard
questions. He can take it. The conversation is important. Be angry with him, question him, weep with
him. Be in relationship with him. In the meantime… I don’t know how long the
meantime’s going to last. I don’t know
how long “until the Son of God appears.”
This is one birth that cannot be induced. We can’t decide, okay, I’m ready now, any day
now God. Instead we cry with the
psalmist, “how long, O Lord?”[3] How long must I be in exile? How long must I hold out hope? How long must I wait? And that’s a faithful response. It may be the end of the world as we know it,
but God will gather us in and bring us home.
In that we trust and place our hope.
