In Our Midst -- Third Sunday of Advent

Zephaniah 3:14-20

December 16, 2018

            “My life flows on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation. I hear the clear, though far off hymn that hails a new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to this Rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”

            One of the hardest parts of sermon writing for me is just getting started. How do I begin? What opening illustration do I use? What will my opening sentence, my first line be? I took enough journalism classes in college to know that the leading line of any story has to be what grabs your reader, your listeners, or, so it would seem, your congregation.

            So I spend a lot of time praying and thinking and pondering what a sermon needs to proclaim from beginning to end. And I was pondering this sermon, the words to the hymn, “My Life Flows On,” kept running through my head.

            “How can I keep from singing?”

            I probably heard this hymn as a child, but if so I didn’t pay much attention to it. But since the publication of Glory to God, our newest hymnal, I have become a huge fan of this hymn.

            “My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentation. I hear the clear though far off hymn that hails a new creation.” “How can I keep from singing?”

            Scholar Deborah A. Block wrote,

            “In these weeks [of Advent] we hear from Malachi, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Isaiah and Micah. The prophet is as much the voice of Advent as is the evangelist. Why? Prophets say what no one wants to hear, what no one wants to believe. Prophets point in directions no one wants to look. They hear God when everybody else has concluded God is silent. They see God where nobody else would guess that God is present. They feel God. Prophets feel God’s compassion for us, God’s anger with us, God’s joy in us. They dream God’s dreams and utter wake up calls; they hope God’s hopes and announce a new future; they will God’s will and live it against all odds. Prophets sing God’s song and sometimes interrupt the program with a change of tune.

These verses from the prophet Zephaniah are an interruption in the program. They are a change of tune. If we left out these verses, Zephaniah would be more a prophet of lamentation and despair than rejoicing. But these verses? This song? This is a song of joy. Zephaniah is not a regular in our worship. While we may read texts from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah and Amos on a more usual basis, Zephaniah only appears twice in our lectionary cycle, and this Sunday is one of them. The infrequency of readings from this prophet does not make his words less important; on the contrary, when they appear we should pay more attention.

Zephaniah heard his prophetic call and found his prophetic voice in the reign of King Josiah of Judah. According to scholars, King Josiah is remembered in Israel’s history as the last good king, on par with King David. However, Zephaniah saw a different reality. He saw corruption, idolatry and injustice. As prophets do, he proclaimed to any who would listen that God’s punishment for these sins would be on a cosmic scale. It doesn’t take a prophetic call to know that eventually we all reap what we sow, and Zephaniah saw a harvest of great calamity.

But Zephaniah also saw something else; a time when even God would sing a song of rejoicing.

“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, 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 as on a day of festival.”

            Even God will sing, and this song from Zephaniah calls us to sing as well; to rejoice, to exult, to let go of our fear, and to trust that God is in our midst. Zephaniah states that last promise twice. God is in our midst. God is in our midst. The original audience who heard these words must have felt a mix of skepticism and hope. Things were pretty bad. It would be easy to believe that God was not only absent, but had abandoned them to themselves forever. But Zephaniah proclaimed that the people were to sing with joy, to rejoice, because not only was God in their midst, God would sing with them. God would exult with them. God was in their midst, and God would join in the triumph song.

            We may not be on the verge of a Babylonian invasion as the people were in Zephaniah’s time, but with the world as it is, it’s not hard to believe that disaster looms on the edge of our own horizon. Injustice is rife. Corruption is real. We are masters at creating our own idols. There seem a billion and one reasons not to sing, and a billion and two more not to rejoice, but the promise of Zephaniah that God was in the midst of the people of Judah is true for us as well. God is in our midst. God is not silent or on a prolonged leave of absence. God is in our midst.

            How do we know that God is in our midst? Is it because we recognize God in the kindness of one stranger helping another? Is it because we see God when the morning arrives right on time after a long, dark night of the soul? Is it because we meet God in a word of hope when we think that all is really hopeless? How do we know that God is in our midst, even when we cannot see God, even when we don’t recognize God? We trust and we hope and we believe, and we accept that the moments of joy we experience – even when they are brief – are of God and from God.

            We accept that the moments of joy we experience – even when they are brief – are of God and from God.

            That’s what today is – a day of joy. It is the third Sunday of Advent and it is the day of rejoicing. If you look at the light display done so beautifully by Jayne in our window, you’ll see that the pink candle is lit. That’s the symbol for joy. It is as if joy interrupts and inserts itself on this day. Joy and its song interrupt our regular programming and insert a new tune.

            God is in our midst, how can we keep from rejoicing? God is in our midst, how can we keep from celebrating? God is in our midst, how can we keep from singing? God is in our midst and God is singing with us.

            “My life flows on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation. I hear the clear, though far off hymn that hails a new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to this Rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”

            God is in our midst! Give praise! Give thanks! Rejoice! How can we keep from singing? How can we keep from singing? Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia! Amen.”