Scripture reading: Zephaniah 3:14-20.

Sermon text: Luke 3:1-18.

Devotional by Morgan Elizabeth Alexander.

Scripture reading: Zepheniah 3:14-20 (NIV): Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!

The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. On that day they will say to Jerusalem, “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

“The sorrows for the appointed feasts I will remove from you; they are a burden and a reproach to you. At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame. At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the LORD.

Although Zephaniah was a minor prophet, I’m sure many people took comfort in his writings. Unlike the major prophets, who spoke of revenge or punishments for the sins of the Jews, Zephaniah speaks of the destruction of Israel’s oppressors. Although they had been released from exile, the Jews still held the memories of the wrongs that had been cast upon them.

Contrary to popular belief at the time, the wrongs that occurred in exile had not been part of God’s plan. All He wanted was to keep the Jews out of their home long enough to teach them a lesson. In chapter 2, Zephaniah says that God has “heard the insults of Moab and the taunts of the Ammonites.” That alone shows that God had not intended for those horrible things to happen. In this brief book, Zephaniah states that the Cushites will be slain with the sword of God. Nineveh of Assyria will fall by the hand of God.

The first 2 chapters speak of destruction, but with the third comes life anew. “Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm.” After all the hardships, torture, and persecution of the surrounding nations, those words brought hope. They spoke of a restored Jerusalem, what we now know as the new Jerusalem. These words speak of crashing down the proud, evil torturers of Israel’s past and raising the Jews to their former glory. They speak to us as well. Even though we aren’t Jews, they speak of hope and restoration to a lost and dying world. Essentially this is a resurrection passage. I found this saying that applies to the Jews of that time, and to us 2500 years later; The resurrection gives our life meaning, direction, and the opportunity to start over no matter what our circumstances. For them, it was the restoration of their beloved city. And for us, it’s the resurrection of the baby whose birth we celebrate this season. God loved them no matter their circumstances, and gave them the chance to start over in new Jerusalem. Now, we know that God loves us no matter our circumstances, and gives us a chance to start anew with his Son. So now I leave the pulpit with the same words of hope that were sent to the Jews over 2500 years ago. “At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes says the LORD.”

Sermon

This sermon begins with a “good news, bad news” story. The good news: Jesus is coming. The bad news: The world isn’t ready.

Today’s sermon also sounds like a “good news, bad news” story. The Jews saw John’s appearing as the good news that God had fulfilled His promise to send His messenger. The bad news came in John’s message as the people realized that the Messiah’s appearing meant major changes in their lives.

St. Luke recorded the ministry of John the Baptist with his usual attention to detail by stating the date of his ministry. The prophets Isaiah and Malachi had prophesied that God would send a messenger to prepare His people for the coming of His Messiah.

The Jews of John’s time knew that Daniel had pinpointed to the day when the Messiah would come into Jerusalem. By the time of John, most of the Jews expected the Messiah to wreak havoc on the Romans and other Gentile oppressors, restore the throne of David, and elevate Israel to the top of the nations. It never occurred to the Jews that God may have started the process by cleaning house with His people first.

John’s ministry certainly didn’t rely on a soft message. Can you imagine a modern TV preacher calling his listeners a “brood of vipers?” According to St. Matthew’s version of the story, the story St. Luke recorded here came during John’s interaction with the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to hear him. I find it interesting that John referred to the most religious of his visitors as a “brood of vipers.”

John demanded that his visitors face up to their sins and shortcomings. “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance,” John preached to his listeners. John’s message required more from the Jews than they usually heard from the religious authorities. The Pharisees expected their adherents to live by the Law as interpreted through their 613 additional laws. The Sadducees didn’t care much what the people did as long as they continued to sacrifice in the Temple and contribute their offerings.

One reason the Jews found John’s message so puzzling revolved around the next part of John’s message: “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.” Over the course of the centuries, the Jews had focused on their status as God’s chosen people more than on His reason for choosing them. Many Jews — not all — believed that salvation came through their physical descent from Abraham, not from their actions or beliefs. These Jews assumed a stance of racial superiority toward Gentiles, even toward converts to Judaism. John stunned these Jews by saying, “ I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”

John apparently got someone’s attention. “What then shall we do?” You can’t hear a message like John’s without wondering how to fix the situation, especially when you hear that your ancestry won’t help you. John didn’t give the people any spiritual platitudes; he didn’t simply tell them to pray about their situation until they felt better. John’s answers pointed to concrete solutions. “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” This advice reminded the people of their duty to care for the poor.

When tax collectors came for baptism, John told them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” John’s words to the tax collectors struck them on the bottom line. It helps to remember that people bid on tax collecting in the Roman provinces. Most tax collectors expected to make a tremendous profit for collecting taxes by overcharging the subjects. Any collector following John’s words would most likely face financial calamity as he watched his profits evaporate. Even worse, his fellow collectors would continue their gouging of the people, leading to resentment for the follower of John’s words.

Another group came to John asking how to demonstrate their repentance. Roman soldiers came to hear John, asking the same question: “What shall we do?” John exhorted the soldiers, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” In other words, the soldiers were not to abuse the power of Rome for their personal gain. I believe it bears mentioning that John didn’t tell the legionnaires to leave their military service. Service in the military has always held high honor in the Church.

As John expected, some of the people began wondering: Was John the Forerunner, or was he the Messiah Himself? John clearly stated his identity: “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 with fire. 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.” If the people found John’s message unsettling, imagine their idea of the Messiah’s message!

Yet, St. Luke recorded that the people considered John’s message “good news.” The people weren’t blind, nor were they ignorant. The people saw the corruption in the Temple as the Sadducees used the Temple proceeds for their own benefit. The people saw the hypocrisy of the Pharisees on a daily basis. The people knew the Romans and their collaborators often abused their authority. The people heard John’s message and realized the judgment for which they had cried to God had finally come on their oppressors.

What about us today? What does John’s message mean for us on the other side of the resurrection, as we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth and now await His second coming?

For one thing, when we look around the world today, we see much of the same problems. Greed still pervades the system. We’re still living with the fallout from a system that allowed unbridled greed to run amuck, with no thought to the human costs. Even after the anguish and pain of the past 2 years, we still find large numbers of people who refuse to think of the real costs of pursuing the absolute largest profit for the absolute lowest cost. Corporations ship large numbers of jobs overseas with no regard for the employees and their families left with no means to provide for themselves. Christians often either instigate or condone these actions as if they have no bearing on our witness before the world.

When we read John’s words, they remind us that salvation involves far more than merely repeating a prayer after some preacher or reading our Bibles every day or attending regular worship. We love to preach salvation “by grace through faith” because, too often, we think this phrase requires nothing of us, no modification in our thoughts or actions. We’ve pushed what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace:” “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate” (The Cost of Discipleship, “Costly Grace”).

In other words, we must never forget that Jesus’ reign in our lives requires us to live to a different standard. As I read somewhere, “We need some remedial training on how to live as subjects in a kingdom. We may be justified in rejecting the divine right of kings to rule but we cannot be justified if we reject the rule of our divine king” (Joe Carter). We must care for others, both personally and professionally. We must never forget that every human we meet is an immortal, created in the image of God. Any Christian in a position to help others must assume that responsibility. We cannot claim to love Jesus as Lord of our lives without loving others as ourselves.

I see another lesson here, one that has become more acute in my mind over the past several weeks. The people needed to hear John’s message; they needed to hear the message of repentance prior to Jesus’ ministry. Yes, it hurt people to hear God required more of them than they expected. Yes, the Jews of John’s day needed to hear that salvation involved more than they believed. Today, people need to hear Jesus’ message of repentance and salvation. The Church needs godly men to stand up and accept the calling of God in their lives to serve her congregations in all levels. I want us to begin praying that God will raise up men from our congregation and from other congregations around us to serve as the next generation of youth ministers, music ministers, teachers, and pastors. Judaism needed John; today, the Church needs you.

We have bad news today: Jesus is coming, and the world isn’t ready. We, the Church, have the good news of our salvation, accomplished for the world through Jesus’ life and resurrection. The consuming fire of our God must sweep through our lives, purging us of anything that keeps us from carrying the gospel of Christ into an unprepared world and leading the unprepared to eternal grace and the joyous life that results.