If my name was recorded in the north African or Arabic way my
name would be John Eric William Zephaniah.
My Great Grandfather was born in the south of England at the beginning
of the reign of Queen Victoria and his father, William Henry Wesley, named him
after that rather insignificant Old Testament prophet Zephaniah.
Because of this link I have always had a
certain curiosity about this old prophet.
But every time I try to read him it seems all too awful. He is ranting about the people of
Judah/Israel. He is ranting about the
neighbouring nations. The people of God
have abandoned their first love of God.
The nations around Judah have ridiculed and abused the People of
God. In fact, these verses sound very
much like the God that Richard Dawkins and others refuse to believe in – a
grumpy old divine who is going to wreak destruction on humanity because we have
all be so naughty.
As a result I would generally give up reading
Zephaniah before I got to chapter 3 – and I should not have.
In our Good News Bibles, the section we read
today (3:14-20) is headed – Song of Joy.
It is actually two songs.
The first song is in the voice of Zephaniah
and he is calling the people to rejoice because “there is now no reason to be
afraid.” God has withdrawn his
punishment of them, and has removed their enemies. Zephaniah says: “In his love he will give you
new life.”
After all the terrible things he had railed
against this seems to be an amazing change of fortune.
Many Christians have a little saying that
helps them understand how and why Jesus would ultimately die. They say “Without the shedding of blood,
there can be no forgiveness of sins.” In
the context of the sacrificial system in Israel this seems a plausible rule.
Yet here, and it is by no means the only
example on the Old Testament, God’s relents from all his threats of pain and
destruction. Dawn Weaks, in a sermon on
this text, says:
“Something changes. God relents.
Zephaniah ceases words of destruction and gives birth to new hope with
words of comfort. Maybe God remembers
that we humans cannot restore ourselves on our own; perhaps God’s parental
heart breaks at the thought of continuing to punish these precious
children. Regardless, Zephaniah stops
telling the people what they’ve done wrong and starts telling them what God is
doing right.”
And words like that can only be addressed in
song – hence the poetic form in our Bibles.
But it is not enough for the voice of Zephaniah to tell us this. Half way through he says “even God will sing
you a song.”
In this second song, the voice of God says “I
have ended the threat of doom and taken away your disgrace. … I
will rescue the lame and bring the exiles home.
I will turn your shame into honour and all the world will praise them.”
God here sings a love song. And this song is for the entire world. It turns out the God longs for joy, too, and
here God steps in and does for us what we cannot do for ourselves so that we
can live in joy.
Here is a source of Joy for Christmas that is
not based in the sentimentality of an innocent and helpless baby born in abject
circumstances. This Joy is totally
focussed on God’s gracious action in putting aside our failures so that we can
know him fully as he wants to know us fully.
But wait!
There’s more. The remaining three
selections from Scripture today (Isaiah 12:2-6 , 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28 and Luke 3:7-18) seem also to be a call to joy – life may seem
tough with many things stacked against us, but we are called to remember always
that God will bring us peace and hope and love and joy.
It is very easy for us to forget God has
given us all that we need to be able to rejoice in him. But we are not overcome by fear or
sadness. We should never lose heart. Clarissa Estes says:
“The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as
do you. It is that there can be no
despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent
you here. The good words we say and the
good deeds we do are not ours. They are
the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.”
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