The Gift of Joy - An Advent Meditation

The book of Zephaniah begins with the prophet declaring Yahweh’s judgment on the people of Judah and Jerusalem:

“I will sweep away everything
from the face of the earth, says YHWH.
I will sweep away humans and animals,
birds of the air and fish of the sea!
I will make evildoers stagger,
and wipe humankind from the face of the earth, says YHWH.
I will raise my hand against Judah
and against all those who dwell in Jerusalem;” (1:2-4a)

Zephaniah continues in much this same way through 8 oracles of judgment against Jerusalem and Judah for their lack of faithfulness to their relationship with God. And then in a surprising twist at the very end of chapter three the tone completely changes and we read the final oracle:

“Shout for joy, fair Zion;
shout, Israel, be glad!
Rejoice with all your heart, fair Jerusalem!
YHWH has averted your punishment
and swept away your foes.
Israel, YHWH is among you as ruler;
never again need you fear disaster.” (3:14-15)

Through the oracles of judgment in this book Zephaniah gives voice to the people’s deepest fear – the fear that all of the corruption in their government, the oppression of the people, their subjection to Babylon and Assyria, their forced exile, and their lack of faithfulness to their covenant with God – that all of these things are indeed the judgment of God and evidence of God’s abandonment of them in their greatest time of need.


Zephaniah expresses the fear of the people by putting words of judgment in Yahweh’s mouth to draw the people’s attention to their shared experiences of oppression, corruption, lack of faithfulness, and suffering. Zephaniah says: “Look people. Look at the greed, the boasting, the pride, the few benefiting at the expense of the many. Look at the suffering the violence, the destruction and dislocation. Look at the shortcomings of leaders whom you’ve trusted and who have let you down. Look at all the ways in which the world is not the way God and we might dream it could be.”


And then, like all good prophets, Zephaniah puts words of comfort and promise, of love and care, of justice and of joy into Yahweh’s mouth to remind us that despite our fear, these things are not God’s deepest desire for us. Our suffering is not what God yearns for. Meting out punishment is not what God dreams about.


God sees it all – the ugliest and most corrupt actions of our society, our leaders, our governments and systems and of ourselves. And God sees the pain and suffering these things cause us. God sees the ways in which our government, our economy, our institutions and leaders act to harm and destroy, to build their own security at the expense of others. And rightly, God is angered but at the same time, God’s anger at the corruption, greed and pridefulness of the few is overcome by God’s compassion and love for the many, for the meek and the lowly, the oppressed and the downtrodden and by God’s promises to remain present with love and to call us to be filled with joy, to rejoice in God’s presence and in the promises that are being fulfilled even in the midst of our suffering.


It is not easy to encounter words of violence and judgment coming from God’s mouth in scripture. It is not easy to think about or make sense of God’s anger unless we consider it on a broader scale. Aren’t we currently fighting two wars? Aren’t we recovering from an economic downturn caused in part by greed, corruption, and the hubris of the powerful few playing god with the life savings of the many? Aren’t we facing oppression as our salaries are cut, our pensions reduced, our life savings disappear? Aren’t we disgusted by religious leaders of our day and suspicious of our religious institutions and their motivation for the things they do and say? Are our realities really all that different from the situations and realities described by Zephaniah and by John the Baptist in Luke? Doesn’t it somehow seem appropriate for God to be angry? Shouldn’t we be angry, too?


These expressions of God’s rage and dissatisfaction with the way things are are meant to impact us, to anger us and to spur us also to action with God’s help to right the wrongs of the world as it is. The words of God’s judgment and anger are meant to help us see how wrong things are in the world, how contrary to God’s vision and God’s dreams they are, so that we know for sure that these things are not God’s will for us. It is not God’s will that we fight wars, play monopoly with people’s hard-earned life savings, discriminate against one another based on religion, race, language, nationality, sexuality or any other factor.


But God and the prophets and we should never stop only at anger. According to our faith story, God learned after the flood that acting in anger to cause large scale destruction was a mistake and God promised never again to take that kind of harsh action. And so, after every declaration of judgment placed in God’s mouth there is always an oracle of love and salvation because what the prophets want us to remember and to know is that despite God’s anger at the injustices and oppression of our world, God controls God’s self out of love for us and seeks instead to assure us that even in the midst of all that is wrong with the world, God is present with us working to transform all that is contrary to God’s vision with love, peace, righteousness and joy.


God loves us. God delights in us. God remains with us regardless of what happens. And while we wait for God’s realm to come God promises us glimpses of joy and new life, healing and transformation out of the rubble of corruption, greed, oppression and injustice.


John the Baptist puts it another way and calls us to repent – to turn away from the things we do as individuals and as a society that contribute to oppression, greed, injustice, and lack of faith – and turn toward God by living our lives in the ways in which God desires. Live in God’s way by giving to those who are in need, doing our work with integrity and faithfulness, treating others with love and care no matter what, and refraining from abusing our power to benefit at the expense of others.


We are acutely aware of living in the in between time. God’s presence is with us, Zephaniah assures us of that. But the promises God makes of salvation and transformation are not yet fully realized. They are available to us in glimpses through God’s work in our lives and we can grasp at them in our attempts to live God-centered lives but the final transformation and new life for all that God has made is yet to come. And so we wait for Jesus, Emmanuel to come, to be with us in the in between time and we wait always as God’s people for God’s realm to come in full, for all that causes pain and sorrow to cease so that we might live forever in the joy of God’s presence.


People of God, hear the Good News: Jesus is coming! God is doing a new thing! Rejoice and give thanks. Live your lives with integrity. Do not give in to the despair, corruption and greed that is all around us but hold fast to the promises and the presence of God who never leaves, who is with us now and who will be with us always and who everyday is working in our lives and in our world to transform our sorrows into joy. Embrace the gift of Joy that comes in these promises. Claim the reality of that joy each and every day – whatever is happening now is not the end, pain and oppression and sorrow do not have the final say for God is with us, and Jesus is coming, Emmanuel. Amen.