O Come, All Ye Faithful:And Bear Fruit
Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
“What’s happening to our world, Pastor?” someone asked me recently.
I wish I could answer that question. While it seems that every generation fights its wars and confronts its social battles, those wars and battles surely seem magnified today. The pandemic has played into this social divide. The vaxxers resent and cannot understand the anti-vaaxers. The Delta variant continues to take a heavy toll around the world. Now, Omicron is a variant of concern. It’s like were living in a science fiction movie. We’ve seen yet another high school shooting. Another teenager killing more teenagers. I don’t know what’s happening to our world.
And we’re trying to prepare for Christmas. I’m supposed to talk about “joy” today. I wrote most of this sermon sitting in my daughter’s hospital room. The news was not good. The doctor had just suggested they send the palliative care team to talk with us. I knew what that meant. I’ll be honest. I was finding it hard to think about joy. I had to force myself to think about the text and theme of today. A baby boy born in crude surroundings because there was no place for his family at the local inn. Young Mary, possibly as young as age 15. Joseph visited by the angel. The shepherds. The star in the night. I noticed something different this time. The prominence of nighttime, darkness, in the birth narratives. The early church emphasized the fact that it was night when Jesus was born. The shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. The wise men followed the star through the night. When Joseph was warned of Herod’s murderous intentions, he took the baby Jesus and Mary “by night” and fled to Egypt.
Nearly a hundred years after the birth of Jesus, it was John in the fourth gospel who called attention to this. Their wars were being fought. Their social battles were being confronted. It was no simple, easygoing time. It was a harsh time of Roman oppression. It was nighttime for the people of Israel. The birth of Jesus, John wrote, was a light shining in their darkness. “The true light,” he said, “which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” On multiple levels this was a powerful message of salvation.
Isn’t that what we need today? Isn’t that the message the world desperately needs? And isn’t that the gift the Christian community can give the world? Yes, it’s dark. People are angry. People are afraid. People are asking, “What’s happening to our world?” And the Christian community responds today with a message of hope, peace, joy and love. We choose not to give in to hatred. We choose not to respond to terror with despair. We choose instead the noblest qualities of the human race, qualities that are the bedrock of our faith: hope, peace, joy, and love. We do so with the conviction that ultimately truth rises. We choose to belong to the party that believes that the arch of history is long, and it bends towards justice and truth. So in the darkness of this day, with breaking news stories we’re afraid to read, we make a deliberate choice to bear the fruit of joy.
It took a deliberate decision in Zephaniah’s day too. He is one of the seldom read and little known prophets of the Old Testament. If you know the history of the ancient Israelites, you know that they were forced into exile in a foreign land. The worst-case scenario happened. In a series of three deportations, a foreign army came into their land, desecrated the Temple, ransacked homes and vineyards, and forcibly took the people of Israel into exile. Though the book of Zephaniah is short, it seems to have spanned a long time. It’s only three chapters, but scholars believe it covered the entire exile. The first chapter involves the time leading up to the exile, when Zephaniah anticipated God’s great judgment.
The great day of the Lord is near,
Near and hastening fast;
The sound of the day of the Lord
Is bitter,
The warrior cries aloud there.
That day will be a day of wrath,
A day of distress and anguish,
A day of ruin and devastation,
A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness….
I don’t know how anyone could be more descriptive. Zephaniah tried to warn the people of impending judgment, but they refused to heed his warning.
Then in chapter two and part of chapter three, the people of Israel were invited to return to God and avoid the great devastation.
Seek the Lord, all you humble of
The land,
Who do his commands;
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
Perhaps you may be hidden
On the day of the Lord’s wrath.
Then near the end of chapter three the tone changes dramatically. The darkness has been lifted, and sounds of celebration are in the air. Some scholars think this was written after the exile, as the people returned to their land.
Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;
Shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your
Heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
Once every three years we read this story from Zephaniah on the third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of joy. It is always coupled with a beautiful passage from Philippians 4:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
And then Luke 3, where John the Baptist “proclaimed the good news to the people.”
Do you see our message for today? It’s dark. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Let’s not hide our heads in the sand and ignore the stark realities of our world or your own circumstances. Likewise, let us not abandon the message of our faith. Hope, peace, joy, and love are more powerful than the darkness.
I think preachers are the only ones who read sermons. I have a few preachers from the past whose sermons I enjoy reading. I read them as devotional literature, much like the devotionals on our app, which I am enjoying. My favorite is Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, he published some of his war sermons, sermons preached during a dark time in U.S. history. In one of those sermons, he refers to an ancient Roman historian named Tacitus. Thirty-five years after the crucifixion of Jesus, Tacitus was astonished and indignant that the Christian movement had lasted so long. He called it “mischief” and a “pestilent superstition.” He noted that it appeared to be stopped at one point but then it broke out afresh. He was shocked that it spread from Judea to Rome “where all manner of horrible and loathsome things pour in and become fashionable.”
So this ancient historian found it incredible that the message of Christ would continue, even in a place as dark as ancient Rome. Here’s what Fosdick said to the Riverside Church in 1944:
Here is the marvel of history, not that the world is dark—it always has been—but that we have a radiant spiritual heritage, coming down to us across the centuries, that all the hosts of evil have not been able to quench. (A Great Time to Be Alive, p. 212)
What’s happening to our world? What has always been happening. It’s nighttime. Our world is covered in darkness. But here’s the message we proclaim to the world. All the hosts of evil do not win. Not now. Not ever. Love wins. Peace wins. Hope wins. Joy wins. Because they are more powerful than the darkness. That is our message. So come, all ye faithful. Let us bear the fruit of joy.
Closing Prayer
Lord, how grateful we are for the light, the light that shines in the darkness. How grateful we are that your light has shined in our lives. Help us to live it and share it. Amen.
