2009.12.13: Dr. George A. Purnell

			Dr. George A. Purnell December 13, 2009 “When Will God Sing?” Zephaniah 3:14-20 We read today that Jerusalem is called to “sing aloud,” to “shout,” to “rejoice and exult with all your heart.” Why? Because “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has cast out your enemies.” And, even more, because “the Lord is in your midst.” God is filled with joy, we read: “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.” God will give the people of Israel victory and deal with their oppressors. God will “save the lame and gather the outcast…and bring you home.” Wow! What a day it will be. Jerusalem will be restored. Her days of suffering will be over. The people will (finally) be safe, gathered together with God dwelling in their midst, “praised among all the peoples of the earth.” These six verses that bring the book of Zephaniah to a close do not stand alone, of course. To adequately interpret these verses we need to consider them within the broader context of the entire book leading to this conclusion. Chapter one, verse one of Zephaniah tells us that “The Word of the Lord came to Zephaniah…in the days of Josiah the king of Judah.” Josiah reigned as king of Judah from 640 to 609 B.C. This was a precarious time in the history of Judah, and of her capital city Jerusalem. The northern kingdom of Israel had been militarily destroyed by the Assyrian empire a century earlier, in 722. Moreover, in 701 B.C. the Assyrians had Jerusalem under siege when their attention was diverted by warfare with the rising military power to the east, Babylonia. Accordingly, Assyria withdrew before completing her conquest of Jerusalem. So, Zephaniah’s prophecy comes out of a period when Judah is still a kingdom, but when her continued sovereignty is tenuous. Out of this context comes a BOLD PROPHECY from Zephaniah, telling Jerusalem that God has taken away the judgments against her…has cast our her enemies…that she should sing aloud, rejoice, and exult! What we do know about the plight of Jerusalem is that Babylonia defeated the Assyrians and completed the conquest of Judah, destroying Jerusalem and leveling the Temple in 586 B.C.; only about 25 years after Zephaniah wrote. We know further that when Persia defeated the Babylonians in 538 B.C., their benevolent king Cyrus was permissive toward the Jewish people and granted them access to Jerusalem again in 536 B.C. The restored Jerusalem as center of Jewish faith and culture was not to last, however. In 70 A.D. the Romans savagely put down a Jewish insurrection and utterly laid waste to Jerusalem, completely destroying the Temple. Many Jews who survived this were exiled throughout the Roman Empire. (The Jews would never again occupy the land until the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. And they would not gain control of Jerusalem until defeating the Arab states in the 6 day war June 5-10, 1967, the week I graduated from high school.) Given this history, how are we to interpret verses 14-20 of chapter 3, which depict a restored Jerusalem; where a forgiven people are gathered, secure from enemies, with a loving God dwelling in their midst? From its beginning to chapter 3 verse 9, the prophecy of Zephaniah is an apocalyptic oracle of doom and destruction. Zephaniah begins his book by writing that the word of the Lord came to him in the days of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth…I will sweep away man and beast…the birds of the air and fish of the sea…I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem…” (1:2-4) The book continues in this tone to 3:8, where we read: “‘Therefore, wait for me, says the Lord…For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, {and} to pour out upon them my indignation…for in the fire of my pasion all the earth shall be consumed.” Verses 12-13 then make reference to a remnant of the faithful who will survive: “For I will leave in the midst of you a people humble and lowly. They shall seek the refuge in the name of the Lord – the remnant of Israel.” Which brings us to our passage today, beginning with verse 14 and continuing to the end of the book with verse 20. We must wonder which remnant Zephaniah was referring to. Was he writing to those exiles that would be called home to Jerusalem in 536 B.C.? Was he writing to those exiles that would have to wander for another 2000 years, before finally seeing Jerusalem become home again in 1967 A.D.? Or was he writing to those who would inhabit the New Jerusalem envisioned in the Revelation to John? “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is with mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (21:3 ff) Or, are we to see the ingathering of this faithful remnant to the restored Jerusalem not as an actual historical event, but instead as what happens in the lives of repentant people. Our sin separates us from God and leads to our destruction. But the good news is that those “who seek refuge in the Lord” should “sing aloud” and “shout” and “rejoice with all your heart,” because “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you.” The joy in Zephaniah’s passage today has to do with reunion. The exiles had been separated from Jerusalem and their homeland. The Lord, Zephaniah writes, rejoices over the returning exiles with gladness. Indeed, the prophet writes that God “will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.” I can’t help but be reminded of the three parables in Luke’s chapter 15 about things being lost and then found, causing God to rejoice. First Jesus tells of a shepherd who has lost a sheep. Though the shepherd has 99 other sheep, he leaves them and goes in search of the one lost sheep. Upon finding it, we read: “he comes home, calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’” Jesus adds, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Then Jesus tells of a woman who has ten coins but loses one. She lights a lamp and sweeps the house until she finds it, and then calls her friends and neighbors together, saying “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Jesus adds, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Thirdly, of course, is the parable of the lost son, one of Jesus’ most beloved parables. This story tells of the joy of the father when the one son who had gone away returns home. This parable ends with the father telling his disgruntled older son, who was jealous that he had never received such treatment even though he had always been obedient: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” So the joy that Jesus describes in heaven and on earth results from lost ones being reunited with the one seeking them. Moreover, the call to rejoicing comes to the whole community. Zephaniah calls for the Jewish people (Israel) to “sing aloud…shout...rejoice and exult with all your heart!” The people will be gathered together again and community restored. In each of Luke’s parables, as soon as the shepherd finds the one lost sheep…as soon as the woman finds the one lost coin…as soon as the father’s lost son returns…the friends and neighbors are called, and the one who has found what was lost says: REJOICE WITH ME! I HAVE BEEN REUNITED WITH WHAT I HAD LOST. Isn’t the joy that you and I experience on earth often the result of estrangement being overcome? When a divided self becomes united and discovers integrity…when feuding friends restore their relationship…when disgraced sons or disowned daughters come home to find open doors and welcoming hearts…when a damaged marriage is repaired and reconciliation made possible… When estrangement is overcome and community restored – only then will God sing. And when we are in Christ Jesus, to use Paul’s term, song will be our constant companion. We will whistle and hum and sing the carols of Christmas at work and play, in public and in private, because we know that we are in relationship with God. And because we are, we can hear God singing. Amen.