Zephaniah 3:14-17 14 Sing, O Daughter of ; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of ! 15 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. 16 On that day they will say to Jerusalem, “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. 17 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.”

Whether or not you are familiar with the Star Trek TV shows and movies, you probably would recognize the character of Mr. Spock. He is the one with the pointy ears who always has a serious expression on his face. That is because he is from the planet Vulcan where people do not show any emotion. They choose to live by logic and reason, suppressing any emotion as a sign of weakness. For the Spock character, his lack of emotions is an advantage in times of trouble when he remains calm and collected. The disadvantage comes in his interaction with humans who do express their emotions. In a world today that holds up ideas like “real men don’t cry,” a lack of emotions may seem appealing to some. But that is not what we are. Human beings have a wide range of emotions, some good and some bad, with many different ways to express them. As we look at our text this morning/evening from 3, we will focus on two Emotions for Advent. The first one is joy and second is no fear. Zephaniah’s book of prophecy is relatively short, only three chapters. The first two and a half chapters have a negative tone to them. Zephaniah’s job was to preach to the people of the coming punishment and destruction that God would bring on the surrounding nations and especially on the people of . The reason was that they had turned away from him, instead worshipping the false gods and idols of the nations around them. The emotional tone of this section is the anger and wrath of God being poured on those who rejected him. Such a message was a call to repentance, intended to bring guilt and fear and sadness to the people for what they had done against the Lord. It was a warning that unless they changed their ways, their country would be destroyed and their souls would be lost. But here near the end of chapter three, the tone changes. Verse 14: “Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!” After all of the negative, here was the positive. For those who had remained faithful to the Lord, for those who had repented of their sins and turned back to God, they could sing and rejoice and be glad. The reason why is in the first half of verse 15: “The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy.” They could sing and shout because God had forgiven their sins. He would not abandon them to the fires of hell. They could be glad and rejoice because God would give them an eternal home in heaven. Zephaniah’s message warning of God’s wrath was not just for the people of his time. John the Baptist said much the same in our gospel lesson: “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Lk 3:9). If we ignore God’s law and continue to live according to our sinful nature, producing bad fruit in our lives, the ax is ready to go, to cut us down and throw us into the fires of hell. But the good news that John preached was that Jesus was coming. Jesus died to take away our sin, to free us from such punishment. The burden of sin and guilt has been removed. The relief of forgiveness brings joy and gladness to our hearts. But we have heard this same message many times before and as a result we let our joy grow dull. For example, we come to worship on a Sunday morning. Instead of singing and shouting aloud, we mumble and just go through the motions. Instead of showing joy and gladness, we reveal how we are bored and distracted. Then we go out into our lives during the rest of the week. Instead of singing and shouting aloud and showing our faith, we blend in with the behavior of everyone around us, even if it is not so Christian. Instead of joy and gladness that shows in our attitude toward the struggles of life, we become angry and frustrated, sad and indifferent with the way our lives are going. Falling into these patterns is very dangerous, because the ax is ready at the root of the tree to cut us down forever. No one will ever be perfectly glad and joyful in every phase of their life because we all carry that sinful nature. But that does not excuse resigning ourselves to mediocrity either. The solution to our joy is the daily reminders that we need. First, we are sinners who deserve punishment, but that punishment has been taken away because God loves us. In verse 17, Zephaniah described God’s in this way: “He will take great delight in you” and “he will rejoice over you with singing.” Think about that—we should be the ones rejoicing, but God loves us so much that he delights in us, sinners though we are and he rejoices over us. We keep coming back to this love as motivation for our joy. A joy that shows itself in our worship of our God, a joy that shows itself throughout our lives. Despite Zephaniah’s warnings, the situation in Judah would not improve. The majority of the people would continue to reject God so that within forty years the nation would be destroyed by the Babylonians. For those who were faithful, for those who had repented, this was not what they deserved. The sight of oncoming armies, the destruction of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple could not help but strike fear in people’s hearts. But even with such things still coming, there was no need for fear as the Lord made these promises. Verses 15 & 16: “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.” No matter what would happen the Lord would continue to be with them. As verse 17 says, he would be “mighty to save,” literally a mighty warrior to fight for them. There was no need to be afraid because of the end result. Some would die in battle, but that would mean heaven. Some would be sent off into exile, but God would be with them. A few would remain behind, left alone with nothing, but God would watch over them. No matter what punishment the greater nation would face, the Lord would bring his people through it all. We live in a time of relative peace—invading armies who will tear down our cities and burn our church are not something we need to fear. But the devil can use any other threat of harm to cause us to worry, to be anxious, and to be afraid—the terrible events in Connecticut last Friday would be the most recent example. Whatever it is that keeps you lying in bed awake at night, whatever fears for an unknown future that plague you. Sometimes they can leave us with our hands hanging limp—either because we are paralyzed with fear or because we have given up, resigning ourselves to the terrors that plague us. The Lord’s promises remain the same. Twice Zephaniah reminds us, “He is with you” (v. 15,17). God will never leave us, but will be with us all the time, even when we are left alone, even when no one else seems to care. “He will quiet you with his love” (v. 17). When our fears get the best of us, we go back to God’s love which is always there for us and quiet our thoughts with his precious promises. “Never again will you fear any harm” (v. 15). That is not a promise that we will never face physical harm, but spiritual harm. No matter what terrors come into our lives, our King will watch over us as he brings us home to heaven. In the season of Advent we are preparing for our Savior’s coming. We are preparing to celebrate with joy our Savior’s birth at Christmas because he came to take away our punishment so that we can sing and shout with gladness. We are preparing for his coming on the Last Day, having no fear as we wait because our God has a plan to get us to heaven. But these Advent emotions are not just for December, they are for the whole year. When others see our joy and lack of fear, we can share with them the reasons behind our attitude so that the Holy Spirit can change their hearts also and bring those same emotions into their lives. Then we can join together to wait for the day of perfect emotions, all joy and no fear in heaven. Amen.