Draw Near To Justice and Rejoice

Zephaniah 3:14-20 12:2-6 Philippians 3:7-18 Luke 1:26-38, 46-55

December 16, 2018 Third Sunday of Advent Dr. Edwin Gray Hurley

There is something significant about the number 70. Biblical Israel returned from exile after 70 years. Modern Israel celebrated their 70th year of independence this past May. This past Monday marked a significant though largely overlooked milestone in world events. It was the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by the fledgling United Nations, in Paris on December 10, 1948. This document, arising out of the horrors and atrocities of the Second World War, with yet another horror-filled world war they initially called it “The Great War,” only 30 years before, this document was an attempt by the 48 nations who signed it to set forth basic rights due to all people everywhere.

Led by the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt served as Chair; the group put together 30 rights due to all people. Rights we in this nation now generally take for granted. The sorts of things we find in our own Nation’s founding documents and succeeding documents. Among the 30 universal rights set forth are: the right to be born free and equal; the right to not be discriminated against; the right to life, no slavery, no torture; the right to be innocent until proven guilty; the right to democracy; the right of social security; the right to marry and have family; the right to maintain your own things, among others.

Basic rights we have today in America are taken for granted, yet, not things universally found to exist when the document was signed, but aspirational, rights these 48 signers, and now others who joined in, agreed are universal. Rights still today not found in many parts of the world. Seven nations abstained from signing in 1948, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Ukraine, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

I From earliest times the God of the has demonstrated a profound passion for basic human rights for fair dealing. The Bible calls it justice. God is passionate about justice and his wrath burns hot against injustice. Isaiah writes of God, “I will make justice the line and righteousness the plummet.”i After the first murder, when Cain murdered his brother Abel, God confronted him and judged him. Cain lamely asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Throughout the Bible comes a resounding, yes. Jesus Christ brought all this together in his life and teaching, commanding us to do justice, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoner. His values call us to practice care and compassion and fairness, to value each human being as a beloved child of God and not to be hoodwinked by valuing people according to their finances, or physical beauty, or what they can do for you.

Zephaniah, (who declared God’s message during the reign of good King 600 years before Jesus’ birth), having been influenced by the great Isaiah and , in most of his brief 3 chapters declares God is angry with for their abominations. 2

“I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord… I will cut off from this place every remnant of , the great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast, that day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish.”

Judah will be taken away into exile for their faithlessness. Yet exile will not be the end. In chapter 3 Zephaniah promises restoration, and bursts into song,

“Sing aloud, O daughter ; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter ! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you… at that time I will bring you home.”ii

God does that. God brings them home. Six hundred years later God decides to act again, this time in an even more decisive way, choosing to send his own Son to be born of a young woman named Mary. An angelic messenger named is sent by God to visit this young woman and tell her she has been highly favored by God and will bear a son,

“He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor . He will reign over the house of forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”iii

The angel goes on to tell this young teenage that God’s Holy Spirit will overshadow her and bring all this about. Imagine Mary’s response, a young, poor, single girl, in a remote province ruled over by a mighty Empire, a girl of the Middle East, a male dominated region marked then as now by violence and revenge. Yet, God intends to do a mighty work and to use this young girl as his agent.

Mary responds with what has been called the most important “Yes” of the ages. “Let it be with me according to your word.” After the angel departs Mary goes to visit her old cousin Elizabeth, who the angel has told her is also pregnant and the two of them share an intimate family time together, young and old expectant mothers. As soon as Elizabeth greets Mary the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy. Unborn John in his mother’s womb rejoices at the great thing God is going to do.

Mary then bursts into this beautiful song praising God and acknowledging what God has done called “The Magnificat,”

-My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. -the Mighty One has done great things for me, -He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud, -He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly, -He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.iv

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Mary boldly sings about what God is going to do as if God has already done it. These things are yet to come. But so confident is Mary in God’s almighty power, plan, and purpose that she sings of these things in past tense.

Far from being a sentimental sweet song of the season like “Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire,” The Magnificat is actually a bold revolutionary declaration of dependence, dependence on this God who is coming to shake up the way things are. God is going to act, and right injustices being practiced routinely on the poor and vulnerable. God is going to act, and bring a time of righteousness and well-being and plenty for those most needy. God is going to act and send Jesus as the Messiah. Mary teaches us to sing and rejoice and live in this new reality now, today, to treat the promises God makes as the greatest most assured reality of all times.

II It was late Friday night on January 27, 1956 when Martin Luther King Jr. amid mounting threats following the Montgomery bus boycotts, around midnight picked up the ringing phone, and a sneering voice on the other end warned, “Leave Montgomery immediately if you have no wish to die.” Fear surged through King’s body as he hung up the phone, walked to his kitchen and with trembling hands made a pot of coffee and sank into a chair. Ready to give up, this is what he recounts,

“The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. ‘I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’ At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, ‘Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.’ Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.”v

Have you ever wondered why our worship is always so joy-filled, why we go to all the trouble, dress up in our best, put out fresh flowers, and parade down the aisle singing songs of hope and triumph, even when the morning’s news may have reported yet another gang related shooting or terrorist attack? The New York Times even printed an article, “You can do church on your IPhone.” Do we come here to put on a set of rose colored glasses and pretend there are no bad things going on? Not at all. We come here to hear the story, and sing the story, and tell the story, the story of Jesus and his love, that evil does not have the last word. God has the first word and God has the last word. And the last word is the triumphal word of the Lord, his strength, his compassion toward us, and how he will work through ordinary people like us even now as he did through Mary long ago.

Advent calls us to draw near to justice as we reflect upon the God of Justice who will pull the plug on human evil and injustice in all its forms. Advent calls us not just to sing about it but to work to bring it about; to be agents of justice and truth. You say, but I am just one person, I 4

am a child or I am retired or I am handicapped. Let me tell you- you cannot do everything but you can do something! You can make a difference for goodness and truth and justice!

I was so moved by the Presbyterian pastors and congregation members we met in Syria and Lebanon in January of 2017. Amid unbelievable destruction, cities bombed, cemeteries desecrated, thousand forced from their homes and towns and countries, a remnant of God’s people, followers of Jesus, were still there to make a witness, care for elderly, in church sponsored homes, educate children in make-shift classrooms and housed displaced refugees in tents. We spent one morning listening to wives and mothers whose husbands had been killed, whose children had been separated from them. We met refugees from Sudan taken in, housed and cared for by the Presbyterian Church in Damascus! This with bombs going off around Damascus!

I remember the small band of brave Syrian Presbyterian pastors we met and their courageous witness. One in particular, Rev. Ibrahim Nseir, pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Aleppo, Syria, which had been bombed by ISIS and was rebuilt just in time for Christmas Eve services, a few weeks before. This articulate, faithful pastor, husband, father of 3 told us,

“God has called me to Aleppo. I will never leave Aleppo. Our church will never leave Aleppo. Our church will continue. Yesterday my son and I distributed food baskets to starving Muslims, doing what Jesus did. We live under the cross of Jesus.”

This Advent, Justice declared is still not a universal human reality, maybe not even a neighborhood human reality. We are called to be about the work, “To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.” Magnify the Lord, who is doing great things in you and rejoice. Then think where you can put your heart and head and hands to work for someone who is suffering. “How is God calling you to be an agent of Justice for those waiting for restoration?” vi

“Our hope and expectation, O Jesus, now appear; Arise, Thou sun so longed for, Above this shadowed sphere! With hearts and hands uplifted, We plead, O Lord, to see The day of earth’s redemption, And ever be with Thee!”vii

Rejoice!

i Isaiah 28:17 ii , selected iii Luke 1:32-33 iv Luke 1:46-55 selected v Martin Luther King Jr. Stride Toward Freedom vi Paraphrase of devotion for December 15, 2018 by Rita Johnson, Behold, p.5 vii The Presbyterian Hymnal, “Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers,” p.15