FULL MEASURE 2021 ADVENT CELEBRATION DAY 15
©© by Pastor Jennifer Rousseau Cumberbatch (proprietary)
MODERATOR: Pastor jen Cumberbatch
Welcome Friends to The Full Measure’s Celebration of Advent 2021
ADVENT CELEBRATION DAY 15, Sunday, December 12, 2021
SCRIPTURE: Zephaniah 3:14-20
READER: Pastor jen
THEME: Joy (Play “Soulful Celebrations “Comfort Ye, My People)
CANDLES: Light 2 purple and one pink candle for each reading this Week 3 of Advent. The HOPE Candle from Week 1 and The PEACE candle for Week 2 and now the JOY Candle for Week 3
Zephaniah 3 14-20 NIV
Sing, Daughter Zion; shout aloud, Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
Daughter Jerusalem!
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.
On that day they will say to Jerusalem,
“Do not fear, Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.
“I will remove from you
all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals,
which is a burden and reproach for you
At that time I will deal
with all who oppressed you
I will rescue the lame;
I will gather the exiles.
I will give them praise and honor
in every land where they have suffered shame.
At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortune before your very eyes,”
READING
From the readings, thus far, in our 2021 Advent Celebration, specifically those from the Old Testament prophets, namely, Jeremiah, Malachi, and now Zephaniah, it is clear that there is a familiar pattern going on between God and the people of God.
The pattern goes like this: God is a covenant keeper with Israel. God is their provider, guide, and warrior, Lord Sabboath, against their enemies. God is full of loving-kindness. This Hebrew, word hased, is so incredibly different from human love, so extraterrestrial, and extraordinaire that this God-love is almost untranslatable to English.
God had cut a covenant with Israel. God was their one and only, God most high and they were God’s people. Israel was God’s prototype of “one nation under God,” who would bring forth from their lineage a Savior who would unite all nations and people under the rule and benefit of the true and living God.
The people would receive God’s love and the benefits associated with it and, then they would forsake God, pursuing the perversion of God’s gifts from god’s who were pretend gods.
God then, disappointed, angry and heartbroken, with Israel, would raise up a prophet to speak God’s Word to the people, calling them back to worship and fidelity. God would then chastise the people, by exile, famine, defeat at the hands of their enemies, or some other natural consequence of their disobedience. The people would then repent, and God rejoiced over the return of God’s people to the God-human relationship.
Zephaniah, a short 3 chapter book in the Hebrew Bible, illustrates this pattern. The word of the Lord comes to this African, Jew, son of Cushi, the Black-skinned peoples, who inhabited Northeast Africa, South of Egypt, now modern day Sudan. Zephaniah was a descendant of King Hezekiah, the famous king of Judah, and he prophesied during the reign of King Josiah.
Zephaniah is the prophet in this pattern of relationship between God and the Hebrew people. . In Zephaniah’s time the people had once again broken their holy agreement with God, and worshipped the gods, who are no gods, the gods of the people and nations around them.
Like with any covenant there are promises, laws or conditions, sanctions and signs of the covenant. The opening of Zephaniah is an enunciation of the sanctions God will levy on Judah for breaking the covenant. It is a prophecy of cataclysmic destruction on a cosmic level that Zephania calls “The Day of the Lord.”
Zephaniah calls the people to repentance. He then declares that not only Judah, the people of God, will be punished, but so will all the world, represented in Zephaniah’s declaration of judgement on the Philistines, the Assyrians, Nineveh, the Ammorites and Ethiopians nations of the ancient world.
He prophesied in essence the destruction of Jerusalem, and the exile of the ruling class, prophets and priests. Then Zephaniah declares a future coming of the kingdom of God, wherein all the world unites under the sovereignty of God and God’s Messianic rule is enjoyed.
Zephaniah’s declaration, like those of all the Old Testament prophets, must be heard with an ear for its importance of in his contemporary time (the reign of Josiah) and its importance in the ages to come.
So, this is how we hear the scripture passage for today, Day 15 of the 2021 Advent Celebration. The scripture for today emphasizes the reason that God made a covenant with Israel, and desired to demonstrate God’s goodness to them as an example to all humanity.
God has always desired true fellowship, intimacy, deep friendship, and, JOY- filled celebration with humanity. This desire is indicative of the intrinsic nature of God. It is a the core of who God is.
God, sings over God’s people at the point of their return to true worship and reverence.. God can not help it! God rejoices over God’s people. God truly re-joices. God experiences JOY again! So, great is God’s fidelity, and faithfulness toward those who reverence God, that God maintains covenant with God’s people, even when they in their human frailty break their end of the agreement, in ancient Israel and in the Church today.
Zephaniah prophesied a new day, when the covenant between God and God’s people would be mediated by Jesus, God’s Christ---the Messaiah. God cuts a new covenant with humanity. Every cutting of covenant was with a sacrifice and a sign or reminder of the covenant. The sacrifice was an exchange of the life-blood of a living being to cover the transgressions and unholiness of the covenant maker. And the sign, circumcision in the Old Testament, was a reminder of the consequence, the sanctions, the curses that would be levied by God for breaking covenant. As breaking covenant would cut one’s seed, one’s descendent off from God.
Christ was the perfect sacrifice, once and for all to institute the new covenant between God and humanity. Christ’s crucifixion was the sign of the covenant in his own body, he bore the marks, in his hands and feet and his pierced side, to remind us that God’s covenant is an everlasting covenant. Jesus said this is the new covenant in my blood and body for healing, restoration of relationship, and forgiveness of sin.
And, God sings
God rejoices
God is full of Joy!
God spins around like a top
And humanity joins in the Song of God
All humanity is full of Joy for its return to relationship with God, through faith in Jesus
Sing, children of the new Zion; shout aloud,
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
The Lord has taken away your punishment,
The Lord has turned back your enemy, the wicked one who from the beginning tried to sever your relationship with a loving God.
The Lord, the King of Kings, God’s Anointed One, God’s Christ, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
On that day, the day of the restoration of all things
When the new and new earth come
On the Day of the new City of Peace, the New Jerusalem
On the Day when God comes in the form of a human
When the Word that was with God, and that was God in the beginning, comes, as a baby born in a manger
And, on the day of Christ return
they will say
“Do not fear.
do not let your hands hang limp.
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
God will take great delight in you;
in God’s love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.
“God will remove from you
all who mourn over loss of law-mandated festivals
which are a burden and reproach for you
In that time God will deal
with all who oppressed you
God will rescue the lame;
God will gather the exiles.
God will give them praise and honor
in every land where they have suffered shame.
At that time God will gather you;
at that time God will bring you home.
God will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when God will restore your fortune before your very eyes,”
Prayer
God you are our great Joy.
In your presence is fullness of Joy
So, in this moment we soak in your presence.
We sing with you a new song
We rejoice in your restoration.
We experience you anew
Thank you for rolling the reproach away
Thank you for comforting us in our grief and loss.
Thank you for your everlasting covenant with us
A covenant of loving-kindness, tender mercy, hope, faith and love.
Joyful, Joyful, Lord we Adore you!
Amen!