Advent 3

Advent 3 “I WILL BRING YOU HOME” 12/14 & 17/06

“There’s no place like home!” = “Home for the holidays” = “Home sweet home” = “Country road, take me home” and one I’ve been known to say in the midst of demanding days: “Can’t we just stay home?” I am, like some of you, a “home-body”.

God intends for us to have a home, to feel at “home” in our home, and to know that we are secure in that home! When Jesus gives brief insight into eternal life, He says: (Jn. 14) “In my Father’s house are many rooms,” using the imagery of a safe place with a safe space for each of us. Entire nations are referred to in the Old Testament with such imagery, like “the house of David” and “the house of Israel.” When natural disasters occur in our nation and throughout this planet…massive fires, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods…we observe and experience the pain of those people who no longer have a “home” to return to. Gratitude is nearly always offered for the lives spared, but the survivors still face the reality of the “home-place” no longer standing. We are emotionally, socially, theologically, and financially challenged by the homeless people we see in most every community, town, and city of our nation and world.

The Bible offers several stories about “homecomings.” The parable of the Prodigal Son provides a central New Testament image of the joy, at least for the younger son and father, of coming home after being far away from home. Our Old Testament text from the prophet Zephaniah brings a word of hopefulness and joy for the people of Israel as God promises them a “homecoming.” But, Zephaniah’s prophecy certainly did not start out with words of joy, as he prophesied not long after one of the worst kings on record…Manasseh, who had made idol worship and child sacrifice common practice, built altars for star worshipers in God’s temple, and encouraged male prostitution as part of the religious ritual. In 2 Kings 21:16/ we read “Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end---besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord..”

Zephaniah, like other prophets, condemned the sins of his nation and predicted judgment from God. God warned the people to change their ways. God pleaded with the people to “turn around,” wanting to avoid the severe punishment that would surely result from they turning away from God. Hear what God spoke to these people, as we read in Zephaniah 3:6-7/ “I have cut off nations; their strongholds are demolished. I have left their streets deserted, with no one passing through. Their cities are destroyed; no one will be left—no one at all. I said to the city, ‘Surely you will fear me and accept correction!’ Then her home would not be cut off, nor all my punishments come upon her. But they were still eager to act corruptly in all they did.” God’s people “have turned their backs from following the Lord and have not sought the Lord or inquired of him.” Zephaniah 1:6 Zephaniah can offer but one word of instruction before God’s judgment is delivered: “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land.”(2:3)

Beyond the day of judgment Zephaniah spoke of something remarkably bright, as he repeatedly mentions “the day of the Lord”. Zephaniah concludes his prophecy with an ecstatic song of joy, an anticipation of the kingdom coming after the impending judgment. God said: “I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you…” (3:19-20)

As sad as it must make God to be rejected by His children in any generation, He experiences great joy in showing grace and mercy! Hear this in the very verses of our lesson: “The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; 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.”(3:17) God, exalting over His faithful, “with loud singing”! How great is that? Hear the song lyrics by David Haas:

“I will come to you in the silence, I will lift you from all your fear; You will hear My voice, I claim you as My choice, Be still, and know I am near. I am hope for all who are hopeless. I am eyes for all who long to see. In the shadows of the night, I will be your light, come and rest in Me. Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name. Come and follow Me,

I will bring you home. I love you and you are Mine.”

The idea that you and I, so frail and fickle in our faith, might bring pleasure to God in our redemption, is one of the most beautiful, emotional, and startling images in all of Scripture. God will bring His people “home”---home to Himself, home to where we belong, and home to where we discover who we are and what God intends us to be…Hear our God saying: “Come and follow Me, I will bring you home. I love you and you are Mine.” AMEN.