The God who sings

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, year C
Bible reading: Zephaniah 3:14-20

God will rejoice over you with singing. This amazing verse from our text blows away any images we may have of a grouchy God. And though it occurs only this once in the little read book of Zephaniah, we should hang on to it for dear life. And it should not surprise us, for God is love, and God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to save the world, and as the great lover that God is, it should not surprise us that God would sing a love song for his beloved people.

Do you get that? If God loves you so much that he sent his Son into the world to suffer and die for you, surely it is not surprising that God sings a song of love to you? If you forget everything else today, remember this: You have a God who serenades you with his love.

Why then do we so often have a picture of a growling God, and of somber disciples?

A woman writes of her father who was a church elder, that he was full of rectitude and rigid with duty. He was entirely unselfish, and in his long life he never committed a pleasure. When God came to earth in Jesus, people saw that he was not afraid to commit a pleasure. John tells us he began his ministry at a wedding celebration when he turned the water into wine.

This was pretty much the pattern of his life, and led to the church leaders failing to recognize him. They expected him to fast, but he spent most of his time feasting, celebrating the salvation of sinners, and bringing joy into troubled people’s lives. Think of his stories, many of which described God as a King who invites everybody to a party.

Think of his teaching, which he calls us not just to hear but to obey, and then says: I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. Think of his birth, which is announced as Good News of great joy, which is for all the people. Think of his resurrection, where the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Think of the early church, which met together daily to eat and celebrate Holy Communion with glad and generous hearts.

So as we prepare for the coming of Jesus, whether at Christmas, or at the end of the age, we see him coming, to save us from our sins and fears and worries, to bring us joy and hope. And the way we are to greet his coming is with songs of joy, as his people did on the day he entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem.

We might wonder why we are called to prepare for his coming with joyful singing, when we’re normally called to prepare for his coming with repentance. Both are true.

Zephaniah calls the people to repent, as does John the Baptist, as does Jesus. Repent – turn away from all that is evil, and from living without faith and God in your life, and turn to God, by believing the Good News of Jesus Christ, and follow Jesus on the way of love and joy and peace.

Sadly, too often people do not turn to God to find joy.

We try to find it through entertainment. We pay someone to make jokes … to sing songs. We buy the vitality of another’s imagination to divert and enliven our own poor lives. The enormous entertainment industry in our land is a sign of the depletion of joy in our culture. Society is a bored, gluttonous king, employing a court jester to divert it after an over indulgent meal. But that kind of joy never penetrates our lives. The results are extremely temporary.

—Petersen

To repent is to turn to God and find our joy in God.

Rejoice in the Lord always. We cannot always rejoice in our circumstances. We get sick, and are faced with surgery, and sometimes we make a very slow recovery. We lose our jobs, or our savings. After years of drought a farmer finally sees a good harvest coming, but the prices drop, the rain spoils the quality, and hail wreaks havoc. Or we make millions through sport, only to lose everything through immorality. There is no joy in much of life, for it is filled with sin and with sadness. There is only one place to turn:

Return to the Lord with all your heart … rejoice in the Lord always.

God’s Word constantly gives two reasons for rejoicing in the Lord.

  1. The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies … the Lord your God … gives victory. I will remove disaster from you … I will save the lame and gather the outcaste …I will bring you home…I will make you renowned and praised.

    God is a God who acts. In Jesus he comes into the world to seek and to save the lost, and through the suffering and death of Jesus he does exactly that. In all our sins and needs we turn to God and find his help and we rejoice in the Lord, because he has done great things. And in that joy we are gentle with the people around us, and we share what we have with others, and we live honestly. To repent and turn to the Lord and find our joy in him, leads to living the way Jesus lived in love, and joy and peace.

  2. Sing aloud, rejoice; The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. The Lord, your God, is in your midst. Rejoice in the Lord always…The Lord is near.

    Yes, there are many times where we are called to fear or to keep silence in the presence of the Lord, but countless times we are called to rejoice and sing because the Lord is in our midst. Surely that is why Christian worship is marked by joyful singing. Joyful singing to the Lord is the great witness to the presence of the living and loving Lord in our midst. Luther once said that the joyful singing of his hymns was a more powerful witness to the Gospel of God’s grace, than his theology.

    Listen to the Christmas Old Testament reading: together they sing for joy … as they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together in singing you ruins of Jerusalem. Today’s Psalm from Isaiah 12 says: Shout aloud and sing for joy… for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. Listen to Psalm 16: In your presence there is fullness of joy.

We rejoice in the Lord always, because of all he has done for us, and because he comes to be in our presence, and finally will bring us home into his eternal presence, where we will gather round the Lamb who was slain, and sing and worship him forever.

Joy has a history. Joy is the verified, repeated experience of those involved in what God is doing. Joy builds on the past, and borrows from the future.

Joy is God’s gift to those who know God’s Word, which tells of what he has done for his people in the past, and what he promises all his people in the future. Joy comes from knowing God and all his works and all his ways through knowing God’s Word.

So this is God’s call to you this Advent. Read God’s Word, meditate on God’s Word, believe God’s Word, Obey God’s Word, and you will find yourself rejoicing in the Lord who has done great things for you, and will never leave you or forsake you. Go to Holy Communion regularly, and rejoice in the real presence of Christ, and give thanks to God in this Eucharistic celebration. Rejoice in the Lord, and sing with him, and to him. Amen.

Pastor David Christian