CONSIDER THE WORDS “SOILED, DEFILED, OPPRESSING”—spoken of God’s people—and the human character qualities that follow them in the book of Zephaniah—deaf, obstinate, untrusting, distant. These words express the Almighty’s disgust and disappointment that his chosen ones, given multiple opportunities to live in the realm of his blessing, have ignored or despised him.
Now listen to the exuberant contrasts uttered a few verses later about the same people by the same prophet: “The LORD . . . 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.” The promises are in the future tense, but the reality expressed is voiced with supreme and joyful confidence.
As I was reading this over again, I couldn’t help asking myself, “What is different? What has happened to change the whole tenor of the passage? Why does the prophet suddenly turn joyful and begin to enlarge on the relief and excitement he feels? How can he make such a confident pronouncement about the people he has described, earlier in the same chapter, in such contemptuous terms?”
This is a prediction, of course, about future events brought about by the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus, on our planet. It foretells change of an astounding order: “At that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord.” The “time” in this case is also mentioned: “Therefore wait . . . for the day when I arise as a witness.” Here the old covenant (the promise made to Moses by God, under which human effort never attained the divine standard) gives way to the new covenant, in which the Father reached down to us to make it possible for us to please him, through the power of the Spirit given. Perhaps Advent began then, in that predictive message, though there was a long delay before Zephaniah’s promise began to be fulfilled. And even that in a most incongruous way—in a shabby shed, in an unlikely town, on a bleak, winter night, to a couple with few prospects, with a birth that literally changed the world and all its peoples. Jesus Christ the Son was the Witness to the conquering love of God the Father. In Christ’s Advent, the Great Adventure began!
Throughout Scripture the Almighty makes use of similarly striking contrasts to make his point clear. God as Lover is passionate about his people. God as Father cares, as a parent cares about the growth and character of a loved child, about their relationship to him. Contrast has always been one of God’s most persuasive teaching tools. Think—if our lives were all milk and honey, contentment and pleasure, a ten on a scale of one to ten, the ten would have no meaning; it would provide nothing to indicate a scale of values. The light seems brighter when it is contrasted with darkness. Relief is heightened when it follows on the heels of despair. The warmth and green of spring are the more welcome because of the bleak cold of winter. And change is possible because Divine Love bridged the gap between his peoples’ rebellious pride and depravity and their willing obedience. God is indeed with us!
~From Lucy Shaw, “Third Tuesday in Advent,” in GOD WITH US: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, edited by Greg Pennoyer & Gregory Wolfe
