Sermon
for Epiphany 4, January 29, 2023
Zephaniah
2:3, 3:11-13 3Seek the Lord, all you humble
people of the earth who have carried out his commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Maybe then you will be sheltered in the day
of the Lord’s anger.…11In that day you will no longer bear the shame
of your rebellions against me. Then I
will remove the proud boasters from among you, and you will never again be
arrogant on my holy hill. 12But
I will leave among you the people who are humble and weak. They will seek refuge in the name of the
Lord. 13The Israelites who
remain will no longer act unjustly. They
will not lie, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like
sheep and lie down. No one will terrify
them. (EHV)
Seek the Lord who took away your shame.
Dear brothers and
sisters in Christ,
This early in the church year, one doesn’t expect our
readings to focus on Judgment Day. Yet, because
we do not know when that day will come, it is good to be reminded to be
continually ready to stand before the Lord on that great and terrifying
day. The prophet, here, warns God’s
people that like the rest of the world, they too will be judged. The question before us is how will we
stand? And, how will we live as we wait
for the Lord? Looking into the distant
future, Zephaniah urges God’s people: Seek the Lord
who took away your shame.
Make no
mistake, this prophet is blunt in his message.
God’s judgment will fall upon all people, and those who merely pretend
faithfulness to the Lord will not stand.
Those who seek to boast in their lineage or works will likewise
fall. And of course, those who defy the
Lord by worshipping other gods have nothing ahead of them except God’s just
anger and condemnation.
Still, though
much of Judah had forsaken the God of their forefathers to wander after the
idols that led to Israel’s doom, there remained some faithful to the Lord. Like today, they were under attack from evil
neighbors and deceiving spirits.
Zephaniah addresses those humble folk as people who have been carrying
out God’s commands. They had been doing
the sacrifices, saying their prayers, and following the laws laid down by
Moses. Yet, was pride in their works also
leading them astray?
We too receive
a warning here. It is very easy for
pious believers to fall into the trap of imagining that God saves us because of
our piety and dedicated service. Our
sinful nature and the old evil foe love to tempt us with pride in how good and
faithful we imagine ourselves to be. The
pharisaical attitudes that beguiled the leaders of Jesus’ day can also tempt
us.
By the
Lord’s inspiration, the prophet said, “Seek the Lord, all you humble people
of the earth who have carried out his commands.
Seek righteousness. Seek
humility. Maybe then you will be
sheltered in the day of the Lord’s anger.”
The people of Judah had seen their northern relatives in Israel hauled
off to exile, their nation ruined, their gods and cities trampled. One would think that this would have brought
Judah and Jerusalem back to their senses, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Still, God doesn’t give up on His people.
Rather, He invites them again and again to come to Him for forgiveness and
salvation—to Seek the Lord who took away your shame.
Rather
than seek refuge in our own works and sacrifice, God invites us to find peace
and salvation in Him. God’s Son, Jesus,
would say in His day, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29) If we try to find our hope for the future in
the law, we will always fall short of the righteousness needed to enter God’s
heaven. Isaiah had spelled this out for
God’s people decades earlier saying, “All of us have become like something
unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth.” (Isaiah 64:6) When sin entered the world, it corrupted us
completely, so we could do nothing perfectly holy.
The
prophet said, “Seek righteousness.
Seek humility.” As Isaiah
already showed us, that isn’t found within us.
Our only hope is to find it in Jesus.
Moses was considered the most humble man to walk on earth, (Numbers
12:3) yet he was still only a poor foreshadow of the Savior to come. St. Paul wrote about Jesus, “Though he was
by nature God, he did not consider equality with God as a prize to be
displayed, but he emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. When he was born in human likeness, and his
appearance was like that of any other man, he humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of death―even death on a cross.”
(Philippians
2:6-8)
This is
the humility and righteousness that saves, that Jesus, the perfectly holy Son
of God would live for us every obedience necessary to fulfil the law and yet
suffer even death to pay its penalty for all the sinners who had rebelled
against God. This, too, is why the Lord
invites, encourages, and commands us to gather in worship, because in the means
of grace shared with believers in worship, God serves us again as He brings us
the forgiveness of sins and strengthens our faith so that we remain humble believers
in Christ. Looking forward to how the
promised Savior would take away our guilt, Zephaniah wrote, “In that day you
will no longer bear the shame of your rebellions against me.”
I believe
there are three ways people try to deal with shame. The first reaction sinners have is to try to
hide it. When they first sinned, Adam
and Eve tried to hide their shame from God as they hid themselves among the trees
in the Garden of Eden. Little children,
hardened criminals, cheating husbands and wives all try to hide their shame for
their evil deeds. Some of that is the
fear of punishment, but much is simply trying to keep shame covered up. In the news and media reports, we hear of
scandalous coverups almost daily, especially in the political realm. Funny thing is, hiding our shame from people
seldom works for very long, and shame can never be hidden from God who sees
everything.
Another
way of dealing with shame is one that is becoming quite common again in our
times. The sinner simply denies there is
anything to be ashamed of in the sin. The
people of Zephaniah’s time imagined that because they were God’s chosen people,
it didn’t matter how they lived or what other gods they might worship, no
matter how vile and disgusting that worship might be to the God who had rescued
them from slavery and loved them as His own beloved Bride.
In our
times, mothers wail against law enforcement when their children fall under the
law. Abusers accuse their victims of
being the cause of their violence and hatred.
Sexual sins are especially likely to be justified as loving when it is
really just self-indulgent immorality.
Live free, love who you want, as many as you want, do what makes you
feel good are common mantras.
This
isn’t anything new, of course. When
guilt makes us unable to live with our conscience, the conscience conveniently
allows itself to be nudged toward approval of the indulged wickedness until we
can again feel good about ourselves. The
shame we felt might even become a point of pride.
The
trouble with these first two ways of dealing with shame is that both lead
eventually to destruction and everlasting banishment from God’s love. Speaking through His prophet, the Lord
declared, “Then I will remove the proud boasters from among you, and you
will never again be arrogant on my holy hill.” Zephaniah was given the coming verdict for
those who reject God’s love; “So wait for me,” declares the Lord, “until the
day that I rise up to plunder. For I am
determined to gather the nations, to assemble the kingdoms, and to pour out my
indignation upon them and all my furious anger.
All the earth will be consumed with the fire of my zeal.” (Zephaniah
3:8)
Judgment
for the unrighteous is certain and terrifying.
However, as you have heard many times, God has no desire to judge and
destroy. His pleasure is to save. Therefore, God promises, “But I will leave
among you the people who are humble and weak.
They will seek refuge in the name of the Lord. The Israelites who remain will no longer act
unjustly. They will not lie, and a
deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like
sheep and lie down. No one will terrify
them.” There is peace and salvation
through the Savior God promised to send.
That was the message of all God’s faithful prophets. Time and again, God sent His messengers to
deliver warnings to His people, but along with the warnings came the promise of
forgiveness.
In our
epistle lesson, Paul wrote, “We preach Christ crucified, because the
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than
men.” (1 Corinthians 1:25) We preach
Christ crucified, because “There is salvation in no one else, for there is
no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” (Acts
4:12) We live in times where mankind
assumes great knowledge. We imagine we
have surpassed the ancients in understanding how the world works. Yet, for all the supposed knowledge we
possess, most people reject the promise of a Savior who died on a cross for the
sins of the world. To the world, Jesus looks
too shameful and weak to have power. To
believe in Him, we are forced to admit ourselves shameful and weak. Yet, it is through faith in Jesus Christ that
we receive every good thing.
Jesus
promised, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) When the
words of our God have brought us to believe that we are nothing but sin while
Jesus is our righteousness, then we inherit everything: forgiveness of all sin,
peace with God, certainty for our future, and a home in heaven of glory, joy,
and life eternal. When the Holy Spirit
through Word and Sacrament moves us to believe in Jesus, we are given life in
heaven with Him.
It is at
that time that we see fulfilled what God promised Zephaniah: “I will leave
among you the people who are humble and weak.
They will seek refuge in the name of the Lord. The Israelites who remain will no longer act
unjustly. They will not lie, and a
deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like
sheep and lie down. No one will terrify
them.” Today, in those who trust in
Jesus as their Savior, God sees only the perfect righteousness Jesus lived for
us all. He sees all our faithful service
as good and holy for Jesus’ sake, and He remembers our sins no more. Furthermore, God promises an eternity in
heaven where there will never be any sin, lying, trouble, sorrow, pain, or
death.
So yes,
to the world, believing Christians may often look humble and weak, but we have
God on our side. He sent Jesus to make
us holy and to enable new life in us.
His Holy Spirit worked that life in us through baptism and the hearing
of the Good News of all that Jesus has done for us. To all who believe in Him, Jesus promises, “I
am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will
never perish.” (John 11:25-26) Jesus’
resurrection from the dead guarantees it.
Seek the Lord who took away your shame. Amen.
Glory be to the Father
and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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