“RESTORATION”
Third Sunday in Advent
December 13, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
“At that time I will bring you in, at the time when I gather you
together; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the
peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,”
says the Lord.
Zephaniah 3:20 (ESV)
The task of the Old Testament prophets was pretty much the same as
that of Christian preachers today: to preach the Law and the Gospel as
each is needed, using the Gospel to comfort the afflicted and using
the Law to afflict the comfortable. Very often their hearers didn’t
particularly like what they heard--and the prophets suffered the
consequences. Zephaniah exposed the sins of Judah and prophesied that
the coming of the Lord would be for them a time of judgment and
condemnation. He preached the Law throughout the majority of his book
of prophecy: judgment against Judah, judgment against the nations
surrounding Judah, judgment against the holy city of Jerusalem itself.
But at the end of the book, from which this morning’s text comes, he
preaches the Gospel, promising the “remnant” (those who remain
faithful during times of apostasy) that their unity, their dignity,
and their fortunes will be restored. He is speaking primarily to
those people who had suffered persecution because of their
faithfulness to the Lord--those who had been separated from one
another by conflict within and without--those who had been mocked and
ridiculed because they refused to go along with the crowd--those who
had sacrificed a lot in order to be faithful witnesses for the Lord in
times of unbelief and moral decay. He encourages these people by
assuring them of restoration.
The words of this text could easily have been written for faithful
Christians today. The Judeo-Christian culture that most of us grew up
in is no more. It has been replaced by what has been called the
“post-Christian era”--a culture that sees itself as having matured and
advanced so much that it has no use for religion or for other
so-called “relics of the past.” As a result, we are now “on the
outside looking in,” as they say. We are out of step with the
thinking and actions of the culture in which we live. At times it may
seem as if our faithfulness is futile. We suffer and our culture
isn’t getting any closer to God and His will but only farther and
farther away. As we live in this hostile and frustrating environment,
the prophet’s words to the ancient people of Judah can give us the
same hope and strength of the Holy Spirit that they received.
The restoration of the unity of God’s people is seen in this passage
in the Lord’s promises: “I will bring you in” and “I [will] gather
you together.” The ancient people of God had been exiled from their
own land and spread out over all the known world. They were separated
not only from one another but also from the center of their worship
life, which was the temple at Jerusalem. According to their
tradition, no longer were they able to come into the presence of their
Lord on the high and holy days. No longer were they able to offer the
prescribed sacrifices to make atonement for their sins and thereby be
a part of the worshiping community. They were cut off from the temple
and the Word of God, as well as from the fellowship of God’s people.
Many of our fellow Christians throughout the world find themselves in
a similar predicament today--and even Christians here are being told
in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to harness their zeal for the Gospel
and to silence their public confession of the faith. God’s promise to
His people of ancient times and today is that He will restore the
unity of His people gathered around His means of grace. He will
“gather [them] together” from the distances to which they have
wandered and “bring [them] in” once again to fellowship with Him and
with one another. The barriers between God’s people caused by
distance and persecution and false doctrine will be overcome in the
end and true unity will be restored.
God will also restore the dignity of His people. Earlier He says of
them: “I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the
earth” (Zephaniah 3:19). The Lord called Abraham and his descendants
to be His chosen people--a nation that would be a testimony to the
world of God’s goodness and power. But instead their constant
rebellion and disobedience made them the laughingstock of the whole
world. Because of their sin, the Lord allowed them to be defeated and
taken captive by their enemies, using those enemies to discipline His
people in an attempt to bring them to repentance. God’s people today
are also humiliated in many ways--and I’m not talking only about the
external enemies that persecute us; I’m referring also to our own
rebellion and sin against the God who redeemed us with the blood of
His own Son and called us by His Holy Spirit to be a testimony to the
world of His power and love and wisdom. People who look at us ought
to be able to see in us what God does in the life of a sinner--how He
changes that sinner into a living testimony of redemption. But if we
live no differently than the unbelieving world lives, we bring
dishonor not only to ourselves but also to the God who we claim as our
own. When Christians are caught in sin and scandal, the unbelieving
world laughs--not only at us but also at the God who has supposedly
delivered us from sin and conformed us to the image of His Son. God’s
promise to His ancient people and to us is that He will “change [our]
shame into praise and renown in all the earth” (Zephaniah 3:19)--that
He will in the end transform us into the image of Christ so that we
might be, in the sight of all, the reflection of His glory that He has
created, redeemed, and called us to be.
Finally the Lord assures His people: “I will restore your fortunes
before your eyes.” The fortunes of God’s people are not like the
fortunes of the world. Jesus advises His disciples (including us):
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys
and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure
is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). The greatest
treasure of all is perfect fellowship and union with God, which was
given to our first parents in the beginning but was lost through their
sin. That perfect fellowship and union with God has been restored in
the perfect life and sacrificial death of the incarnate Son of God and
it is proclaimed in His resurrection from the dead. Our sin has been
atoned for and the righteousness that God requires has been given to
us in Jesus. All of this means that we are once again at one (which
is the meaning of atonement) with God. The barrier built by sin has
been destroyed and God is once again accessible to us through His Son.
All of this is an established fact, accomplished perfectly in Christ.
But as long as we live in this world of temptation and sin, it will
not be realized in all of its fullness. We spend these days of Advent
eagerly awaiting this fullness, guaranteed by the Word of God itself,
which assures us: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us,
that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason
why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved,
we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared;
but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we
shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies
himself as He is pure” (1 John 3:1-3).
Amen.
May the One who once came as an Infant in Bethlehem prepare you for
His coming again in glory by His Means of Grace, through which He
comes to you even now. May He equip you to be His witnesses so that
you, like the Baptist in the wilderness, may prepare the way of the
Lord. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.