One of Banu’s observations (and complaints) about movies that take place in the future, especially those of an alleged post-apocalyptic nature, is that they tend to be too dark.  They’re too dark—not only in theme, but sometimes literally too dark.  There’s not enough light to see what’s going on!

Hollywood would have fun with Zephaniah.  Talk about dark!  There’s enough gloom and graphic violence to make Alien and Predator look like Beauty and the Beast!  Of course, the Hollywood definition of “apocalypse” seems to always focus on terror and torment, as opposed to the actual biblical sense, which is “revealing” or “uncovering.”

With the prophet Zephaniah, we have a man who, in many ways, might seem to fit the misunderstanding of apocalypse as death and destruction.  There is good reason for that to be the case: his almost single-minded focus on the day of Yahweh, the day of the Lord.  He doesn’t invent the idea—it goes back centuries, maybe as far back as the so-called holy wars of Joshua.

The day of the Lord came to be seen as the moment when God would intervene on behalf of Israel, defeating all their enemies.  As the centuries went on, and bigger boys like the Assyrians and Babylonians started throwing their weight around, this was a day more and more people yearned for.

A century before Zephaniah, in a case of “be careful what you wish for,” the prophet Amos warns those “who desire the day of the Lord!  Why do you want the day of the Lord?  It is darkness, not light” (5:18).  Don’t be so smug, Amos says.  Don’t assume that day will only be bad news for your enemies.  As corrupt as you are, do you think you’ll escape unscathed?

Eventually, the day of the Lord became infused with messianic expectation.  That’s one big reason why so many became disillusioned with Jesus.  They thought he would lead them in getting rid of the biggest boys yet, the Romans.

Zephaniah says some things that, to our ears, probably sound quite strange.  For example, in verse 8, the prophet criticizes government officials “and all who dress themselves in foreign attire,” “clothed with foreign apparel.”  [I guess he wouldn’t be impressed by Versace.]

Zephaniah doesn’t intend that to be a fashion statement.  He isn’t imitating the “Best and Worst Dressed” at the Oscars!  Elizabeth Achtemeier points out that “as a vassal [a puppet state] of Assyria, the leaders of Judah have accommodated their ways to those of a foreign culture…  Assyria’s ways have become Judah’s ways, and Assyria’s customs hers.”[1]

Verse 9 has something that sounds equally bizarre.  There is a promise to “punish all who leap over the threshold.”  Again, Zephaniah isn’t interested in auditions for “Dancing with the Stars.”  It’s about superstition concerning evil spirits who dwell in doorways and must be avoided.

(I wonder if that particular idea didn’t survive down through the ages with the practice of carrying a bride over the threshold!)

Anyway, with these comments, the prophet isn’t criticizing foreign ways simply because they are foreign.  The problem is that—as it seems every generation must learn—serving God isn’t just about following certain procedures in worship.

Zephaniah reminds the people that their God is an ethical God.  That is, serving their God requires that they chose between right and wrong, that how they treat each other makes all the difference.  That’s why he gets on their case about all the “violence and fraud” (v. 9).

One of these days, says the prophet, it’s all going to catch up with you.  It’s later than you think!  Verse 14 says: “The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast.”  In verses 15 to 18, he reels off a laundry list of gruesome things on the way.  Verse 17 is especially lovely.  For those who “have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like refuse” (NKJV).  That last word[2] is literally translated as “dung.”

Nobody can accuse him of trying to sugar coat his message!

Still, as with other prophets, Zephaniah isn’t all doom and gloom.  The bad news is followed by good news.  The discipline of the Lord means a lead to restoration.  We hear in chapter 2: “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath” (v. 3).

There’s a common misperception about what’s called the wrath of God.  It’s not some “arbitrary outburst, like the unpredictable anger of a parent who lashes out at his children.”  Far from it, says Dan Clendenin.  “Divine judgment is equitable and even merciful in that, like a loving parent, it demonstrates that God has not given up on me, that [God] is not done with me.”[3]

With the day of the Lord, Zephaniah and the other prophets are doing something revolutionary.  Klaus Koch says, “For the first time [ever], human beings dared to make hope the foundation of their…theology.  The prophets therefore brought a futuristic turn into the thinking of following centuries.”[4]  People started to believe that God’s actions are by necessity pointing toward the future.

“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

And that fits perfectly into the Easter season.  We have gone from Good Friday, the crucifixion (when all hope is lost) to the resurrection (when hope against hope is reborn).  We have gone from dark to light.  It comes in the most unusual of ways.

In Terry Hershey’s book, Sanctuary: Creating a Space for Grace in Your Life, he tells a story of going to Atlanta for a meeting of Spiritual Directors International.

Having some spare time, he goes to get a haircut.  He engages in small talk with Sharon, the hairdresser.  It progresses a little further, and he talks about his father, who survived cancer.  She tells him that, like his father, she also is a cancer survivor.

Hershey says he told her “I’m sorry.”  He asked, “‘When did you learn about the cancer, and what kind of treatment did you go through?’  ‘I had the whole nine yards.’  She laughs.  ‘Surgery.  And then more surgery and then chemo.’  We are quiet, except for the sound of scissors.  ‘It’s the best thing that ever happened to me,’ she adds…[5]

“‘It has made me softer,’ she tells me.  ‘And now, I love different.’”[6]

He concludes, “After the conference someone asked me, ‘What did you do there?’  Well, I got a haircut.  And I felt my heart soften just a little.”[7]

I imagine some of you have had similar experiences.  I mentioned during the discussion of the book that, with my own experience of cancer, I (humorously) divided my life into BC and AD: “before cancer” and “after diagnosis.”  And I think I can agree with Sharon to some extent.  It’s probably not the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but it is right up there.  It opened to me a new world of understanding about people with physical, mental, and emotional ailments.

It is indeed a question of going from the dark into the light.  Perhaps it’s having hope shape the future.

We’re so used to the idea of hope—be it hope fulfilled or hope denied—that we don’t understand what a leap in the evolution of human thought it is.  With the day of the Lord, and the messianic dream it inspired, people began to believe that the world itself could be transformed into something new.  And not only the world, but people themselves could be transformed.

Is it possible we’ve forgotten how to have that hope—or possibly to recognize it when it knocks on our door?  How much are we like those poor souls Zephaniah speaks of?  You know, the confident and self-satisfied ones, “those who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm’” (v. 12).

In The Message, Eugene Peterson put his own spin on verse 12.  On the day of the Lord, there’s a promise to “punish those who are sitting it out, fat and lazy, amusing themselves and taking it easy, Who think, ‘God doesn’t do anything, good or bad.  He isn’t involved, so neither are we.’”

Is there anything that we, in fact, might be too confident about?  What might the day of the Lord be calling us to?

Perhaps we all have our “day of wrath”… our “day of clouds and thick darkness”… our “day of trumpet blast and battle cry” (vv. 15-16).  Still, the day of the Lord calls us to not abandon hope.  Hope is calling our name and leading us on.  Though we travel through darkness and gloom, the glory of the sun will yet break forth.  Zephaniah ends his book on, well, a lighter note!

“On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak.  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” (3:16-17).

The darkness of that day gives way to light.

[1] Elizabeth Achtemeier, Nahum-Malachi (Atlanta:  John Knox Press, 1986), 68.

[2] גּּלֶל (gelel)

[3] www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20081110JJ.shtml

[4] Klaus Koch, The Prophets: The Assyrian Period (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1982), 163.

[5] Terry Hershey, Sanctuary: Creating a Space for Grace in Your Life (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2015), Kindle edition, Chapter 2, section 3, paragraph 7.

[6] Hershey, 2.3.10

[7] Hershey, 2.3.18

When I was a kid, I was usually the first one to finish the meal.  My mom said I would inhale my food.  That was especially true with food I really loved.  If there were spaghetti or fried chicken or a baked potato on my plate, it would disappear pretty quickly.

That wasn’t quite so true if something I hated were on the dish before me, such as okra, sauerkraut, onions: they tended to make me gag.  I would consume them at a glacial pace.  Still, all in all, if anyone were wolfing down their food, it would be me.

As I got older, I began to slow down.  I learned it’s okay to enjoy one’s food!  It’s not a race; there’s no finish line.  I also learned it’s okay to not stuff as much food as possible down my gullet.  On visits to restaurants with buffets, I’ve often been next to people putting small mountains on their plates.  Maybe they believe it’s their final meal.

There is something to be said for patience.  That seems to have become a foreign concept for us Americans.  We want something, but we don’t want to wait for it.  We want it now!  Impatience has become a virtue.  And as I said about the food earlier, too often we’re in a hurry.

I would humbly suggest that we often treat the season of Advent the same way.

Christopher Edmonston talks about that in his article, “Advent and the Grace of Delayed Gratification.”[1]  “Like a microwave pizza that is flimsy to the touch and plastic to the taste,” he says, “the instant gratification we desire isn’t very palatable…  Spiritual renewal and deepening discipleship cannot be ordered overnight.  It is fantasy to think otherwise.  There really is no app for encountering God.”

How, you might ask, do we approach Advent in that way?

He continues, “But we do have Advent, a time of deep, countercultural practice that offers a corrective to the maddening pace all around us.  Advent makes us wait.  Structured as a walk—a long, slow walk—the positive deviance of Advent mirrors the pregnancy of Mary.  Just as no mother moves from conception to birth in two days, no ministry can be conceived, nurtured and birthed into the world without time to grow and mature.”

I like that: “positive deviance.”  Jesus was positively deviant in many ways.

Advent reminds us to stop; breathe; take a look around.  You notice so much more by walking down the street than by driving down it.  Wonderful discoveries are made!

One more note from our friend Christopher: “For very good reasons, there is no expressway to Bethlehem.  We walk alongside the expectant couple, carrying our own hopes with us.  Moving a little more slowly, we behold the majesty of God’s unfolding kingdom instead of missing it while we zoom by.”  Kind of like walking down the street?

“The baby will come, but on his time, not on ours.  Advent’s journey of delayed gratification becomes a chance to slow down and behold the ordinary, which is what we need more than anything else.”

There are indeed good reasons why Advent is celebrated.  There is a deep spirituality involved in it.  And it is profoundly countercultural.  (And I did think of using the word “countercultural” before I came across the article!)  We are deafened by the cacophony surrounding it, starting well before Advent itself, even before Thanksgiving.  Still, Advent defiantly speaks with a peaceful, silent voice.

The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been called Gaudete Sunday.  That’s the Latin word for “rejoice.”  The epistle reading in Philippians 4 begins, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (v. 4).  Advent is meant to be a season of penitence and reflection.  Midway through the season, it’s felt we need a moment to catch our breath, so to speak.  We need to lighten up—that’s why we have the rose-colored candle.

The Old Testament reading comes from the book of the prophet Zephaniah.  It’s easy to see why this reading has been appointed for this particular day.  “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel!  Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” (v. 14).

There’s plenty of celebration in this final part of the book.  Here are some snippets: “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies” (v. 15).

“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” (v. 17).

“I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth” (v. 19).

“At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; 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” (v. 20).  Amen!

Hearing that, one might think Zephaniah is all sunshine and gladness.  That would be quite wrong!  The large majority of the book could rightly be called doom and gloom.  Speaking for God, the first thing the prophet says is “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth” (1:2).  Now there’s something pleasant to ponder.

One thing Zephaniah speaks of is the day of Yahweh, the day of the Lord.  The day of the Lord has various nuances, but basically it is the time of the Lord’s visitation, the day of judgment, when things will be set right.  The people are longing for it; they are eager for their reward.

However, the wicked have a surprise.  Here’s a sample of his take, using a bit of poetic license: “The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast…  Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath…a terrible end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth” (1:14, 18).  Maybe it’s a case of “be careful what you wish for.”

To make a long story short, Zephaniah denounces Judah for its corruption and wickedness, and he denounces the surrounding countries for their corruption and wickedness.  This is during the time when the Babylonian Empire is getting ready to flex its muscles.

So what does this have to do with the earlier comments on Advent?  As I suggested, there can be a tendency to rush through the season; we would like to travel an “expressway to Bethlehem,” as our writer put it.  In saying the lectionary reading picks out the one note of joy in the book, I’m not saying it would be appropriate to focus on all that doom and destruction.  That’s not what Advent is about!

But there can be a similarity to the way we usually approach Advent as I said before, as a time of penitence and reflection.

I believe it was last year when I remember Banu and I being at a couple of stores and at a restaurant.  I heard the song, “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” played four times, and each time, it was done by a different artist!  And as I recall, it was still November!  It doesn’t exactly make for an atmosphere encouraging sober contemplation.

Maybe by talking about this, I might be labeled a “Debbie Downer” (or at least, a male version, whatever that would be).

Have you heard the saying, “The only way out is through”?  That can have some unpleasant connotations.  I don’t think I like that saying!

One thing this applies to is joy and sorrow.  And maybe more specifically, it applies to grief.  Please remember; I’m not saying that’s the meaning of Advent!  The point is, like Advent, grief is something we often like to rush through—or jump over altogether.

When it comes to grief, unfortunately it’s true: the only way out is through.  But as we all know, grief is painful; it hurts.  Sometimes it hurts like hell.  There’s always the temptation to avoid it—the temptation to rush through it or jump over it altogether.  It can feel like, “Okay, I’m done with that!”

What happens, though, if we take that approach?  What happens if we short circuit grief?  What happens if we indeed try to rush through it, fill our lives with busyness and try to ignore it?  What happens if we indeed try to jump over it, just avoid any reminders of what and who we’ve lost?

It doesn’t go away, and it can resurface with a vengeance.  It can be a nagging, heavy burden we carry—perhaps without fully understanding why.  That’s often true at this time of year.  In that sense, maybe I should revisit my comment about saying Advent is not about doom and gloom.  For many people, it sure feels that way, especially when we’re told, “It’s the happiest time of the year!”

I’m aware that going through the process of grief doesn’t mean the pain goes away.  However, it does mean we no longer have to be controlled by it.  It makes a world of difference if we’re allowed and able to share it with others.  I’ve heard it said, “grief never ends because love never ends.”[2]  There can be a sense of mutual solidarity, compassion, and courage.

The only way out is through.

Advent asks for mindfulness.  Awaiting the coming of the Lord means waking up.  In Luke 3, the people ask John the Baptist, “What then should we do?” (v. 10).  I’ll confess; too often I need to be prodded (maybe with a cattle prod) to wake up.  Slumber can be too attractive!

When we miss Advent, we miss in a special way, as the prophet reminds us, the Lord in our midst.  We miss the one who gives us the victory.  We miss being renewed in the Lord’s love.  We miss hearing the Lord exulting over us with loud and love-filled singing.

[The painting, Zephaniah, is by James C. Lewis.]

[1] www.faithandleadership.com/christopher-edmonston-advent-and-grace-delayed-gratification

[2] medium.com/wordsthatmatter/why-grieve-is-the-word-of-the-year-1662e2fa4941