Church of the Holy City

I Will Bring You Home

I Will Bring You Home
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
December 13, 2009

Zephaniah 3:14-20 Luke 3:7-18

Our readings this morning bring up a topic called “apocalypticism.” In various places in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, this theme appears. Apocalyptic writings refer to a great world-shattering event that is expected in the future. The world-shattering events that apocalyptic writers refer to precede the great day of the coming of the LORD. When the Messiah comes, the world will be shaken up radically. Last Sunday, we heard an apocalyptic passage from Isaiah. There, mountains were going to be made low and valleys raised up.
This Sunday we have two very interesting Apocalyptic passages. Our Old Testament passage is from the prophet Zephaniah. Most of Zephaniah is filled with dire prophesies about the destruction of the known world preceding the Lord’s coming. There, God says that He will, “Sweep away everything from the face of the earth, . . . I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea” (1:2). It will be a day of great darkness. “That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness” (1:15). This prophesy is for the whole world, “I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them—all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger” (8). We see suggestions of this great apocalyptic day of judgment in the Gospel of Luke. John the Baptist tells the crowd, “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (3:7). He talks about the day of judgment in metaphors, “The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (3:9). His reference to the coming of the Messiah is dreadful likewise, “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (3:17).
Apocalyptic prophesies were very much in the air around the time of Christ’s coming. The general Jewish population were expecting the Messiah and the great day of judgment at any time. So Luke tells us, “The people were waiting expectantly and were wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ” (3:15). In Greek, the Hebrew word Messiah is rendered Christos. So this passage tells us that the people were waiting for the Messiah. Some waited in dramatic ways. The Qumran community pulled away from society and were awaiting the day of judgment in a monastery. They were expecting a great cosmic battle in which the angels of light would fight the angels of darkness. The residents at Qumran were observing rituals of purity the Old Testament described for holy war, and they were prepared to fight alongside the angels of light.
But John the Baptist’s teachings were very moderate about how to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. When he tells the people that the axe is already at the root of the tree, the crowd asks, “What should we do then?” John’s teaching is not radical. He points to life in society, and instructs people to perform their work with justice. So a man with two tunics should share with a person who has none. I find this teaching striking, since the man with two tunics is sharing, not giving up all he has. Tax collectors are told not to collect any more money than they are required to do. Soldiers are told not to extort money or falsely accuse people. So rather than flee from society and await a cosmic battle in monastic communities, John the Baptist tells his followers simply to perform their work in society honestly.
But in the middle of all this dreadful expectation, we find a beautiful passage of comfort in Zephaniah. The apocalyptic terror breaks suddenly, and the prophet says, “Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! . . . The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. . . . He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (3:14, 17). And rather than scattering the people all over the world, this section has the comforting prophesy that God will bring us home, “At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home” (3:20).
When the Messiah did come, it was more like this comforting prophesy than the dreadful day of doom. Jesus came gently to bring love, healing, food, teaching, and salvation to the whole human race. Because the great earth-shattering prophesies didn’t come true, Jews today don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah. In fact, much of Jesus’ teachings were aimed at reshaping the image of who and what the Messiah was.
Throughout our lives, we encounter the gentle God who is bringing us home. Our true spiritual home is in God’s kingdom, and God is gently leading us all there. The ways in which we are brought to God are many, indeed. Sometimes we go through earth-shattering events in our lives that change our outlook on things. Sometimes we grow slowly by discovering spiritual truths and by applying them to our lives. But whatever course we take, we can find comfort in the fact that God is bringing us to Himself gently, but unceasingly.
We can’t always see God’s hand in our spiritual development. God works secretly to bring us to Himself. God works secretly because His aim is to break our ego, greed, self interest, and pride. If we saw Him doing this overtly, we would resent God and perhaps even resist and work against Him. Swedenborg gives us some examples of how God gently lifts us upward toward Himself and Heaven.
Man by inheritance has the desire to become great; and he also wishes to become rich; and so far as these loves are unrestrained, he wishes to become greater and richer, and at length to become the greatest and the richest. . . . This longing desire lies most deeply hidden in hereditary evil, and consequently in man’s life and his life’s nature. The Divine Providence does not take away this evil in a moment, for if He did, man would not live; but it takes it away too quietly and gradually for man to know any thing about it. . . . If, therefore, man were to see and know that the Lord by His Divine Providence is so working against his life’s love from which he has his chief enjoyment, he could not but go in the opposite direction, become enraged, bear witness against it, say hard words; and finally from his evil remove the operation of the Divine Providence (DP 183).
We can see the operation of God in our lives in hindsight, but not as it is happening. When we look back on our journey in this world, we can see how the Divine Providence of God has brought us to Himself by incremental spiritual advances and by what appear to be miraculous accidents. Swedenborg tells us that,
It is granted to see the Divine Providence in the back and not in the face; also, in a spiritual state and not in his natural state. . . . All who receive influx from heaven and acknowledge the Divine Providence, and especially those who by reformation have become spiritual, while they see events in some wonderful series, from interior acknowledgement they as it were see the Divine Providence, and they confess it (DP 187).
God is continually and gently drawing us to Himself, so that he may give us the joy, happiness, and blessedness of heaven. Again from Swedenborg,
Spiritual love is such that it wishes to give its own to another; and so far as it can do this, it is in its being, in its peace, and its blessedness. Spiritual love has this from the Lord’s Divine Love, which is such infinitely. From this it follows, that the Divine Love, and hence the Divine Providence, has for its end a heaven, consisting of men and women who have become and who are becoming angels, to whom the Lord can give all the blessings and happiness of love and wisdom, and give these from Himself in them (DP 27).
The coming of God into our lives is as quiet and gentle as was Christ’s birth in that manger on that quiet night. There was no world-wide cataclysm. There was no world-wide destruction. There was only the birth of a helpless baby in a village unknown to the great leaders of the Roman world. And so God comes to us, quietly and gently, leading us always upward into heaven, and into greater and deeper heavenly love and joy.