God of life and love, whose good news often comes in strange packages, open our eyes and ears to see and hear your message. Open our hearts to embrace one another in our caring. Help us to share generously and to receive graciously the gifts we have received from your hand. Guide us to honest, peaceful, joyous relationships, that your will may be done among us. Amen (Gathered by Love, Lavon Bayler. Cleveland: United Church Press, 1994, p.9).

During this Advent leading to Christmas season, we are people of anticipation. We look forward to times with family and friends, and good food, such as we had at last week’s potluck, and to good worship as we gather to praise and thank God for the gift of Jesus Christ.

We look forward to good and safe travel as we leave home for a while or as we welcome people into our homes. We look forward to the coming of Christ into our lives and to his return someday on the earth. We look back to the first Advent, the first eager anticipation of the Messiah’s arrival in human form.

I do not know the name of the committee or church council that decided that the themes of the four Sundays in Advent would focus on hope, peace, joy, and love, but it makes sense that they do. After all, we trust the future to God, that is hope. We long for the sense of well-being and shalom that God gives us, that is peace. We know that Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the best God desires for us, that is love, and we know that when we think about his coming and the ways our faith in him has been the source of our courage, sustenance, perseverance, and the best model for how we love and care for one another, we know that we feel joy.

I have said before that joy is not about giddiness, it is more than euphoria, it is not "don’t worry, be happy." It is instead a sense of assurance that the love and goodness of God brings light to our most shadowy, darkest moment. It is affirmation that in times of difficulty, God will deliver us.

If you read all three chapters of Zephaniah, you will quickly discover that "some of the gloomiest passages in all of the Old Testament appear in Zephaniah, the book of a prophet who was apparently driven to near-despair over the sorry conditions of Judah’s life in the years following the reign of King Manasseh. But almost without warning the night clouds dissipate and the day breaks.

"No emotion is more welcomed into human life than that of joy. Joy is the realization that deeply help hopes have been or shortly will be fulfilled. Joy is also the dawning of an understanding that those events which have been most feared will not occur. But if joy is always one of the sweeter sensations of life, especially exultant is that joy which is completely unexpected, or which breaks suddenly into the midst of our gloom" (Texts for Preaching – Year C. Louisville. Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, p. 20-21).

We heard the reading from the prophet Zephaniah and we know from his words that something lost has been restored, and we find joy in the restoration. The judgment of a people who turned away from God and thought only of themselves has been lifted. God is among them, and now in his time of restoration, a time I truly believe is coming for us, there is not time for fearful hearts or weak hands. It is a time to look our harshest realities in the eye and know that even now, especially now, God is here with us.

We can rejoice today that God loves us and does not, will not, and cannot abandon us. We need not be overcome by a sense of gloom or disappointment or shame. The promise of God given through the prophets, and fulfilled in Jesus, and claimed by us, is that when fortunes decline, God always leaves a faithful remnant, someone to tell the story, to remember what it was like before, to say this is what we have learned. The promise in Zephaniah in the verses just before our first reading.

"For I will leave in the midst of you a people humble and lowly. They shall do no wrong and utter no lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths. Then they will pasture and lie down, and no one will make them afraid" (Zephaniah 3.12-13).

Those who keep the faith are the remnants who will receive the promised joy. But keeping faith is not always easy. We do not always know how to relax in our anticipation. Have you ever been to a crowded grocery store or mall in this shopping season and seen cars circling around the parking lot as if they were playing the car version of musical chairs, desperately waiting for a parking spot to open up? Have you ever been the one holding up traffic because as soon as that car pulls our, you are pulling in? Ever been the one behind the one waiting for the spot to open up? These are days that try our patience and there is not a lot of joy to be found in those moments, until, joyfully the car is safely parked.

But we are, as God’s people called to a season of anticipation of even higher joy, even when it seems far away. Zephaniah knew that and so did John the Baptist. We heard John’s father declare last week that this son of his and Elizabeth’s would grow up and become the messenger – the forerunner, the announcer, that the Messiah had come. The moment is now, John says.

He looks at some of those gathered and waiting eagerly, he considers them not quite worthy and says, "you brood of vipers", you worthless people, who told you to get away form the coming judgment? Yet there they are, among the most worthy, waiting for a word of hope and joy to give their lives meaning.

In so many ways, this season of Advent slows down our rush to Christmas. We will get there, but first let’s see why we need to. One writer tells us, "the habitual, predictable character of Advent makes it easy to think of this time of preparation as essentially benign. Music, exchange of gifts, decorations – various aspects of Advent celebrations suggest that the event that lies ahead is to be welcomed without hesitation or anxiety.

"From the beginning to end, Luke’s report about the ministry of John the Baptist contradicts this cheery picture of what it means to prepare for the arrival of Jesus" (Texts for Preaching, p. 26).

But they have come because they understand that there is joy to be found in John’s harsh words that will help them find the deliverance they seek. Then it was a prophetic word, in another era, we might talk about tough love, today we hear them as a call to do the right thing in the name of Jesus the Christ.

The crowd, tax collectors, soldiers, all ask what shall we do? How about something to show that in your joy at the coming of Christ, we will have a new mindset, that we will remember the past but move forward in a new and renewing way. Repent, turn around, set your life in a new direction. What shall we do?

Here’s what. Share from your closet and cupboard – share some of what God has given you, be a model of Christian faithfulness, generosity, compassion, and hopefulness. Be fair, take no more than is due, the law allowed tax collectors to collect far more than the actual tax due, and then keep the difference. It was exploitive and an abuse of power and John says if you want to live a new life, don’t do it. There is joy in doing the right thing, just because it is the right thing.

For soldiers, loyal to Rome, but drawn to John the Baptist and Jesus, the same truth applies, be fair. Don’t extort money, don’t threaten violence don’t make stuff up, live within your means. Don’t be the kind of occupying force that abuses people. That is what you should do. Are you ready?

Last Wednesday’s Advent mediation said in part: "Preparing for Jesus to be born again in our lives requires some toughness. Preparing for Jesus is different than preparing for Christmas. Preparing for Christmas has to do with following familiar patterns, reliving beloved traditions. Preparing for Christmas is full of memories of home, smells of sweet things baking, pulling out the carefully wrapped, handmade decorations to go in their habitual places. [And all these things are good].

"Preparing the way for Jesus is taking a page from John the Baptist’s book. It is going deep into the rugged territory of the soul, coming face to face with the beasts of our own temptations. It is walking into the world in a new and different way, placing God’s will before our own, placing the needs of the blind, the lame, the lepers before the desires of the powerful" (Partners in Prayer. Advent, 2006.December 13).

John made so much sense, spoke with such passion and hope, that some thought he might be the Messiah.

But we know that he is not the Messiah, he cannot come close to being the one we are waiting for, but rejoice and be glad. He is on the way. He will come in judgment ready to separate the wheat from the chaff, the useable from the unusable, and he will come in love and grace. Here is the joyous good news. We are his and we are worthy of his love. We can find joy in restoration, joy in repentance, joy in doing the right thing, joy in Jesus.

We are not going to be thrown away and left as useless in God’s eyes. We can be glad and rejoice that we are that remnant, the ones who remember the story of his redemption, the ones who, with joy look back to his first Advent and look forward to his next.

We anticipate with joy what God is going to do, and we receive with thanksgiving the blessing God holds for us. Glory to God in the highest. Halleluiah. Amen.