Scripture Text: Zephaniah 3: 14-20

¹⁴Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! ¹⁵The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. ¹⁶On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. ¹⁷The 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 ¹⁸as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. ¹⁹I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. ²⁰At 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.

This passage is normally read in the third week of Advent during Year C.  We actually only read from the book of Zephaniah three times throughout the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary, so we’re probably not experts on it.  The book is probably set during the time of King Josiah.  It was a time of indifference by the people.  Maybe they were tired; perhaps they were just a bit too comfortable; or possibly they just forgot who and whose they were.  They have been hearing an ongoing foretelling of a time of destruction, a time of divine judgment. (I guess that would make me tune out too!)  But then we come to this passage.  It is a voice of hope, foretelling salvation rather than destruction.  And it proclaims, “the Lord, your God, is in your midst.”

What does that mean?  In our midst?  Like, here, now?  What do we do with a God who is here, who is with us, now?  We’ve been waiting for a God who seemed “out there” or maybe “up ahead”.  But God is here?  The Light is here?  The Light is with us?  That notion changes everything.

When I was about six years old, I remember laying in my bed one night, staring at the closet where the light was still lit.  It always was at night.  (Honestly, I still can’t sleep in a completely dark room.) But I had been told in Sunday School that day that God was always with me, that God could see everything.  I remember thinking that God seemed to be someone similar to Santa Claus, all-seeing, knowing everything that happens.  But to a six-year-old that presented a theological dilemma.  I mean, it was a little scary.  (Perhaps if you tell a six year old that, you need to clarify it a bit)  I remember thinking how scary that was, as if God was keeping track of all the ways I had been bad.  I laid there and thought about what that meant, what it meant for God to always be with me.  Was God here, now?  Was God in that closet with the light on?  Was God in bed with me?  If I closed my eyes, was God still there?  What if I got under the covers?  Could God see me if I hid under the covers?  It was confusing.

Most of us as adults probably are not much more theologically advanced than that six-year-old.  It’s not because we haven’t advanced; it’s because we don’t allow ourselves to think differently, to question.  We tend to neglect even thinking about God unless we think we need God.  Somewhere we have indeed convinced ourselves that God is “out there”, an elusive deity that we are trying desperately to approach.  We have been somehow convinced that all of our hope rests in this “out there” God, that getting to God will once and for all save us.  And, yet, we also know that God is everywhere.  God is here, here with us.  So, which is it?  I think perhaps the reason we don’t see God and don’t feel God upon demand is not that God is elusive or hiding in plain sight.  The reason is that we are not fully prepared to know the fullness of God, the fullness of life that God has in store for us.  In the language of some of the New Testament scriptures, we live beneath a veil, a veil that we have sewn, a veil that we are not prepared to shed, a veil that somehow obstructs our view of the Light or shields us from what we do not know or do not understand.  And, yet, there are holes in the veil, places where the threads are worn and beginning to tear.  And through those holes we sometimes get glimmers of light.  This Light in our midst is always peeking in, beckoning us forward, guiding us into the Light that we might become full, that we might finally know this God who is in our midst, finally be prepared to see what we’re meant to see and be what God means us to be.

So, what do we do?  What do we do with a God who is even now in our midst?  We do what we’re called to do in this time, in this place beneath the veil.  We prepare ourselves to see the Light.  This season of Advent is the season of that preparation.  We’re not waiting for God; God is waiting for us.  Walk into it.  You will never be alone (yes, even under the covers!).  Open your eyes. Prepare your heart.  The Lord, your God, is in your midst.

Bidden or unbidden, God is present. (Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536; also attributed to Carl Jung, but this quote was supposedly posted above the door at his house in Switzerland)

Full Lyrics: “All Saints Day” by Carrie Newcomer

All around us and within us
And yet it’s only at times we notice
As real as rain and soft as stardust
We know deep down what nobody told us

Can’t you feel it ever closer
We breathe it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil

Now is just a moving image
Not a ribbon a start and end
There is a bird a hidden singer
That calls and listens and calls again

Can’t you feel it ever closer
We breathe it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil

Centered down and moving outward
Sometimes almost too sweet to bare
There are endless ways to reach home
Just keep walking and I’ll meet you there

Can’t you feel it ever closer
We breathe it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil

Can’t you feel it ever closer
We breathe it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil

There’s a blurring of the borders
And I swear that I heard voices
But every act of simple kindness
Calls the kingdom down and all around us

Can’t you feel it ever closer
We breathe it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil
Standing closer to the veil
Standing closer to the veil

Grace and Peace,

Shelli