Opening: 351, “Creator of the Stars of Night”

Psalm: 149

Office: 337, “The Night Will Soon Be Ending”

Readings: Zephaniah 3:14–20

     John 7:25-31

Pulpit Prayer and Antiphon to the Canticle: 357, “O Adonai” Antiphon for December 18

Hymn to Depart: 338, “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”

Or for Vespers: 878, “Abide with Me” 

Sermon Text

• The theme for the Wednesday of Advent III combines the rejoicing of Philippians 4:4 with Zephaniah’s sound of salvation “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem” (Zeph. 3:14b), and with good reason: “The Lord your God is in your midst” (3:17). Here the preacher has the chance to explore all three advents of our Lord. 
  
   
• The first hymn is most fitting for the end of the Advent season, with its rich images of Christ and the constant petition, “O come!” Following the structure of the foundational “O” antiphons, the preacher might encourage the flock to pray hymns stanzas and the antiphons on the seven days leading up to Christmas. Since the hymn stanzas and antiphons are in public domain, they can be freely printed and distributed for daily meditation.
  
   
• Psalm 149 anticipates the reading from Zephaniah, a prophet who delivered the full strength of the Law and the full consolation of the Gospel. Luther described it as “a psalm of thanks for the blessing that God is gracious and merciful to His people, that they know they have a gracious God, and that they rightly should rejoice.”[i] At verse 6, the psalm transitions to judgment on the unbelieving nations, as befits the righteousness of the King who punishes evil and rewards good.
  
   
• “The Night Will Soon Be Ending” is probably not high on the list of favorite congregational hymns for the season, but there are many reasons to include this hymn as the office hymn this evening. Klepper’s hymn text is a wonderful dialectic of Law-Gospel distinctions, with a running contrast between the darkness of sin and the light of the Gospel in every stanza. The Welsh tune, harmonized by Ralph Vaughan Williams, mirrors the darkness in its modality, with occasional shimmers of brightness. Notice how the author gradually reveals the Light from above to be the Christ Child: “Morning Star” (st. 1), “The One whom angels tended” (st. 2) and finally “Mary’s infant Son” (st. 5), thus creating a sort of mini-Advent in the textual progression.
  
   
• Preaching on Zephaniah is probably atypical, even for specialists in Old Testament theology. He is probably a “minor among minors” in the Book of the Twelve and rarely utilized for confirmation verses, plaques and T-shirts. But make no mistake: Zephaniah delivered the full strength of the Law and the full consolation of the Gospel to Judah, a few decades before the Babylonian captivity and about six centuries before the birth of Jesus.
  
   
• Consider, for instance, the evangelist John’s dependence on Zephaniah for his Palm Sunday account, rather than Zechariah. R. Reed Lessing and Andrew E. Steinmann write that John 12:15 (“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”) alludes to Zephaniah 3:15–17, wherein Zephaniah announces that the Lord is among His people (v. 15), that they need not fear (v. 16), and that the Lord is mighty to save (v. 17).[i] Thus a line is drawn from Zephaniah to John’s Palm Sunday, a direct parallel to the historic Gospel for Advent 1 (Matt. 21:1–11).
  
   
• Scholars have long been fascinated by Zephaniah’s rhetoric of entrapment, which is still a valid approach for calling sinners to repentance. At the end of Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3, the prophet transitions from condemnation of Nineveh to the condemnation of Jerusalem, without clearly signaling his change of subject until 3:5. This clever technique reminds saints and sinners alike of the depth of their depravity and all that they by their sins have deserved. 
  
   
• Another hinge to the Law from Zephaniah is, of course, the opening statement of the famous Dies irae (“Day of wrath”) in 1:14: “A day of wrath is that day [Dies irae, dies illa], a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation,” etc. The Medieval Requiem Mass for the Dead expanded the opening lines of this verse into a lengthy sequence hymn by the same title. Composers have had a field day with the Medieval “Day of Wrath” hymn, including four brass choirs and 16 tympani in the setting by Hector Berlioz and soaring strings and simulated anvil hammer of God’s judgment from Giuseppi Verdi. 
  
   
• But one must not leave the hearer with this word of condemnation alone, for the Law is preparatory for the Gospel. Zephaniah also delivers the full consolation of the Gospel (3:14–20). O. Palmer Robertson writes of the rejoicing in verse 14, “By piling up every available expression for joy, the prophet leaps across the vale of gloom into the realm of grace-beyond-devastation. In his confidence about this future glory, he summons the people now to sing this song of celebration.”[ii]
  
   
• Taken together, the wrath in Zephaniah 1 and the promise of the New Testament era in Chapter 3 form a perfect Law-Gospel dialect: In Christ, God will change the condemnation of Zephaniah 1:14 into the jubilant song of Zephaniah 3:14, “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!” Verse 14 is one of the most jubilant songs in the sacred Scriptures, with four different words for rejoicing: lauda, jubila, laetare and exsulta. Let the sound of salvation be preached, heard and sung in your corner of the new Jerusalem, with Zephaniah leading the way!
  
  The second reading from John 7 is a fitting companion to Zephaniah 3. Jesus is at the Feast of Booths, fulfilling the promise of Zephaniah 1:17, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save” (3:17). Moreover, the textual similarity between Zephaniah’s use of phrases such as “at that time” (3:19, 20) and “on that day” (3:11, 16) are theologically equivalent to John’s use of “hour” (7:30), which had not yet come. In time, all will be fulfilled when the hour of Jesus’ Passion arrives.
  
   
• The suggested pulpit prayer is the “O Adonai” antiphon, printed adjacent to hymn 357. There is also a sermon illustration embedded in the “O” Antiphons. Put in reverse order — Emmanuel, Rex (King), Oriens (Dawn), etc. — the first letters of these messianic titles spell the Latin phrase, Ero cras, “Tomorrow, I will be,” usually understood as “Tomorrow, I will come.” The church rejoices, then, as she longs for her Emmanuel, King, Dawn, etc., to come to her now in the Means of Grace and on the clouds at the end of days.  
  
   
• A similar theme of anticipation is present in the carol, “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day,” which is available to your parish musicians in numerous settings. (The carol traces the entire life of Christ, so only the first few stanzas are fitting for Advent, but it can be sung progressively throughout the Church Year.) Here the voice of Christ speaks to His churchly Bride: 

“Tomorrow shall be my dancing day:
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance:

Refrain:
Sing, O my love, O my love, my love, my love; This have I done for my true love.”

 

• The use of “tomorrow” in this carol is fitting for the forward-looking nature of Advent. Rather than narrowing its referent to one specific date in time, however, it is probably best to see it as looking to the person and work of Christ. The rest of the text describes Christ as the Groom and the church as His Bride, even as He rejoices that He has done everything for her and for her salvation. 
  
   
• Sermon Illustration: Dietrich Bonhoeffer spent the last two years of his life and of World War II in prison, awaiting his eventual execution in the spring of 1945. His prison writings often followed the Church Year, including two Advent seasons spent behind bars. Writing to his friend Eberhard Bethge in November 1944, Bonhoeffer said of the Advent season: “[A] prison cell like this is a good analogy for Advent; one waits, hopes, does this or that — ultimately negligible things — the door is locked and can only be opened from the outside.”[i] Was Bonhoeffer alluding to the “O” Antiphon for December 20? “O Key of David … Come and rescue the prisoners who are in darkness and the shadow of death” (LSB 357, facing page).
  
   
• Moreover, Timothy George notes that Bonhoeffer’s prison was built in the shape of a cross, a fact not lost on Bonhoeffer. He turned to Luther’s theology of the cross and the connection between Mary carrying the Christ in her womb and her waiting with Him at the foot of the cross. “We simply have to wait and wait,” he wrote. “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.”[ii]
  
   
• As your flocks sings one of the suggested hymns to depart, they leave deeply rejoicing in Advent as a genuine adventual, “a time before,” that is, a time to rejoice in the One who is at hand. “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Num. 24:17).