Advent 3
Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
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I.
I would like to call your attention again to that verse in our first reading, Zephaniah 3:19.
“Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.”
I would like to focus particularly on the second part of that verse, which contains the words, “I will change their shame into praise.”
Now, what is meant by the word shame?
Shame, guilt, and stigma are related words in our English language, and they are often used interchangeably, but they do have different meanings.
Guilt is a legal term. A jury or a judge renders a verdict of “guilty.”
In times past, a certain mark might be applied to the guilty party. We think of Hester Prynne’s famous “Scarlet A” for adultery. Such a visible mark of guilt is called a stigma. You carry or wear the stigma of your guilt.
A modern-day example of a stigma is a poor credit score, or maybe the results that get displayed when someone googles your name.
Here’s the interesting thing. Guilt without any stigma would not result in shame, and a stigma only causes shame because we collectively agree to shame certain stigmas.
What we agree to shame can change over time.
Sex outside of marriage — to say nothing of sex with a member of the same sex — was once highly stigmatized.
A divorced man or woman was subject to social ostracism, even in cases where there were good grounds for the divorce.
This all changed with the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Through a series of orchestrated media and political campaigns, the shame heaped on various sexual transgressors was removed, to the point where now even the legal guilt has been removed.
Earlier this year, the governor of New York signed a bill repealing a 1907 law that made adultery a crime.1
So, where does that leave shame?
“I will change their shame into praise.”
Sounds like alchemy, doesn’t it? Changing something base into something noble? Lead into gold. Shame into praise.
How does that work, and can we really change the shame of sexual sin to praise just because we change a law?
Adultery was only ever a misdemeanor in the State of New York, but God saw fit to make it the seventh commandment, right after murder.
You have to wonder about the moral compass of a state and society that can’t even agree to the Ten Commandments and doesn’t take God’s law as seriously as God takes it.
You have to wonder about the people who think this kind of moral alchemy actually works.
You have to wonder if they aren’t hiding who they really are.
You have to wonder if they really aren’t something worse, something sinister, something wicked.
II.
What I want to show you today is that no amount of moral alchemy will turn the shame of sin into the praise of God.
You can change the law, and that won’t do it.
You can engineer society in all kinds of ways, using every kind of media, and that won’t do it.
You can get people to call black, white, you can get them to say up is down, to call a man a woman, and that won’t do it either.
No amount of shifting of public morals or even of one’s own private thoughts can turn the shame of sin into the praise of God.
You can’t do it because God is under no obligation to accept anything we bring to Him, much less accept anything that, in fact, demonstrates our contempt for His law.
Attempting to make God accept what we offer Him is called justification.
We make many attempts to justify ourselves before God, and even when we think God’s got no opinion on the matter, all we’re doing is rationalizing why we’ve done such-and-such.
Still, even if we manage to convince ourselves that God’s got no say in things, I am certain that if you examine the matter carefully, you will see you’ve explained away at least one of the Ten Commandments, and certainly the Golden Rule.
“It’s not really alive if it’s not born” (abortion).
“It’s not really a life if there’s no quality left to it” (euthanasia).
“It’s not really adultery if I just look” (pornography).
Israel and Jerusalem spent their days ignoring God’s law and then justifying themselves for doing so.
At this point, it may be worth asking: why should God care one bit about the Israelites of old or even us today if all either of us is going to do is take His word, ignore it, and offer up our own confused mumbo-jumbo back to Him instead?
And the answer is once again from the third chapter of Zephaniah, the nineteenth verse:
“Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.”
What’s that? He’ll deal with our oppressors? Who are they? He’ll save the lame and gather the outcast? To what end? For what purpose?
To “change their shame into praise.”
You see, justification is an alchemy that only God can make work.
If we’re going to complete this transformation from shame to praise, then we’re going to have to let God do it.
That doesn’t mean we have nothing to do ourselves, no part to play in what ought to be the greatest event of our lives: our coming — each one of us — to the Lord Jesus Himself to have Him take away our shame.
That becomes reason enough to praise Him with our mouths. Shame is turned to praise.
III.
Now, that is exactly what John the Baptist came to do. He came to get this process of turning shame into praise started, and he went directly to the people to do it.
It was them that He was interested in.
He wanted to speak to the soldiers, and the tax collectors, and to those who had more than they needed of life’s necessities, like a winter coat.
At the same time, it seems that the people who came to John made their living in shameful ways. That’s true in at least two cases in our passage: the tax collectors and the soldiers.
Later, Jesus Himself will seek out these outcasts of Israel, adding to His company Matthew the tax collector (Matthew 9:9), healing a Roman soldier’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10), and intervening to prevent an adulterous woman from being stoned to death (John 8:1-11).
On more than one occasion, Jesus heals someone who is lame, removing their shame.
But there were those who did not appreciate John the Baptist’s direct approach.
Last week, I preached that John had been sent on the special mission to “purify the sons of Levi,” of which he is one, so that Israel might escape the shame of idolatry and once again “present right offerings to the Lord” (Malachi 3:3).
But what we learned in the third chapter of Luke, in the third verse, is that John did not stop with just the “sons of Levi.”
In fact, he doesn’t even seem to have started with them.
Rather, Luke tells us that “he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
And I suspect, based on today’s reading, that John’s wide net has caught a few people who won’t repent, sons — not of Levi — but of the devil (John 8:44).
The devil and his kind will never repent.
It is to the Pharisees and Sadducees (we know who they are from Matthew 3:7) who come to John to be baptized, not because they’ve had a change of heart, not because they’ve repented, but because they want John to justify them.
They want to be seen as men of the people, and John the Baptist is nothing if not popular with the people (Mark 11:32).
But, instead of justifying them, John turns on them sharply and speaks these jarring words, “You brood of vipers!”
IV.
John then casts doubt on whether these vipers should — or even can — be saved.
He says, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
“Even now,” John continues, “the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
All of a sudden the talk of turning shame into praise is silenced. That’s because John is speaking to vipers.
Long ago, a viper was the first man’s first enemy.
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made,” Genesis 3:1.
“Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors…” the prophet Zephaniah said to Israel, and now we begin to understand what he meant.
The multitudes are then bold enough to ask, “What then shall we do?”
John then gives them very practical advice, advice which, if they follow, will turn their shame into praise.
He tells those with more than they need to give some away. “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”
He tells the tax collectors to be honest for once, “Collect no more than is appointed you.”
He tells the soldiers not to abuse their authority. “Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
Even hypocrites can escape judgment through repentance and restitution.
Everyone in this story, from Pharisee to tax collector, from Sadducee to soldier, wants his shame removed. He wants to be justified. But that will never happen so long as he stands by his rationalizations and justifications.
John says:
“I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Then as now, the Holy Spirit and the fire of purification make right worship of God possible, by turning the shame of sin into the praise of God.
John continues:
“His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
God’s will is to separate sinners from saints, and the sinner’s hypocrisy will neither fool God, nor prevent that separation from happening.
V.
Once that fire of purification burns us, even just a little, then we realize how much we’ve got to change, how much we need to restore, both to God and to our fellow man.
Just this knowledge alone would send us back into despair, were it not for the fact that our repentance makes God’s promise to redeem us suddenly seem real.
We know the promise applies to us personally, once we get our hearts to turn round that corner.
Zephaniah 3:15 tells us:
“The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has cast out your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear evil no more.”
I said two weeks ago that where the Messiah is, there is righteousness, and last week, I said that where the Messiah is, there is purity.
This week, the Scriptures tell us that where the Messiah is, there is praise.
The Lord is in our midst and our praises of Him therefore must be on our lips.
The power of shame has been broken, and our repentance — the fact that we want to change even before any real progress has been made — is the sign that Jesus has come to destroy the viper and his brood.
Let us pray:
Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
Preached on December 15, 2024 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
Guilt is a ____________ term.
You carry or wear the ____________ of your guilt.
We collectively agree to ____________ certain stigmas.
No amount of shifting of public morals or even of one’s own private thoughts can turn the shame of sin into the ____________ of God.
Attempting to make God accept what we offer Him is called ____________.
When Jesus takes away our shame, it is the ____________ event of our lives.
John the Baptist went directly to the ____________.
Pharisees and Sadducees come to be baptized because they want John to ____________ them.
John calls them a brood of ____________.
John casts doubt on whether they can be ____________.
____________ can escape judgment through repentance and restitution.
The Scriptures tell us that where the Messiah is, there is ____________.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Discuss with your parents one or both of the following: 1) Think of a time when you got caught doing something you shouldn’t have. What excuses did you make? 2) Look up the word restitution and make a list of people in your life to whom you should make restitution. Discuss with your parents ways you can make restitution to them.
(1) legal; (2) stigma; (3) shame; (4) praise; (5) justification; (6) greatest; (7) people; (8) justify; (9) vipers; (10) saved; (11) Hypocrites; (12) praise
Ayana Archie, “Adultery Is No Longer Illegal in New York,” NPR, November 25, 2024, accessed December 13, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/11/25/nx-s1-5204988/adultery-illegal-new-york.
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