church

INI
Third Sunday in Advent
December 16, 2012
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

STILL…WE LIGHT THE PINK CANDLE
Zephaniah 3:14-16

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His
abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, Amen. Our sermon text comes from the Prophet
Zephaniah, chapter 3, beginning with the 14th verse, as follows [ESV]:

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your
heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! 15 The LORD has taken away the judgments
against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD,
is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. 16 On that day it shall be said
to Jerusalem: "Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. So far the Holy
Word.

In the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, the Light to lighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of His people Israel, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

About 20 min. ago, I did something rather significant. Unless you were
watching carefully, you probably didn't even notice. I lit the pink candle on our
Advent wreath. The pink candle is traditionally lit on Gaudete, the third Sunday
in Advent. Gaudete means “rejoice!” And the pink color of the candle
represents the joy felt by Christians as we welcome our King once again into
our hearts. You may have noticed that all our scripture readings this morning
talk about joy and rejoicing. Well, on Friday morning, I happened to be working
on this sermon text, "Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice
and exult with all your heart." I was just thinking what an upbeat and
encouraging passage this is, when the news came over the computer about the
tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. There was immediate shock and the
distress. We've almost grown used to these senseless acts of violence that occur
from time to time. But this one – with so many victims, and so many of them
young children... It was truly heartbreaking. It may be the worst such
catastrophe in our nation’s history. And I'll admit that, at the moment, my first
thought was, how can I go on with a sermon text like this? How can we go on
with Gaudete Sunday, a day that’s all about rejoicing? With this black and evil
crime so fresh in our minds, how can we light the pink candle?

My second thought was, how can we not like the pink candle? In the face of
such manifest evil and sin, how can we fail to welcome the one Person who
came to rescue the world from evil and sin? Isn't it especially at times like this,
when the mask is torn away and we see wickedness and sin in its most hideous
form, isn't this when the world most needs the Great Physician who alone offers
an antidote for sin? Maybe you were hit hard by Friday’s tragedy. Or perhaps
you’re battling a personal hardship or sorrow right now. Well, if you've ever
asked yourself the question, “How can I possibly rejoice at a time like this?"
then the prophet Zephaniah has your answer in our text for this morning. Our
theme is simple:

STILL…WE LIGHT THE PINK CANDLE

I. We can rejoice despite the sin we see around us, and inside us.
II. We can rejoice because Christ, the King of Israel, is in our midst.

Zephaniah was a prophet of God sent with a message of repentance to the
people of Judah and Jerusalem. He lived about the time of Jeremiah, and his
message was about the same as Jeremiah’s: repent of your idolatry, or the Lord
will destroy Jerusalem and send its people into captivity. But also like Jeremiah,
Zephaniah had a message of grace and restoration for the faithful remnant of
God’s people who would return and worship Him with a true heart. In the face
of devastating evil and destruction, still the prophet calls on God’s faithful
remnant to rejoice: Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and
exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! And in case you think this
message is only for the ethnic people of Israel and has nothing to do with you,
you’re wrong. Paul says in Galatians that Abraham "believed God, and it was
accounted to him for righteousness." 7 Therefore know that only those who are
of faith are sons of Abraham. -- Galatians 3:6-7. You Christians are the true
descendants of Abraham. You are the modern-day Israel, so all the wonderful
promises God makes to His people He makes to you – including this one in
Zephaniah.

So even in the midst of the sorrow and sin of this world, STILL…WE LIGHT
THE PINK CANDLE. Still we Christians rejoice during this Advent season.
Why? Well, it’s not because we don’t see the evil. It’s not that we live in some
warm and fuzzy fantasy world. No, of all people we Christians are the realists
when it comes to sin. We rejoice despite the sin we see around us, and inside of
us.

This text is so full of Gospel joy that it’s kind of hard to see the Law. But it’s
there alright, between the lines. For instance, when the prophet says in v. 15,
you shall never again fear evil, it presupposes, doesn't it, that there is evil to
fear. And there is.

Evil isn’t new; it’s been around since the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden,
since Cain killed his brother Abel and became the first murderer. You may
recall that even the blessed birth of our Lord was accompanied by a wicked
mass murder, as Herod the Great – afraid of the prophesies of a King born in
Bethlehem – ordered every baby boy in Bethlehem to be killed. Then was
fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: 18 "A voice was
heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping
for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more." --
Matthew 2:17-18.

Evil is very much present in our day and age as well. Some of it makes
headlines like the crime that happened on Friday, but much of it hidden or
ignored. The nation is rightly shocked when 20 children are wickedly murdered
at a school in Connecticut. But did you know that an average of 3,300 children
are wickedly murdered in abortion clinics in the U.S. every day? 3,300! That’s
basically a 9/11 disaster taking place every single day, and for that there are no
headlines. Few people shed a tear anymore, or even notice. Yes, there is evil in
our world. Evil pervades our world.

When the prophet says, The Lord has cleared away your enemies, that’s good
news. But there’s Law there, too. For it presupposes that we have enemies. And
we do. And we ought to remember that, shocking as today’s headlines are, the
enemies that most threaten us and our children are not crazed psychopaths with
firearms. Our main enemies are the “unholy three” of the devil, the world, and
our own sinful flesh. They seek to take away not only our life in this world, but
our eternal life in heaven.

And while we’re speaking of sin, let's be a bit careful, shall we? Because we’re
often very good at identifying the evil and sin in the world around us, but we
tend to overlook the evil and sin lies within our own hearts. "The heart is
deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? --
Jeremiah 17:9. And when the prophet says that "the Lord has taken away the
judgments against you," that presupposes that there were judgments against
you! That you have sinned, that you have been guilty of failing to keep God's
Commandments, that you have fallen woefully short of his standard of
perfection. Yes, the judgments of God's law stand against each one of us for, as
we confess in the catechism, "we daily sin much and indeed deserve nothing
but punishment." And after all, how much sin does it take to deserve God's
condemnation? Do you have to be a mass murderer? Is that the definition of
evil? We know the answer, is given us in the book of James, For whoever shall
keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. -- James
2:10.

Sin and evil are real. They’re all around us and yes, they are inside us, as well.
But we Christians don’t have to curse the darkness. We can light a candle. Still
today, with the dark reminders of evil so fresh in our minds, STILL…WE
LIGHT THE PINK CANDLE. We celebrate Gaudete Sunday with rejoicing,
and with good reason. We can rejoice because Christ, the King of Israel, is in
our midst.

The prophet says, sing aloud, shout with joy and rejoice! In other words,
LIGHT THE PINK CANDLE. Why? Because the Savior is here! The promised
King of Israel came to this Earth and fulfilled the mission he was sent to do.
With his perfect life he provided the righteousness we need to stand justified
before God. With his innocent death he atoned for all our sins. When we see
evil and wickedness and death all around us, we remember that the King of
Israel came to atone for our wickedness, he came to change our eternal
destination from the terrifying torments of hell to the glorious Gates of heaven
itself! He is the King of Israel, and he is with us right now. He's here in this
room, for he said "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there
am I in the midst of them." He has promised, "I will never leave you nor
forsake you." He has said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world."

That's why WE LIGHT THE PINK CANDLE. That's why we sing aloud, as
the prophet says. This was an expression used of the women who would go out
to meet the victorious army returning to the capital. They would sing and shout
with joy, and we are to do that as well. For the King is in our midst. He has
taken away the judgments against us. He has turned aside the judgments of our
sins, he has reversed the sentence of death that was upon us, and given us
eternal life in its place. Coincidentally, this all happened on a Friday, a Friday
even blacker than this past Friday, a Friday when darkness covered the face of
the whole earth and the Son of God was crucified for the sins of the world.
"And the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." That's why we LIGHT THE
PINK CANDLE Because in Christ we have been acquitted! As Paul says, Who
shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he
who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. -- Romans
8:33-34.

So yes, even now…WE LIGHT THE PINK CANDLE. We shout with joy.
We shout as victors rejoiced in olden times over their defeated enemies! For the
King is in our midst. He has literally “cleared away our enemies." The devil, the
world and our flesh still torment us, they still seek to derail our faith, but they
no longer have that power. Our enemies cannot defeat us, for the King of Israel
is in our midst. Even the last enemy – death! – Has been defeated by our King.
As we read in 1 Corinthians 15, the great resurrection chapter, But each one in
his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His
coming. 24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the
Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He
must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that
will be destroyed is death. -- 1 Corinthians 15:23-26.

We don't overlook sin, we don't sugarcoat it. It's not that there are no
judgments, but that Christ is taken them away. It's not that we have no
enemies, but that Christ will not allow them to stand between us and heaven.
It's not that there is no evil in this world, there is. There is desperate,
devastating evil and heartbreaking wickedness. And that’s why WE LIGHT
THE PINK CANDLE. That’s why we reach out beseeching hands to Christ our
King, the One who was sent to redeem the world from evil. Yes, there is evil,
but in Christ we need not no longer fear it. For He Himself says to us, "Fear
not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine. 2
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers,
they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be
burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you. -- Isaiah 43:1-2.

You know, when I was writing this sermon, I almost didn’t use this theme. I
thought it might be misunderstood. Because the phrase, "to light a candle," is
often used as a cliché - a cliché that basically means to indulge in wishful
thinking. To "light a candle for world peace," means to express a forlorn hope
that somehow, some day, people may become good and stop perpetrating
violence on one another. Well, today we do light a candle. But ours is no mere
forlorn hope, and we are not just indulging in wishful thinking. We recognize
and we deplore the evil of this dark sinful world. Still we observe Gaudete
Sunday. STILL…WE LIGHT THE PINK CANDLE. For we’ve learned that
we can rejoice despite the sin we see around us, and inside us. We can rejoice
because Christ, the King of Israel, is in our midst. Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today and forever. Jesus Christ, that good Shepherd out of whose
hand no one can ever snatch us. And one day we will meet him face-to-face.
On that day, the flickering candles of our faith will be replaced with the broad
daylight that shines on the heavenly Jerusalem. One day, our feeble and isolated
songs of praise will swell to a mighty anthem of triumphant rejoicing as we join
the company of all believers in heaven. We won’t need any candles then. For
There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the
Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever. – Rev. 22:5.
AMEN.