Day 4 - How the Story Ends

DAY 4: Zephaniah 3:14-18 (New International Version)

 14 Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! 15 The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. 16 On that day they will say to Jerusalem, "Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. 17 The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." 18 "The sorrows for the appointed feasts I will remove from you; they are a burden and a reproach to you."

There is a common phrase used when discussing the problem of sin and the process of sanctification - "Already, but not yet." There seems to be a contradiction in that we are "already, but not yet" completely made holy. That is, Jesus has, once and for all, taken away the sins of the world by becoming a man, leading a sinless life, and sacrificing himself for our sins. That is the "already" part. But we (yes, even us Christians!) still struggle and wrestle with the palpable presence of sin in our lives and in our world. We are "not yet" free from the cares and sorrows of earthly life. 

We see this tension in Zephaniah. The prophet proclaims definitively that "The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy." Past tense. Already done. End of story. But verse 16 starts with "On that day..." Future tense. Still to come. Not yet. Somehow, this apparent paradox is perfectly fine with an eternal God, who is not bound by the passage of time as we are. "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." (2 Peter 3:8) God has skipped ahead and read the last chapter. Or, more accurately, God has already WRITTEN the last chapter. He knows how the story ends. His gracious revelation through Holy Scripture means that we also know how the story ends. Our unique place in history allows us to live fully in the power of knowing the story of Jesus' birth and life, which ancient faithful witnesses longed and hoped for through centuries of time. Yet we now wait and hope as they did - for the second advent. The first line of our passage is a present direct command: "Sing! Shout aloud! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart..." We too can sing and rejoice, because Christ has come once, and Christ will come again - to "quiet you with his love...(and) rejoice over you with singing." He already does, and will do so for eternity. That is how the story ends