(bell ringing music) ("Go Tell it on the Mountain") (bell ringing music) 

- Welcome to Duke Chapel this third Sunday of advent. We have been enjoying the music of our guest musicians, the Bell Ringers of First Baptist Church in Henderson, North Carolina under the direction of Mr. Phillip Young. They are regulars at the chapel at this time of the year and we welcome them back with us again. Our guest preacher today is the Reverend Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier. We welcome her to the chapel as a James Clelan visiting preacher. We've admired Dr. Achtemeier's work both in the pulpit and in the classroom. She is a distinguished writer of books about preaching and biblical interpretation and we are happy to have her with us. Let us continue our worship. (traditional catholic music) Oh wisdom, breath of the most high pervading and permeating all creation. Come and make us friends of God. Oh Lord of hosts, leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave him your law on Sanai, come and save us with outstretched arms. Old root of Jesse, standing as a signal to the nations before whom all kings are mute. To whom the nations will do homage. Come and save us, delay no longer. Oh key of David and ruler of the house of Israel, when you open no one can close and when you close, no one can open. Come and proclaim liberty to captives and set the down trodden free. Oh radiant dawn, splendor of eternal light and son of justice, come and give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of death. Oh king of the nations, the ruler they long for, the cornerstone binding all together. Come and save the people you fashion from the dust of the earth. Oh Emmanuel, our king and our law giver, the anointed one of the nations and their savior, come save us oh Lord our God. The spirit and the brides say come. Amen, Lord Jesus, come soon. Be seated. 

- Let us pray. Open our hearts and minds, oh God, by the power of your holy spirit so that as the word is read and proclaimed we might hear with joy what you say to us this day. 

- Amen. 

- The first lesson is taken from the book of Zephaniah. Shout aloud oh daughter of Zion. Shout oh Jerusalem. Rejoice and exalt with all your heart, oh daughter of Jerusalem. 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 not fear evil again. On that day, it will be said to Jerusalem, fear not oh Zion, let not your hands be weak. The Lord your God is in the midst of you. A mighty warrior to save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will hold his peace in his love. He will exalt over you with shouting. This ends the reading of the first lesson. (traditional catholic music) The second lesson is taken from Paul's letter to the Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Let all people know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do. And the God of peace will be with you. This ends the reading of the second lesson. (bell ringing music) The gospel is taken from Luke. He said therefore to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, you brewed of vipers, who warned you to flee from the raff to come. Bear fruits that befit repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does nor bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. And the multitudes asked him, what then shall we do? And he answered them, he who has two coats, let him share with one who has none. And he who has food, let him do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized and he said to him, teacher what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than is appointed you. Soldiers also asked him, and we, what shall we do? And he said to them, rob no one with balance or by false accusation and be content with your wages. As the people were in expectation and all people questioned in their hearts concerning John, whether perhaps he were the Christ, John answered them all. 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. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor. And together the wheat into his granary. And the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. This ends the reading of a gospel. 

- Just let me say what a pleasure it is for me to share in this advent service with you. I bring you greetings from that portion of the church at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia to this portion of the church on the Duke University Campus. From our old testament lessons, sing aloud oh daughter of Zion, shout oh Israel. Rejoice and exalt with all your heart, oh daughter of Jerusalem. The book of the prophet Zephaniah ends in almost unimaginable joy. For we are presented here in the seventh century BC prophesies with a picture of the people of God holding carnival. Singing and dancing in the streets of Jerusalem. Friends eating and drinking together. Crowds clapping to the rhythm of timbrels. Children running joyously about. It is one grand celebration of a people whose motto has always been leyham, to life. A joyous jubilation over the fact that abundant life has indeed been given to them. But that is only a picture of the future in the prophesies of Zephaniah. A promise to the people of God that there will come a day when they can rejoice with exceeding great joy because God has given them life in its fullness. On that day is the phrase in our old testament lesson. On that day in the future. And we have to ask as we ask of all of the old testament if that day ever came. Well it is no accident that this passage from Zephaniah is one of the stated lessons for the season of advent. For in a sense, every true Christian's Christmas party is a fulfillment of Zephaniah's prophesy. And the church's celebration of the birth at Bethlehem is the realization of the joy that our prophet promised. Do we not celebrate Christmas for the same reasons that the people of God are celebrating here in our text? For they are jubilant, first of all says the prophet, because God has cast out their enemies. And is that not what can finally happen for us also through that one child laying in a manger? He can cast out our enemies? Oh, not those petty foes we construct for ourself at home or on the job or in the world, but our real enemies who can undermine all of the goodness in life. Our sin, which can distort everything we were created to be and destroy every human relationship. And yes, the final enemy, death. Which can end all of our years of struggle and care and turn them into the meaninglessness of the void and of the grave. Sin and death. Those are the real enemies of abundant human life. And it is precisely those foes that Jesus Christ overcame. He took our evil, our wrong, our pride, our selfishness and nailed them to his cross. Defeating forever their power to rule our lives. He buried sin, buried it with his lifeless body. Leaving it behind in the tomb, it's sovereignty gone forever. But then Jesus Christ was raised on the third day, the victor over death. And so we now know that that final enemy cannot capture us either. And that if we trust Christ's power we too can live with him. The grave need not be the meaningless last chapter to every life and every lovely relationship and because of Christ we need never say goodbye. Yes, veiled in the flesh of that babe in the manger is our savior from our real foes. In the words of our scripture lesson, a mighty warrior to save. God can cast out our enemies as he promised through Zephaniah. And if we trust that, we will be able with Paul in our new testament lesson to rejoice and again to rejoice because the Lord is at hand in this advent season. Our God, mighty to save. Now there is another reason why the people of God will celebrate according to our old testament lesson and it too is the reason why we celebrate Christmas. The Lord will take away the judgments against you says the prophet. Now certainly that was good news for the faithful folk of the prophet's time. For the judgments of God are fearful to behold in the book of Zephaniah. I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth says the Lord, thus begins this prophesy. I will sweep away man and beasts. I will sweep away the birds of the air. I will overthrow the wicked. I will cut off humankind from the face of the earth, says the Lord. Indeed, in the opening of this prophetic book, the mighty God declares war against his earth and all that are on it. The dies irae, it has long been called in the church tradition, the day of wrath. The final day with God comes to judge the earth. But the glad proclamation of Zephaniah is that the people of God will escape his punishment of them, for his warfare against them is ended and he will come to them not in wrath, but in peace and in love. Now I'm sure that our reaction to that may very well be, so what else is new? For to our minds of course, God will always come in peace and in love. After all, that's his business. And that has always been the proclamation of Christmas, has it not? Peace on earth? Good will toward men? You see, we are people who do not believe in the judgment of God. And so the cause for the rejoicing in our scripture lesson awakens no similar joy in our hearts. God does not judge us, we think he loves us. He helps us when we get into trouble. He bails us out when we are desperate. He forgives our sin and promises us life after death, but judges us? Well not really. Because you see, we really do not think that we have done anything evil enough to warrant the judgment of God. When I was speaking up at Harvard a couple of years ago I learned that there was objection in that church's congregation to a phrase in the general confession. Now we are all familiar with that prayer. It says we have erred and strayed from they ways like lost sheep. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us. And a number of people on the Harvard campus wanted to eliminate that last phrase, there is no health in us. Because you see, they believe the same things that we believe. That we are rather decent people, who do a lot of good things and who therefore have a lot of healthy goodness in us. And so to hear as the people of God heard in Zephaniah's time that God has removed his judgments from us does not square either with our notions of God or with our assessments of our own character. Why should we rejoice over the fact that God has stilled his warfare against us? As far as we are concerned he need not and he has not declared war against us in the first place. Now perhaps we may have second thoughts however if we ask just what the sins were of the people of God in Zephaniah's time. What were the wrongs that God was coming to sweep from the face of the earth? Well the prophet is very specific about the answer. Woe to her that is rebellious and defiled the oppressing city, Jerusalem. And I wonder, do we oppress anyone in our cities these days? Her officials within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves that leave nothing till the morning. Perhaps we can begin to recognize some similarities with our own society. But that is not the worst. No, says Zephaniah. The worst thing about the people of Jerusalem is that they have a distorted view of their Lord. They say in their hearts the Lord will not do good nor will he do ill. In short, these people believe that God does nothing at all. They believe that he no longer governs the world. They no longer even attribute good actions to God because they do not think that he acts in any way whatsoever. His influence and his effective working out of his purpose are absent from the earth in their view. And is that not also what we believe, good Christian friends, that God does nothing at all? Tell me. Who is in charge of international relations these days? And who has the last say about the rise and fall of nations? Well we certainly do not think that God is in charge. No, our lives and fortunes we believe are in the hands of the politicians, the economists, the military. And so we hold our breath for fear that one of them will bring the push of the nuclear button. Or who sustains the world of nature and keeps the stars in their courses? Whose faithfulness causes the seasons to change and the rain to fall upon the earth? Well certainly to our mind it is not God. No, nature is a closed system that works by natural law and there is no room in it for the working of God. For that matter, who guides your children's lives and has set for them a purpose and a destiny? Who breathed into them the breath of life and who numbers the hairs of their heads? Or indeed, who fashioned you with your unique and unrepeatable personality and what influences make you what you are? What determines your view of yourself and what purpose do you have in living? We answer very few of those questions with the name of God. No, we talk about genes and environment and psychologically influences. We talk about the images that other have.