"And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found..." sounds a lot like Isaiah to me. How is it that every valley being filled and every mountain be made low could talk about both the coming of the Christ and the great tribulation? The prophetic voice rings similarly in both Ezekiel and Revelation. The voice of the prophet, however, should never become confused with the voice of a fortune teller.
So often, we craft the Bible into a book that tells us who is "in" and who is "out," who will reap eternal rewards, and who will receive eternal damnation. We read the Bible as prescriptive of what is going to happen rather than descriptive of what is going to happen. I wonder if this prophetic voice, this voice that tells of God's power and might, is part of the reason it is difficult to believe in a God whose "power is made perfect in weakness," (2 Corinthians 12:9). We want a God who is going to fight for us, but the way in which God fights for us, I think, is not going to war on our behalf. God fights for us, and it is on our behalf... it is for our very selves, the chards of clay pots that are strewn about the earth.
One of the commentaries on WorkingPreacher this week (Gignilliat - great last name), says this of the Zephaniah text for this week, but I think it could certainly be true of the texts we have been reading as of late:
The surprising aspect of the gospel is what comes next. In a glorious moment of redemptive reversal, Jesus, who embodies Yahweh's return to Zion and accompanying judgment, moves into the week of his passion. In an act of immeasurable grace, he then takes the judgment promised by Zephaniah onto himself. He becomes the Judge judged in our place on that Good Friday day of the Lord. When he does so, it shakes the earth to its very foundation.
Who is in this kingdom of Christ's? The people Jesus identifies in his Sermon on the Mount as poor in spirit. Zephaniah says something similar: "Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his commands" (2:3). We have nothing to offer the coming Judge except for a relinquishing of our self-sufficiency and autonomy. The poor in spirit, the humble, see themselves as the thief at Christ's cross who says in desperation, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." Members of Christ kingdom recognize the significance of their faith is located in faith's object, not its quality.
This relationship with God is not a game of "cat and mouse." To be certain, we turn away from God. God's solution to that problem, however, comes at a time in which we would never expect it. God's dawn comes during the middle of the night of weeping and gnashing of teeth, we are saved just as we are about to drown from our failed attempts to walk on water, we are pulled out of the baptismal font just before the Old Adam and the Old Eve breathe their last. In one breath, confession, in the next absolution: in one breath, death, in the next, resurrection.
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