Bible
Study: Zephaniah 3, 14 to 18. Philippians
4, 4 to 7. And Luke 3, 10 to 18.
Today is
the third Sunday of Advent, and on this day, our readings have advised us to
put on our dancing shoes and sing aloud with joy in our hearts because Christ
is at hand. Hear what Zephaniah says: “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O
Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” Zephaniah
3, 14. Then Zephaniah goes on to explain the reasons behind our joy. Why should
we be happy?
He says “The
LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies….”
Verse 15. For you to see this day and to be alive to celebrate this Christmas,
it means that God has not allowed your enemies to succeed and all those who
said you will not see this Christmas have been put to shame. Let somebody give
a clap offering to Jesus!
Dear
friends, that is not all, Zephaniah goes on to say: “The king of Israel, the
LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.” Verse 15. Do you
really know the meaning of Christmas? It is summed up in that name called
EMMANUEL which means God with us. The essence of Christmas is a celebration of
the fact that God himself came to be among humans and that God is still with us
right here, right now. What else can we ask for again? Please let somebody give
a clap offering to Jesus jare…!
The lord
is in your midst, you shall fear disaster no more. The reason why we are sometimes
scared looking at the events happening around us is that we fail to see God
present in our midst. We get too focused on the size of the Goliaths standing
around us that we unlike little David, we fail to see that before God, the Goliath
we see is nothing other than a tiny ant.
Zephaniah
continues: “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The LORD,
your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over
you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with
loud singing.” Verses 16 to 17. The Lord is a mighty warrior. Who can battle
with the lord? Who can battle with the Lord? I say “Nobody.” If you know what God
is capable of doing then you will be content only to have God.
But the
question is: Do we have God? Do we create a room for God in our lives? When we
think of God, we like to think of him as one who is far away from us, one who
does not see us when we do evil or one who does not care about us, when we pray
and we don’t get answers to our prayers, we assume that God is no longer there
and we begin to doubt him, by so doing, we limit God to some material thing
which we are asking for. God wants us to have him and not that which we are
praying for because that which we are praying for will come and go, we would
get tired of it someday or it will make us desire for more material things but if
we have God, then we are truly satisfied. It we allow God to be with us this
Christmas, then our joy will be real and complete.
The Psalmist
says, “Behold God is my salvation.” That is, God himself is my salvation, not a
car, not a job, not more money, not a fine house, and so on. God should be our aim,
our glory, our only desire. If we have God, then nothing else matters. God is
my strength says the psalmist, with God, I am full. Only in God can your soul
find true happiness. If you build your happiness on somebody, he may disappoint
you one day or perhaps he may die and leave you in this world, if you build
your happiness on something you have or on money as most people do, you will
realise that your happiness will not last as money is something that comes and
goes, even the value of money is never static and you will always be worried
about how to increase your money. But if you build your happiness on God and just
be content with the fact that you have God in your life, that you live everyday
to worship him, then your happiness is forever.
St. Paul
says in the second reading from his letter to the Philippians, “Have no anxiety
about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God.” These words are packed full with
meaning. One, you can only pray well, when you know that you have God. If you
are far from God, or if you really don’t believe God can hear you, your worries
and anxieties will always get the better part of you, you will have sleepless
nights because you don’t know how to provide for yourself. But then, by
believing in God, your faith serves as a wedge against worries and when you
pray, you are confident that God can answer you, you not only ask for
something, you also offer your thanksgiving to him for that which you are
asking for and after praying, you have peace of mind. When you have God in you,
you know that what you are praying of is not so important, you do not then
threaten God that if he refuses to answer you will stop praying, you just focus
your attention on God and enjoy God for who he is. This is how to find peace,
the peace that nothing material can give.
So far, we
have seen that happiness can only be yours when you have God. So the question
now is: How can we find God? How do we make God come into our lives this Christmas?
In fact, joining our voices with those who asked John the Baptist in the Gospel
passage this morning, “What must we do?”
And listen
to what John says: “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none;
and he who has food, let him do likewise.” The only way God can come into our
lives is if we create space for him by giving away things which really do not
give us ultimate happiness yet we find ourselves too attached to them. The real
preparation for Christmas my dear friends is giving! Unless you give something
away to someone who has nothing or to people who are poor, you have not yet
started at all. Find something very precious today, something you hold really
dear to your heart, just give it away to make room for God in your heart.
If you
love anything in this world more than God, then it means you are no better than
the people who had no space for Mary and Joseph when in fact, unknown to them,
Mary was about to give birth to the king of kings. The People rejected the
unborn Jesus and so did not celebrate Christmas but guess what, it was only
animals; goats, sheep and donkey that welcomed the baby Jesus. Unless you give
freely and be less detached from your love of material things, you will never
know that joy it is to have God born into your heart and Christmas may as well
be useless to you.
Going
further, Tax collectors also came to John the Baptist asking: “Teacher, what
shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than is appointed you.” When
we carry our shady deals in the name of making more money for Christmas, we are
only shooting ourselves in the leg because at the end, we make a lot of money
but we will never have God to give us the peace of mind needed to enjoy that
money. Dear friends, collect no more than what is appointed to you. Do not
inflate prices arbitrarily just because it is celebration season, do not steal
or cheat or commit evil for sake of getting something to celebrate Christmas. Let
this Christmas be as spiritually fulfilling for you not just materially
oriented.
Soldiers
also asked him, "And we, what shall we do?" And he said to them,
"Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your
wages." Be content my dear friends, be happy with the little you have and
God himself who fed five thousand men with just five loaves and two fish will
come to multiply your little this Christmas.
God bless
you.
Let us
Pray:
Lord
Jesus, may you be born again in my life this Christmas. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Sunday.
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