You know…several people have asked me this week if I think it’s right to pray over the outcome of a football game. Of course, my answer is just a flat out no. I just don’t think that the Lord of heaven and earth really cares about a bunch of big guys running around in tights on an open field chasing a little oblong ball. The one possible exception I could think of would be…if the Seahawks were in the Super Bowl!

Oh, I’ve had such a good time this week talking to some of our worship leaders and telling them with as straight a face as possible that I really need help with the 5:00 pm service tonight. Each time there is this long, long pause while they wonder about the eternal cost of lying to their pastor! Great fun. We ARE worshipping tonight, just so you know. And who knows, depending on how things are about halftime, you might want to come…and pray!

We’re continuing this morning in our very quick read through some of the “minor prophets,” the short books at the end of the Old Testament.

But before we read this morning, think with me for just a second. Every Sunday, one of us walks up here and we pick up this book, the Bible, and we light a candle to mark this time and space, and stand together and read out of it. We pray out of it and we sing out of it, we sit under it, we argue with it, we squirm at its content and we wonder about it. But we read it.

Every week, it becomes clearer to me why we do this. There are lots of reasons, actually. One is that we consider it the Word of God, and no matter exactly what that means to you, these scriptures come from outside of us and speak something of God in to us.

Another is that we actually experience God in the story that is in this book. We absorb God’s character, His passions. We learn to see that God is active in the movement of history. Our thirst for more of God is heightened. God’s word captures us in quiet and startling ways.

And finally, I think that deep inside we read it because what it speaks, what it does to us…is true. Compared to the political commentators, the spin doctors, the journalists, the movie writers and novelists that try to describe our world to us, and tell us who we are, the Bible comes to us as truer and more accurate. And we, who have been deceived in so many ways, long for truth.

So where have we come these three weeks, with these grizzled prophets of Old?:

Hosea told us God’s Word: Return to Me.

Amos told us God’s Word: The Way You Live Proves You Don’t Know Me.

Micah told us God’s Word: You Can’t Do It Alone, You Need a Savior.

Today we sit at the feet of Zephaniah. Zephaniah speaks out of a different era than the first three voices we heard. One hundred years have passed since the superpower Assyria took over Israel in the North. Zephaniah’s warning is now to Judah, to the South, to Jerusalem. We might date him to around 625 BC. Within 40 years, by 587 BC, a different superpower, Babylon, sweeps in, takes the country, captures Jerusalem, destroys God’s temple and takes many leaders of the people off into exile.

This morning I’ll read from the NIV translation of the Bible a few verses from the beginning of Zephaniah, and then one from near the end that is on the front of your bulletin. Will you stand with me for the reading of God’s Word?: [Read Zeph 1:1-4 and then 3:17]. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

It’s funny how you come to remember things. The first time I ever remember reading from Zephaniah was when I was in college. I was at a Young Life camp for a weekend, serving on “Work Crew,” and over the course of that weekend we memorized Zephaniah 3:17, exactly what is on the cover of the bulletin: 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.

But we have a long way to go before we can hear those nice words in Chapter 3. A long way. I’m going to try and sum up the first 2 ½ chapters. First, those words from Zephaniah 1, where God says he will sweep away everything from the face of the earth. Humans, animals, birds, fish of the sea. In fact, God says, he will destroy in exactly the reverse order that he created it in Genesis. In Genesis, it was fish, birds, animals, human beings that were created. Now, starting with humans and working backwards, it will be un-created, destroyed. To say that God is unhappy is an understatement. What is He so unhappy about? His people pursue every option life presents…except for following Him.

And so in this terrible, depressing litany of prophetic judgment, the wrath of God falls: At every turn this morning, we will need to ask ourselves: where do I appear in this litany? In Judah, among God’s very own people, His judgment is on three groups in particular.

First, people who had chosen to worship nature, the moon and stars, people who had confused creation with the Creator.

Second, there were those who just lumped all gods together, what we would call syncretism, “those who bow down and swear by the Lord AND also by Molech. (a Cannanite god whose worship required the sacrifice of human infants).

Third, there were those who had just flat out turned back from following God (today’s translation: God doesn’t seem able to protect me from harm or give me what I want. Who needs Him?).

But the day is coming, God says through Zephaniah, the Day of the Lord, a dark day, a fearful day, a day when selfish dreams of wealth and prosperity are shattered, replaced by anguish, battle cries, death. “Repent now, seek the Lord…and perhaps you will be sheltered on this terrible day.” Maybe is the most hope the people are offered.

The arm of the Lord will also strike the nations around Judah who will not know him…in a geographically counter-clockwise pattern, Zephaniah speaks God’s word against each of the nations.

And to the city of Jerusalem, “Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled. She obeys no one, she accepts no correction.” A city whose people oppress others, and do what they want. In the old days (see Judges) “Everyone did as they saw fit.” (In our day we say “Truth is relative, what’s right for me isn’t necessarily right for you.”) And God lists off Jerusalem’s leaders: her officials, her rulers, her prophets, her priests who deceived and oppressed the people, the very leaders who should have been watching out for the people…wronged them.

Many of the leaders in our country (congress, cabinet, president, religious leaders) gathered on Thursday for the annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. Occasionally there are some unanticipated moments there. Not too long ago, Mother Theresa spoke on the sanctity of life and the tragedy of abortion…with Bill and Hilary Clinton at the head table.

This week, the featured speaker was Bono, the lead singer of the Irish rock band U2. Bono is a Christian who has been a very influential activist particularly on behalf of poverty and HIV/AIDS work in Africa. Bono spoke candidly about global poverty and HIV/AIDS, and pointedly prodded President Bush & the U.S. Government to do much more about it - in fact to give 1% more of the U.S. budget towards poverty and disease relief worldwide. Interesting…this was the same day that the Seattle papers ran the story about how much the U.S. is spending on the war in Iraq: $100,000 per minute, $4.5 billion per month. Remarkable moment with U.S. leaders.

Zephaniah’s picture of God isn’t pretty, is it? Isn’t it everything that we hate? Who wants a god who is angry, who is full of wrath and judgment? Who wants a god who at the very least allows pain, suffering, death, if not causes it, who wants that? Give me the Good Shepherd with the little lamb in his arms. Give me the god who says “Don’t you ever change a bit, because I love you exactly the way you are.” Give me the god of grace and mercy, not the god of judgment.

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about a man named Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was a strong Christian leader in New England in the early 1700’s. He was probably colonial America’s greatest theologian and philosopher. He taught, pastored, led in the revivals we call the Great Awakenings, was a missionary and a college president (College of NJ, forerunner of Princeton). He was a contemporary, and in many ways a counter voice to Benjamin Franklin. More than anything else, Jonathan Edwards was a preacher.

If you’ve only heard one thing about Jonathan Edwards, it’s probably a sermon he preached in 1741 called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It was classic Colonial America, hellfire and brimstone. It wouldn’t go over very well today. Here’s an excerpt:

“…men are held in the hand of god over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least…to appease that anger…neither is god in the least bound by any promise to hold ‘em up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would…lay hold on them and swallow them up.”

Not so much brimstone there, but a lot of hellfire! Good Lord, why did Edwards preach this way? Because he literally wanted to scare the hell out of people! He wanted them, at any cost, to turn to Christ.

Now, today, we usually say “that’s pretty crummy motivation for turning to God. We should be turned out of love, we should turn out of free will, we should turn towards grace.”

And if Jonathan Edwards (or maybe Zephaniah) walked in here this morning, I suspect his answer would be “You have been given all those things already, and you have not responded.”

Edwards knew that on the east coast in the 1700’s his listeners knew the gospel. They’d heard it their whole life. But they weren’t responding. He thought if they had to stare into the eternal fire…it might make them look to God for salvation.

Another way of saying this might be that until we are aware of our own sin, our own need, we will never turn toward Christ on our own. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s it became far more fashionable to quit talking about sin and need and talk only about love. The optimism of the “progress” of humankind skyrocketed, humanity would get more and more educated, become better and better people, there was an innate goodness in people and no need to hear voices like Jonathan Edwards’...or Zephaniah.

That was before 2 world wars, the second one ending in the excruciating realization that the holocaust against the Jews had gone on in our very midst and to our great shame. In 1958, at the 200th anniversary of Jonathan Edwards’ death, the great American scholar H. Richard Niebuhr said “in the aftermath of WWII, we have changed our minds about the truth of many things Edwards said. No, rather our minds have been changed by what has happened to us in our history. In other words, Niebuhr was saying…Edwards was right about the need of humankind.

“I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” God says through Zephaniah. “God’s wrath burns like fire,” Edwards preached. If there is any chance at all that we are the recipients of such fierceness…why wouldn’t we just cash it in, give up now, if the judgment arm of God is so strong? Because God has two arms! One is righteous judgment, and the other is mercy and grace. And somehow, mysteriously, they work together toward the same end.

In Jonathan Edwards, even at the end of such fire and brimstone there is a redemptive purpose. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” means that the hands of God are protecting people, the fire is held back.

Why? Over and over Edwards says God is restraining the forces of darkness that would suck out the souls of people...in order that they might turn and accept mercy. That is the desire of God’s heart.

“You have an extraordinary opportunity," Edwards went on to preach, "a day wherein Christ has flung the door of mercy wide open, and stands in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners…many are coming…with their hearts filled with love to him that has loved them and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.”

The two arms of God, judgment and mercy, work towards one end: to draw people to God. One of my professors used to say “God’s judgment operates in the service of God’s gracious will.”

Sometimes that’s hard to see in just one individual scripture, but it is the sense of all of scripture taken together: “God’s judgment operates in the service of God’s grace.” Why? It is God’s heart. “God is patient, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance,” (2 Peter 3:9). God will stop at nothing, nothing…to bring people to himself.

You see? God wants you. Wants you so much. Maybe you have never met Christ, God wants you. Maybe you have followed Jesus for years, but He wants more of you. Wants all of you. God’s judgment drives, God’s mercy beckons. The two arms of God, working towards the same end.

And God’s two arms were nowhere more evident than in Jesus Christ. Taking the judgment of sinful human beings on himself. Extending the mercy of God by offering forgiveness. Nowhere were God’s two arms more evident than when Jesus stretched out his arms, calling the outcast and lonely to himself. Nowhere were God’s two arms more evident than when, in Jesus, they were laid outstretched on the cross.

Why? Out of a love that is so deep it doesn’t make any sense to us. We see that in Zephaniah too. Zephaniah tells us God’s Word: In chapter 3:17. This is how God feels about his people:

The Lord your God is with you.- in your midst. Our biggest fear is being alone, and repeatedly in scripture God says “Don’t be afraid. I will be with you.” And then he came in Jesus to put flesh to it, and comes in the Spirit to be with us.

He is mighty to save- from enemies of flesh…and of fear and loneliness. To save us from sin and for salvation.

He will take great delight in you. Isn’t delight a wonderful word? How many things bring you delight, sheer pleasure? What is it? the laugh of a friend, the view from a mountain top, the birth of a niece or grandchild?

He will quiet you with his love- like a mother, quieting her struggling child until it realizes it’s enough just to be in her arms, to be safe.

He will rejoice over you with singing. God’s heart wells up and bursts out in song over you.

Some of you know that our oldest son headed off at the end of August to go to school in North Carolina. Jesse had been at home with us for 19 years. North Carolina is a long, long way away. Anne and I took him back, helped him get oriented a bit and moved into his dorm room. We stayed for a couple of days. The night before Anne and I were coming home, we did a few last minute errands, and had a nice dinner out together. Then we took him to drop him off at his dorm for the last time.

It got pretty quiet and a little awkward as we put the last things in his room, and then the three of us took the elevator downstairs, and walked out to the parking lot. It was dark, it was time to say goodbye. We knew it would be hard, this first time…but it was way harder than we thought. We stood in the shadows, Anne and I already a crying mess, of course, and we prayed over Jesse. I don’t remember all the things we prayed for, but I do know that through all of our tears we prayed these five things:

• 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.

We prayed that over Jesse. Why? Partly to remind Jesse of how God feels about Him. Partly to remind God of how He feels about Jesse. He didn’t need that reminder, of course, but we reminded Him anyway. And partly to remind ourselves.

Sometimes it’s easy to get confused over just how God’s judgment and his mercy can work together. That’s okay. We have our whole life to try to work out those details. Just remember that God has 2 arms, and they work together for one purpose: that you, and me & all people…might draw near to God.

Let me pray now over you. 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. Amen.