Advent 15
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: 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 as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.
—ZEPHANIAH 3:14-20 (NRSV)
Sometimes it’s hard to catch the spirit of Christmas joy because it feels so far from reality. We have broken hearts and broken bodies and broken spirits. We may know intellectually that we are part of a bigger story of restoration, one foretold by prophets of Israel then sang out in the glad songs of angels to those obscure shepherds.
It’s a story of “peace on earth and good will for all people” (Luke 2:14). One where fear and death will be no more. Judgment and shame will be eclipsed by delight. No loneliness. No illness. No shame. A story where everyone belongs.
The more we notice the difference between what should be and what is, our Christmas joy shrinks to the size of a snow-globe. Not heaven come down.
Yet what if the smallness of that all-too-perfect Christmas snow-globe we loved as kids could be a sneaky little symbol of hope? In it, we catch a glimpse of a perfected world, of a restoration that will one day be complete, of a not-yet-ness that God has promised to see through.
So next time you get the chance, pick it up and give that snow-globe a shake. Watch the snow settle on the scene, and remember that you are not alone. God sees you and loves you. You have not been forgotten. God is in the work of restoring it all.