But the prophets weren’t just the bearers of bad tidings. They had another role. More often than not, they were God’s messengers, His visionaries. They were the proclaimers of the Good News. I suppose we could call them the first proclaimers, the ones sent by God to tell His people that something wonderful, someone wonderful, was coming.
These prophets, then, so often depicted as fierce, angry men, were actually among the most joyful men of the Old Testament. God, you see, had given them a glimpse, a vision of what was to come, a vision that filled them with expectant joy. Any sadness they experienced was most often the result of the people’s refusal to listen.
The other evening, as I prayed for the soul of a
friend who had just died, I turned to the Office for the Dead, part of
the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours. One of the optional hymns included in
this Office is the thirteenth-century hymn, “Dies Irae.” As an
altar boy back in the pre-Vatican II days, I often heard the Latin version of
this hymn chanted as a sequence during Requiem Masses. Quite beautiful,
especially in Gregorian Chant, it's far too long to include here in its
entirety, so I’ll just provide a link to it – Dies Irae. You can read it at
your leisure, in ether Latin or an English translation. If you’d like to hear
the hymn in Gregorian Chant, click here.
Dies Irae is best translated as “The Day of
Wrath.” As you might imagine, it’s all about the Final Judgment, the “day of
the Lord.” The hymn was inspired by the opening verses of the Book of
Zephaniah. The prophet begins with this proclamation of God’s Word:
“I
will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” says the Lord [Zeph 1:2].
…and concludes with:
“A
day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, and day of ruin and
devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness…” [Zeph 1:15].
These two verses, and the 12 verses that fall
between them, are not what we would normally consider a cheerful message, but
cheer was not Zephaniah’s intention. Indeed, in the first two chapters of his
brief book of prophecy, Zephaniah chastises the people for turning away from
the one, true God and embracing false and foreign gods. He goes on to depict a
future dark and grim, a time of punishment, a day of judgment. Most scholars
believe Zephaniah wrote these words early in the reign of King Josiah (640-609
B.C.) when Assyrian influence was greatest, and years before Josiah instituted his
religious reforms. From the text, however, it’s obvious that Zephaniah’s
prophecy of judgment applies not only to Israel and Judah, but to all nations.
Note: Interestingly, to my
knowledge – and I may well be wrong – Zephaniah is one of the few Old Testament
books to which there are no direct New Testament references.
The prophets, however, are not all darkness, and
Zephaniah is no exception. In chapter three he completes his prophetic
proclamation with a joyful description of the future God has planned for His
people. We actually hear part of it in the first reading of Advent’s Gaudete
[Rejoice!] Sunday (Year C):
“Shout for joy, daughter Zion! Sing
joyfully, Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has
removed the judgment against you, he has turned away your enemies;
the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst, you have no further misfortune
to fear. On
that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, Zion, do not
be discouraged! The
Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty Savior, Who will rejoice
over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, Who will sing joyfully
because of you, as
on festival days” [Zeph 3:14-18a].
It’s a future that
appears to be centered on one event, on an arrival: “The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a
mighty Savior.” The prophet,
though, was also called to prepare God’s people for this arrival; therefore, he
prefaced his revelation by telling God’s people how they are to receive their Savior:
“…I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble
and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord” [Zeph 3:12].
A remnant, humble and
lowly? Is Zephaniah speaking to the Jewish people of his own day? Or are his
words instead aimed at those who later will be carried off into exile after the
fall of Jerusalem, only to return as a “remnant”? Perhaps the Spirit is using
Zephaniah’s words to address the Jews of Jesus’ time, the time of salvation. Or
is he addressing us, we who have received a mighty Savior in our midst and who
continue to receive Him in His Eucharistic Presence? Indeed, there is an
evident liturgical presence in Zephaniah as the prophet proclaims the
renewal of communion between God and His people.
I think we can answer each
of these questions with one word: Yes! After all, the words of Zephaniah
are the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to the chosen people
and to the Church for the salvation of all God’s people. In that sense, they
are as timeless as all of Sacred Scripture.
Zephaniah revealed that
God would leave a “remnant” in the midst of the world. But what about that
remnant? It that another way of describing those to whom God will grant His
salvation? Is “remnant” simply another word for us, the Church? Or does it
include only some within the Church? What about all those others -- other
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and so many others? Who’s included
and who’s excluded? Or do such questions completely miss what God is telling
us?
Perhaps we spend far
too much time asking questions. Perhaps this remnant is exactly what the
prophet says it is: “a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the
name of the Lord.” God so often takes the weak and powerless, and through
them does wondrous things.
In the last days, then,
is this remnant of humble, lowly ones called to prepare the way for the Lord’s
return? Are they called to be the evangelists of the last days? The Church’s
response is an emphatic “Yes!” Indeed, for 2,000 years the Church has taught
that we are in “the last days,” which began with the Incarnation. St. Peter
actually preached this on that first Pentecost Sunday by quoting the Prophet
Joel:
“It will come to pass in the last days,” God
says, “that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh. Your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your
old men shall dream dreams” [Acts 2:17],
If we accept this, if
we believe God is calling us to join His holy remnant in preparation for His
ultimate return, it makes sense, then, to try to understand what God desires of
us.
God’s Word, though, particularly
His expectations, can be a bit scary, especially when we place them alongside
the reality of our lives. Do you remember the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit [Is 11:2-3]? Remember the last of these seven
gifts? That’s right: Fear of the Lord. I’ve often thought this
remarkable gift describes my partial comprehension of the vast difference
between God and me, an awe-inspiring difference that cannot but inspire deep
humility as well. Once again, how did Zephaniah put it? “…a people humble
and lowly…”
The world, of course,
rejects this. To be lowly today is to be a loser, a loser in a society where
anyone who’s anyone strives to be a winner. Fame and fortune beckon and the
lowly will be left behind. Have you ever noticed that those worldly winners
always define themselves by their work, by how they make their living, not by
how they live?
This becomes evident
when you attend a get together of people you’ve never met, say a cocktail
party. Among the first questions people ask is, “What do you do?” Of course,
here in The Villages it’s usually, “What did you do?” Anyway, just to create a
little confusion, I sometimes answer with: “I struggle to be humble in the
presence of God and man, usually with little success, and I try to work out my
salvation with ‘fear and trembling.’ How about you?” [See Phil 2:12]
As you might imagine, the
responses vary.
Yes, humility’s not
something we see a lot of these days. As my father used to say, only partially
in jest: “Humility’s a strange commodity. Once you know you have it, you just
lost it.”
But what about
Zephaniah? What else does he tell us? How are we to receive the Lord? Foreshadowing
Jesus, who told His disciples time and again not to be afraid, Zephaniah tells
us the same thing. Here again are his words:
"Do not fear...The Lord...will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you in His love...will sing joyfully because of you" [Zeph 3:16-17].What a marvelous image: God rejoicing over us with gladness and singing joyfully. What a wonderful encapsulation of the Good News of Jesus Christ, all uttered by this Old Testament prophet centuries before that first Christmas in Bethlehem. Dear Zephaniah, who was not only a prophet but also a prince of the royal house of Judah, tells us clearly that we are to welcome the Lord and receive him with humility and without fear.
But that’s not all. He tells
us one more thing: to “Shout for joy!”
That’s right…we are to “Sing joyfully…be
glad and exult with all your heart.” This, the prophet reveals, is what
waiting for the Lord, is all about. We are to greet the Lord with joy, with so
much joy that our hearts are ready to burst.
Several years ago, on
our way up north to spend Christmas with our family, Diane and I stopped by
Jacksonville to see dear old friends, a retired admiral and his wife, Scott and
Marnie. I had flown with Scott back in our Navy days, but now he was dying of cancer
and we wanted to see him once more.
That day as we ate lunch
together, Scott’s drawn face suddenly filled with peace. He smiled and said,
“You know, Dana, I’m so looking forward to seeing our Lord, I can hardly stand
it. Isn’t that weird?” Scott died exactly one week later. And do you know something?
That comment, made over a salad at a Longhorn restaurant, was a gift. Speaking
with us several weeks later, Marnie said, “Scott saved me from a lot of grief
because he was so joyful about the life to come.”
Yes, we are to welcome
the Lord with joy, however and whenever He might come to us. And hundreds of
years after Zephaniah proclaimed God’s Word to the world, St. Paul told us much
the same thing. In his Letter to the Philippians, the Apostle tells them and us:
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say again: rejoice!" [Phil 4:4]…and then goes on to counsel against fear:
“The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all” [Phil 4:5-6].
That’s right, fear not.
And by putting aside this fear, Paul tells us:
“…the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” [Phil 4:7].
I am reminded again of
the words of my friend, Scott: “I’m so looking forward to seeing our Lord I can
hardly stand it.” Here, indeed, is the peace of God that surpasses all
understanding. This is the Good News, brothers and sisters. When God’s peace
fills your heart, when you can look to the Lord with joy regardless of the
circumstances, you know you’ve accepted the Good News in its fullness.
The Good News, the
Gospel, never leaves anxiety or despair in its wake. Only the bad news does
that, only the work of Satan brings fear and discord and conflict.
What, then, can we
learn from all this?
First, there’s
humility. True humility, though, comes from prayer, the struggle to comprehend
God’s holiness, His complete “otherness,” and the vastness of His creation.
Fortunately, we have Jesus as our perfect example. As St. Paul reminds us:
“…he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and
found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” [Phil 2:7-8].
Here we encounter a
humility “that surpasses all understanding,” a humility founded on God’s great
love for us. This is why Zephaniah and Paul and Jesus Himself tell us not to
fear, because we are loved so greatly.
This then, and the gift
of our redemption, will lead us to receive Him with joy. For joy, too, should
be our natural response to the Good News, to every encounter we have with
Jesus.
After all, aren’t you
joyful when you hear that a loved one has been healed of a life-threatening
illness, that he or she can once again experience life to the fullest? Well,
that’s what the Gospel is. It’s the Good News that humanity has been healed,
that God has given all of us the gift of life. But this spiritual healing is so
much greater than any physical healing. And the life we receive from it? Well,
it’s eternal life.
If that’s not a cause
for joy, then nothing is.
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