Lectionary Commentaries for December 15, 2024
Third Sunday of Advent

Good news can take different forms.

John the Baptizer’s message is an example. More than any other Gospel, Luke reports the content of John’s message. He addresses hearers as a “brood of vipers,” calls for “fruits worthy of repentance,” and issues a barrage of metaphors that convey urgency: wrath to come, an ax lying at the tree root, a winnowing fork, and chaff burning in an unquenchable fire. The text concludes: “With many other exhortations, [John] proclaimed the good news to the people” (verse 18). Some good news, huh?

But John’s message is more constructive than condemning—and more expansive than excluding. Repentance in Luke, after all, leads to joy and a life better aligned with God’s purpose. And that is good news.

Lukan distinctives 

While all Gospel accounts say something about John’s message, several distinctives to Luke’s version make it longer, more universal in scope, and rounded out by tangible examples. 

First, John’s preaching addresses not just religious leaders (as in Matthew 3:7–10), but crowds coming out to be baptized (Luke 3:7). This makes his audience more expansive. It opens the door more readily for hearers and readers of Luke’s Gospel—in Luke’s day and ours—to see themselves as somehow part of John’s audience. 

Second, the passage spotlights a question that becomes a leitmotif in Luke-Acts: “What should we do?” Here the question appears three times, giving it emphasis. It also appears near the start of both Luke and Acts, reflecting a response of repentance associated with a divine arrival (Luke 3:10, 12, 14; Acts 2:37). 

Third, Luke offers tangible examples of what repentance looks like. In response to John’s message, three different groups ask for guidance: the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers. To each, John gives distinctive instructions: share clothing and food (crowds), collect justly (tax collectors), and be content without extortion (soldiers). All three examples depict acts of generosity, justice, and contentment. 

Unlikely responders: Tax collectors and soldiers

While Luke’s Gospel is known for “good news to the poor” (4:18), it is not just the poor who are addressed and included. John, for example, does not condemn tax collectors and soldiers. 

Different than other Gospels, Luke portrays tax collectors favorably as people who respond to John’s and Jesus’ message (5:27–31; 7:29, 34), draw near to Jesus (15:1; 19:1–4), are capable of genuine piety (3:12–13; 18:9–14; 19:5–10), and are among the saved and true children of Abraham (19:9–10). Whether historically accurate or caricature, people widely associated tax collectors with bribery, great wealth, extortion of the poor, and betrayal of Jewish ethical mores. And yet, the good news is also for them.

The soldiers are also unlikely responders to John’s message. In the eyes of a people under an empire’s thumb, soldiers were its servants. Even though these soldiers likely were neither Roman nor Gentile, but Jewish locals employed by Herod, their paychecks still came from imperial systems—and everyone knew it. As John’s words confirm, their positions gave them regular opportunities for power abuse. And yet, the good news is also for them.

In today’s world, where polarizing caricatures of others are easier and more self-assuring than nuanced appreciations of their humanity and experience, the audiences who respond to John—and the way he takes them seriously—invite us to lay our stones down. The good news in Luke’s Gospel is for all—even those we deem threatening. 

“What should we do?”: Repentance as good news

The question “What should we do?” appears not only here, but throughout Luke and Acts. It reflects not only the response of repentance, but also a concern for faithful action that marks a life realigned with God’s purpose (Luke 10:25; 12:17; 16:3; 18:18; 20:13; Acts 2:37; 16:30; 22:10). In Luke and Acts, repentance is not just a feeling—it means concrete acts of change. It amounts to recalculating the course of one’s life. 

Our text offers tangible examples of what repentance looks like. In response to their questions, John describes to three groups of people what form generosity, justice, and contentment may take for them. His words offer practical steps to justice and generosity. In Acts, the early church will engage in similar practices in communal ways (2:41–47; 4:32–37).

While a call to repent may not seem like “good news,” it marks an invitation to a life better aligned with God’s purpose—and on that path, there is joy.

Elsewhere in Luke and Acts, repentance and conversion are associated with joy. In Luke’s parables, finding “the lost” yields rejoicing over “one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:6–7, 9–10, 32). In Acts, rejoicing becomes a characteristic response of Gentiles who join the Way (Acts 8:8, 39; 13:48, 52; 16:34; see also 15:31). Throughout Luke and Acts, joy is often associated with a faithful response to the presence and message of Jesus (Luke 8:13; 19:6). 

The call to repentance may truly be good news. It invites us to take practical steps toward aligning our lives more squarely with God’s purposes—not just in theory, but in practice. It takes the internal and abstract aspects of faith and makes them external and concrete. It gives opportunity for faith to have full expression.

The call to prepare: The arrival of Jesus

John’s message derives its urgency from something very significant: the arrival of Jesus. In John’s day, Jesus’ arrival was imminently expected. In our day, his arrival is no less expected, but in different ways: at Christmastime, at his return, and in our lives here and now. In Advent, we consider how Jesus comes to us in all these ways.

John’s urgency may seem foreign to us. But John’s message calls us still to step away from our conventional patterns to let our sights be recalibrated on the One who draws near to us here and now, not just at Christmastime, but each and every day. 

What would happen if God interrupted us?¹

What if God barged into the midst of our daily lives, if God made God’s presence known? How would you feel? How would you respond? What change would God’s presence bring? The prophet Zephaniah wrestles with these very questions.

In Zephaniah’s visions the presence of God brings both judgment and joy. The oracles in the majority of the book announce cosmic destruction as divine judgment for the sins of Israel and, specifically, the priesthood. With vivid and at times disturbing language, the prophet envisions the arrival of the Day of the Lord, the time in which God will act to restore justice and to bring judgment on faithless, sinful nations.

The Day of the Lord, promises the prophet, “will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Zephaniah 1:15–16). The arrival of the Day of the Lord represents a calling to account that demands repentance and humility before God’s mighty judgment.

It is in this context that the final oracle of the book has such striking resonance. Its tone shifts dramatically as the arrival of God’s presence brings celebration and cause for joy. It is a grand reversal as the expected judgment instead becomes overwhelming mercy that leads to new life: “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” (Zephaniah 3:14b–15).

The arrival of God’s presence dispels fear. It opens the door to a new future.

The book of Zephaniah is set during the reign of King Josiah (640–609 BCE), Israel’s reforming monarch, though some of the visions in the book, including the final oracle, may reflect a later exilic or postexilic perspective. In the context of Josiah’s reign, God’s presence is disturbing; it upsets the complacencies and faithless habits of the people. It undermines hypocrisy and indifference.

God vows, “At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the people who rest complacently on their dregs, those who say in their hearts, ‘The LORD will not do good, nor will he do harm’” (Zephaniah 1:12). God’s presence will surprise those who assume that God is a benign, indifferent deity who is of little consequence to the reality of daily life.

God’s presence will also disturb the ones who vow faith in YHWH in one breath, but in the next breath worship other gods: “I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests … those who bow down and swear to the LORD, but also swear by Milcom; those who have turned back from following the LORD, who have not sought the LORD or inquired of him” (Zephaniah 1:4b-6).

This language sounds harsh to our modern ears, but have we, too, succumbed to indifference? Do we, too, worship other gods while professing faith in YHWH? What if God interrupted us in the midst of daily life? What would God find? Do our actions match our faith commitments? Do we live in a state of readiness for God’s presence to enter our midst, or instead do we live in the indifferent conviction that God will do neither harm nor good?

It is tempting to jump right to the final oracle of the book and proclaim the good news that God’s presence brings joyful celebration. And indeed this is the message of the book, of the Advent season, and of Christian faith: “The LORD, your God, is in your midst … he will renew you in his love” (Zephaniah 3:17); “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).

Yet this message has its deepest significance when set in contrast to what has come before. Despite the people’s indifference, despite their hypocrisy, despite the cause for cosmic judgment, God’s entry into the world brings celebration, restoration, and new life.

If the final oracle of Zephaniah was penned in the exilic or postexilic era, it addresses Israel at a time in which they had experienced great shame on the world stage. The nation had been ravaged by conquering armies of foreign nations. Its people scattered, Israel lived in fear and disorientation.

To this hurting people, God promises a new world: “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” (Zephaniah 3:15). Jerusalem, which earlier in the book was described as a violent and unfaithful city, is here personified as a woman rejoicing in song (3:14).

Not only does God’s presence bring a joy that casts out fear, but it also brings the restoration of justice and aid to the poor: “I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth” (Zephaniah 3:19b). God’s presence brings a new way of life in which the way people relate to God and one another is fundamentally different.

What would happen if God interrupted us? What in our world would change? What fears would be dispelled? What injustices overturned?

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for December 13, 2015.

As we enter the third week of Advent, anticipation builds. Christmas lights twinkle, carols fill the air, and excitement grows. Yet in this season of waiting, Isaiah 12:1–6 invites us to pause and reflect on a deeper joy that comes from the most miraculous and awe-inspiring present ever given: the joy of divine salvation that flows from the powerful presence of the Creator of the cosmos. This ancient song of praise resonates with our Advent journey, reminding us that our celebration doesn’t revolve around festive but cheap trappings––it centers on God’s transformative presence among us.

Isaiah 12:1–6 presents us with a short, but beautiful and poignant, psalm of praise and thanksgiving. It serves as a pivotal conclusion to the first major section of the book of Isaiah (chapters 1–12). To fully appreciate its significance, we must understand its context within the larger narrative of Isaiah’s prophecies.

The book of Isaiah can be divided in various ways, but a significant transition occurs between chapters 12 and 13. While chapters 1–12 form a fairly cohesive unit that focuses on oracles for Judah and Jerusalem, chapter 13 shifts focus to oracles against foreign nations––a theme that continues, with interruptions, through chapter 23. If possible, include verse 1 of chapter 12 in your public reading, as it provides crucial context for what follows.

Isaiah 1 serves as an introduction to the entire book, spanning all 66 chapters. However, the earliest, and oldest, collection of Isaianic material is likely found in chapters 2–12. This section begins with a beautiful hymn of cosmic salvation (2:2–4) and concludes with our passage, a short hymn of praise and thanksgiving. Though brief, chapter 12 plays a vital role in the structure of Isaiah’s complex message.

Isaiah 2–5 is largely critical of Judah and Jerusalem. Yet the vision in 2:2–4 offers hope for a future cosmic transformation, where all nations seek God’s instruction (torah). The following chapters reveal how far the people have strayed from this ideal, with Isaiah urging them to live up to their divine calling. The call narrative of chapter 6 is itself a response to this ethically challenging context: YHWH’s presence, and YHWH’s commission to the prophet Isaiah, are terrifying (chapter 6). Isaiah 7–8 recalls the crisis of 734 BCE, when King Ahaz responded to the threatening siege of Jerusalem by calling on Assyria for help, against Isaiah’s advice. Yet YHWH continues to work through Isaiah and those who have followed his teaching (8:16–17). 

Yet then, when all might seem lost, Isaiah receives more visions of hope, recalling 2:2–4. In chapter 9, we read of a promised Davidic king who will rule with justice and bring light and liberation. And in Isaiah 11, we hear of a royal leader who will usher in a period of cosmic harmony and restful, playful peace that reverberates throughout all creation––albeit interrupted with more judgment of the leaders of Judah for their unethical treatment of the vulnerable (10:1–4). 

While temporarily using Assyria to judge the leaders of Judah, YHWH will, nevertheless, also issue judgment on the kingdom of Assyria for its role in widespread injustice (10:5–19). Yet unlike Isaiah 5:25–26, which ended the first subsection of the book (chapters 2–5) on a sour note of judgment, this time around the text soars to rhetorical heights of praise for the salvation of the people. 

The vision of the peaceable kingdom in 11:1–9 shifts to a foretelling of a future time in which YHWH will recover the “remnant” of the people who have been scattered throughout the foreign nations near and far, even the “four corners of the earth” (verses 11–12). YHWH will restore the relationship between the former northern tribes (“Ephraim,” verse 13) and Judah, and will again triumph over the chaotic powers of Egypt’s “sea,” referencing images of threatening counter-creation forces from ancient Near Eastern imagery as well as the exodus story (verse 15). 

Then, YHWH will liberate the people in a second exodus, “leading people across” the sea on dry land (verse 15), and at that point there will be “a highway from Assyria” leading the deported and demoralized people of God home to start a new community that will live out the vision foreseen in Isaiah 2:2–4. It will be just like “when they came up from the land of Egypt” (verse 18). This “highway” foreshadows the beautiful poem of divine deliverance from exile in Babylon in chapter 40, as well as other mentions of “highways” of deliverance in 19:23, 35:8, and 62:10. 

YHWH’s “fast track” to salvation is a major theme of Isaiah. In chapter 12, then, we hear a song of praise and thanksgiving that responds to this foretelling of YHWH’s mighty power to save; after chapter 12, the book enters into an intense meditation on YHWH’s work among, with, and against the dominant foreign powers who have assailed Judah and Israel––a section like those found in other prophetic books, called the “oracles against the nations” (chapters 13–23). 

So, in context, Isaiah 12 is a song of praise in anticipation of a new exodus wherein God miraculously saves those under the control of an evil power––one represented by cosmic forces of chaos. It’s no wonder, then, that it is chosen as a reading for the time of Advent. Reading it in this light, we can think of “that day” (12:1) as a cosmic event that collapses the various points of time in which God has acted decisively to save. 

YHWH was righteously angry with us––Isaiah gives plenty of reasons for this in chapters 2–11, but most prominent are the ways in which we participate in the oppression of the vulnerable, the needy, and those over whom we have some modicum of power (see also 3:10–11, 14–15; 5:7–10; 10:1–4). These are not insignificant things that YHWH should ignore. Nevertheless, YHWH’s “anger has turned away” so as to “comfort” Israel in its distress (12:1). 

The author here asks us to “behold,” or see, that the presence of God is indeed salvation itself (Isaiah 12:2). This is not lost on a reader of Isaiah who can understand Hebrew: Isaiah’s name literally means “Yah[weh] is salvation.” This is, incidentally, related to Jesus’ name (“Salvation”). This confidence leads the Isaianic author to “trust and not be afraid” (verse 2). The phrase “do not be afraid” often accompanies oracles of salvation: it tells someone that salvation is about to arrive, so one need not fear any longer (see also Isaiah 7:4; 8:12; 35:4; 36:7; 40:9; 41:10, 13–14; 43:1, 5; 44:2, 8; 51:7; 54:4). YHWH, and nothing else, constitutes our strength and our hope in salvation, which is why YHWH alone is “our song” that we sing in praise (verse 2). 

Then the poet shifts imagery, returning to water––but instead of chaotic waters we find “wells of salvation” that deliver water, reminding us of the wilderness journey and the miraculous provision of life-giving sustenance in the hopeless desert (see Exodus 17). The psalmist then tells us that when the day of salvation arrives, we will joyfully burst into a song of thanksgiving and praise in which we will bear witness to God’s saving power in our lives, to the very ends of the earth (verse 5). 

The section ends with a call for everyone in Jerusalem to join in: “Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,” precisely because God is with us (immanuel, 7:14); “Great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel” (verse 6). Amen: salvation is about to be among us, indeed.

Paul regularly ends his letters with some instructions to his addressees. Near the end of his letter to the Philippians, Paul twice commands (the verbs are in the imperative) his readers to rejoice. Given that Paul is writing from prison (1:17) to people who are being persecuted (1:28), this gives one pause. Though Paul suffers and says of his addressees that it has been granted to them not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for his sake (1:29), remarkably, Paul instructs his hearers to rejoice. What is to be noted is not only that Paul directs them to rejoice, but that he expects that this is a possibility for them: He exhorts them to practice joy in the midst of suffering.

Paul regularly expresses joy throughout this letter even while he is in chains (1:18). Despite the difficult circumstances, he sees himself and the Philippians rejoicing together (2:17–18). This includes rejoicing with those Paul sends to them, such as Epaphroditus (2:25–29). He calls the beloved Philippians his joy (4:1). And his desire is not only that the Philippians progress in their faith but that they have joy in it (1:25). Paul’s response to the Philippians’ faith outworked in conformity to Christ is joy (2:2).

While at first there may appear to be a disconnect between the circumstances of suffering and the disposition of joy, deeper meditation reveals that for Paul the two are organically connected—at least for those who, like Paul, suffer in Christ. (Note that in the Greek text Paul writes that his imprisonment is known as being “in Christ”; 1:13). For believers, joy and suffering are companions. This is the case because their rejoicing is, as he emphasizes, “in the Lord”  (4:4; see also 3:1; 4:10).  

Paul’s focus on joy is sourced in another focus of this letter—being “in Christ.” The kind of joy that Paul instructs the believers to know is joy that is “in the Lord.” This echoes Paul’s confidence that he and his fellow believers are united with Christ. All that Paul does is in Christ: For instance, he hopes “in the Lord Jesus” (2:19) and he encourages the Philippians to understand their lives this way also; they are those who “glory in Christ Jesus” (3:3); they are to receive Epaphroditus “in the Lord” ( 2:29). 

As mentioned, the apostle understands his imprisonment as being “in Christ” (1:13—often translated as “for Christ”). He speaks of a variety of states available “in Christ” (encouragement, comfort from love, participation in the Spirit, affection and sympathy [2:1]). Paul claims that those in Christ may have the same mind as Christ (2:5). In one of the most revealing and powerful passages in his letters Paul expresses his personal experience of being “found in Christ” (3:9)—an environment in which the apostle is empowered to share Christ’s own experiences of death and resurrection (3:10) and where he is gifted with Christ’s kind of  righteousness—the righteousness of God (3:9). 

And in our passage, Paul writes that the hearts and minds of the Philippians will be guarded by the peace of God “in Christ Jesus” (4:7).

It is because believers are united with Christ that their suffering can be, indeed must be, suffused with joy. For, like Paul, they may share with the One whose sufferings are enveloped by the power of the resurrection (3:10). Joy is the only fitting response to the wondrous grace of being in Christ, the suffering and resurrected One, whose day will gift believers with glorious Christ-like bodies (3:21).  

In Philippians Paul focuses not only on joy and on being united with Christ, but on Christ’s day, or Christ’s return (2:16; 3:20–21). In our passage, the apostle writes that the Lord is near (4:5).  The Greek word for “near” denotes both time and place. The statement can then mean either that the Lord is temporally near or that he is spatially near. Given Paul’s attention in Philippians both to Christ’s advent and to being united with Christ, we may understand the apostle to be signaling both meanings. Paul is convinced both that Christ will return soon and that presently, believers will live in Christ.  

The advent of Christ will give believers glorious bodies while, until then, life united with him accords them lives of joy. Notably, Paul’s attention to Christ’s second advent is at once attention on the quality of believers’ lives now. The joy of their lives is to be accompanied by reasonableness (to epieikēs), an expression found in another form (epieikeia) in 2 Corinthians 10:1 where it is often translated “gentleness.” Paul instructs the suffering Philippians to let all see their gentle reasonableness, which is evidence of their practice of joy. 

Paul also exhorts this beleaguered church to have no anxiety and to bring to God all their worries. Their honest prayers are to be offered with thanksgiving—a fitting disposition for those who practice joy.  

Paul promises that people who live in union with Christ (“in Christ Jesus”; 4:7) and practice joy will know God’s peace in both heart and mind. For life in Christ allows access to God’s quality of existence—notably, God’s righteousness (3:9)—and the peace by which and in which God lives (4:7). It perhaps goes without saying that God’s peace “surpasses all understanding” (4:7; literally, “which rises above every mind”), but Paul says it anyway. The result of following Paul’s instructions, even amid struggle and suffering, will be peaceful hearts and minds.

Paul’s conviction that the Lord is near—both temporally and spatially—shapes his understanding of the possibilities for life now. Believers are those who can practice joy, again and again, even while in brutal and frightening circumstances. They can be seen as those who, despite their problems, are reasonable and gentle. They can have quiet hearts and minds and can access the kind of peace lived through God.