Advent Day 13

Day 13

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you but will rejoice over you with singing.

Rebuke is not a nice word. It culminates all this negative connotation every time you hear it. This sharp pointed word hurts when you think about the times when you have been rebuked. Maybe you needed to hear harsh words to change your actions or to improve situations or maybe the rebuking was unwarranted. Yet in this verse rebuke and love are in the same sentence. What a crazy concept. This love that is so bigger and grander than we could ever imagine paralleled with the rebuke that we so deserve and so often give others without thought. God in Jesus took both of these and meshed them together to understand the world would never be sinless but God could and did have the power to overcome the world.

This is a beautiful picture of how something we make so sharp and nasty as rebuking one another and even ourselves is covered up with the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ. It is a picture filled will so much mess and yet a perfect portrait of love, grace and redemption. God is a warrior who fights with us and for us. How can we through this holiday season fight with him to promote His name and his kingdom with joy, hope, and love? This is our true holiday aspiration to be more like Christ and to make His name known.