In today’s passage, Zephaniah 3:14-20, the prophet Zephaniah invited the people to “rejoice, to not be afraid, and to believe that God would bring healing and restoration…[Zephaniah] spoke these words to a people whose lives and homes had been destroyed by the conquering Assyrians; faithlessness and despair were running rampant when he spoke them,” says Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington DC. Gaines-Cirelli continues, Zephaniah’s words “must have seemed ludicrous to those who first heard [them]. And the call to rejoice and not to fear may seem ludicrous to us, knowing all that is happening in our world today.” How can we proclaim joy in a broken world? Listen as Gaines-Cirelli uses the words of Leonard Cohen, Karl Barth, and John the Baptist to tell us how.
Sermon manuscript available: click HERE