{"id":1871,"date":"2021-12-11T12:14:01","date_gmt":"2021-12-11T18:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/?p=1871"},"modified":"2021-12-11T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T18:21:31","slug":"st-albans-daily-december-10th-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/?p=1871","title":{"rendered":"St. Alban’s Daily – December 10th"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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St Alban’s Episcopal Church<\/strong>
Bolivar, Missouri<\/strong>
Friday, December 10, 2021<\/strong>
Third Sunday of Advent More joy…Zephaniah 3:14-20<\/strong>\"\"
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Zephaniah 3:14-20<\/strong>Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgment 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 rejoice over you with gladness 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. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the lord.

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Can you hear that song?<\/strong> Of course it wasn’t sung to us first; it is a Jewish prophesy, not a Christian one. Nevertheless, if the New Testament is true, we share in the promises given to Israel. We do not replace Israel; but we have been grafted into that tree. For that above all we can be full of joy. And because of it we can never tolerate anti-Semitism.
We can, if we dare, “sing aloud”<\/em> and “shout”<\/em>; we can “rejoice and exult”<\/em> with all our heart. “God is with us”;<\/em> that’s exactly what we profess when we call Jesus, “emmanu-el”. And if God is in our midst, God is right now, “renewing us in his love,”<\/em> “rejoicing over us with gladness as on a day of festival!”<\/em>
And don’t you love this? Once again, God chooses the least to become evidence of his power: “I will save the lame and gather the outcast”<\/em> not just to rescue them and tolerate them as pathetic creatures, but to “change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.”<\/em>
Listen, my friends. This is incredible. No matter what your shame, or loss, or your painful history is; you are being gathered, saved, rescued, brought home to God where God will – and does – sing over you with joy.
No matter how badly the church has failed; no matter how much it has turned away from the simple beauty of the Gospel to opt for worldly power and wealth – and then found itself broken and ashamed; she is still the bride, the beloved. And God will sing her the song, and draw her back into the joy of her first love.
“Rejoice in the Lord, always.” <\/em>Just do.

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St Alban’s Episcopal ChurchBolivar, MissouriFriday, December 10, 2021Third Sunday of Advent More joy…Zephaniah 3:14-20 Zephaniah 3:14-20Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgment against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1878,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions\/1878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}