Looking Ahead to January 23, 2022

 The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Zephaniah 3:14-20
• Mark 1:29-31

The Sermon title is Delivered and Healed

Early Thoughts: What would it mean to you to be delivered? Delivered from what? How do you see that delivering happening? What does it mean to be healed? Is healing part of being delivered, part of being freed?

 This week we read the last few verses of Zephaniah. As I read through the 3 chapters of that book I would say that these last few verses are the most hope-filled words the prophet has shared with us. Zephaniah lived and worked before the exile, in the time of Josiah, King of Judah. Josiah is known for spearheading what is known as the Deuteronomic Reform, an attempt to bring the people of Judah back to faithful adherence to the service of YHWH.

In these verses Zephaniah share a vision of a time of celebration. Earlier in the book there have been words of judgment against Judah because they have wandered astray. Some suggest that the earlier words of judgment are from a time before Josiah's reforms and that these words suggest a more hopeful vision of what will happen if the reforms take hold and transform the way the people live.

This reading celebrates that God is in the midst of God's people (more precisely in the City of Zion, sometimes called the City of God). It talks of how the people, signified by the Daughter of Jerusalem, will be delivered and that is the cause for the celebration. As we read it now, almost 2700 years after the words were written, do we still seek deliverance from those people and events that cause us woe and oppression? What will lead us to sing and dance and celebrate?

Our brief reading from Mark's Gospel shares a healing story. It seems to me that healing and deliverance are closely linked (and yes I would make that linkage even if we were not 2 years into a global health crisis). To be delivered from those things that oppress us, to be set free to be who God has formed us to be, to be brought home in God, is a form of healing. 

We continue to seek deliverance, we continue to be in need of healing. WHat might it look like for us in 2022?
--Gord