Peace and Preparing
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December 10, 2017
Peace and Preparing
Scripture: Isaiah 11: 1-10
Last week we began the season of Advent by seeing how God’s love leads to hope. The hope we have in God who loves us so much that he gave his only son to die in our place, and how that hope now translates to how we live our lives, offering that hope to others as well.
This week let’s see how God’s love leads to peace-- to the only real peace that comes from knowing that our hearts belong to God when we respond to the call of God….Responding even through a messenger of God, John the Baptist, who paved the way - preparing the way to the author of eternal peace, Jesus the Christ, to be born in a little town called Bethlehem and into our lives even today.
++But first let’s pray.
Let’s read the prophet Isaiah, who promises the people of God of his time and us today that “God’s Love Brings Peace”
Isaiah 11: 1-10
- -If you’re an animal lover, you can picture what it would probably look like putting a lion in a cage with a lamb.Not a pretty sight. The idea of a predator lying down with its prey in peace is amazing, it might even scare us, but maybe it also might delight us. Maybe you’ve seen a “you tube” showing a rat riding on the back of cat or the cat riding on the back of a dog or pictures of a tiger nursing piglets. Those aren’t the normal…are they? But God’s word tells us that animals, in God’s Messiah kingdom to come, will be able to override their natural bloody instincts….a lion will lie down with the lamb. That’s a picture of a kingdom of peace isn’t it?
The question for today in the first part of our look at this week of Peace and Preparing is this.Can we, God’s chosen, gifted creatures, ever do the same? Can we put down our natural instincts to lash out the first chance we get when someone is different than us?...walks, talks, dresses, acts…Can we seek peace rather than shoot first and ask questions later? Can we hold our suspicions, our anger, even seek revenge….especially when someone does us or someone we know or love, wrong?
I remember a few years back at this very time of the year when I had the unwanted opportunity to serve a family whose son had been struck and killed on a city street. Hit and run.
You might ask…what emotions did that driver experience? The family and friends of the victim? Unfortunately, next to shock, the emotion most expressed by the family of the loved one was anger. It’s hard to fault them. Their loved one had been struck and killed….and the driver of the vehicle which hit him didn’t even stop. Maybe he didn’t even know he’d hit something or someone. It was late at night, after the local bars were closing. Maybe he was the one with the real anger behind the wheel of the car that brought about death.
Where could I point this family to in order for them to find peace, to say nothing of love, joy, or even +hope?
There was only one place and only one person I could and would ever point them to…you know that, right? I pray you know that. The prophet Isaiah points to the one when he writes about the shoot that shall come out of the stump of Jesse…..the one who’s lineage could be traced to that shoot – David….and the descendant we read and learn about in the Gospel in Matthew is, of course, Jesus, who is called Christ. We can only point someone to the Lord when the wrongs have been so strong.
God’s love in peace….We’ve become so saturated – so paralyzed by fear and violence, I’m afraid we have a hard time focusing on peace…and the one who brings us that perfect peace that passes all understanding. News of terrorism, wars and rumors of war, climate catastrophe can overwhelm us and instill anxiety in all of us, especially the very young…the young lambs God has given us who could easily be devoured by the lions, the evil that abounds, in this world. Violence wrecks lives.
Christmas isn’t holly and tinsel for everyone. Some of you have experienced the tragedy of a death in the family this past year…..in years gone by that still affect you.
Isaiah’s word today is for all….peace will come to your hurting hearts….the prince of peace has come and is coming again.I urge you to hang on to the promise of peace if you’re in the middle of what may even look like war in your world.
The transformation from fear to peace begins with a stump. Out of what would appear lifeless….a stump…comes a new sign of life…maybe first a green sprig. That’s how hope is started….one sprig at a time. And it comes in its full power when that stump….the descendant of a guy named Jesse….the owner of sheep tended by a little shepherd boy, comes to earth from heaven to reign in our hearts today.
A little shoot will rise to be a new kind of king, one who judges with righteousness and brings justice for the poor and the meek. God’s power in Jesus is especially for the weak…….those who have struggled in this life....those who recognize that without him, we’re lost sheep.
How could our lives be remade from lives of fear, anxiety and anger? Our own lives can become peaceable kingdoms. Yes, they can. How you ask? Our lives can become peaceable kingdoms when and only when we allow Christ Jesus to transform us.
So God’s love brings peace. Friends, God’s love leads to salvation too.
Matthew 3: 1-12
We’ve seen how peace leads to hope. Now we see Jesus breaking into our world with the good news of salvation. That peace that passes all understanding is announced to the people then and us today by the one chosen to prepare the way…And that one is John the Baptizer.
John prepared the way of the Lord, as we are to prepare the way by the lives we lead and the testimony of our lips.
At Advent we want hope, we want peace, we want the tiny baby born, born in Bethlehem, right? We’re not looking for judgment. Well John here actually breaks the cycle with the phrase “You brood of vipers!” Yikes. Where’s the peace, where’s the hope in that? Sounds like he’s ready to throw us to the wolves…..or turn the lions loose on the lambs, right? You brood of vipers.
Here John would tell us that not only are we cherished for who we are – messengers of peace and hope for today in our world – we’re also responsible for what we do. A few verses later in Matthew 4 we read, “…the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” We are called to be a people of light – not those who would spread darkness around us.
God cares. That’s good news, really, God cares about what we believe….and what we do.
What did God do? God cared enough to send his son, Jesus, to die for our sins….and God continues to care enough to send us the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to lead us into lives of witness and service to his world. God cares about what we do and how we do it. Who we are and what we do matters. It all matters.
When our children were young Melissa and I remember having them involved in day care and church classes where they had special projects being made each Christmas. Those became treasures to us. Melissa, the school teacher, had boxes of treasures her students made over the years and were lovingly given to her, hoping they’d get her approval. It mattered to them that she recognized their efforts.
The story is told of a nursery school incident that went like this. One December afternoon a group of parents stood in the lobby of a nursery school waiting to claim their children after the last pre-Christmas class session. As the youngsters ran from their lockers, ((or cubbies I think they’re called now,)) as they ran each one carried in their hands the “surprise” the brightly wrapped package on which he had been working diligently for weeks. One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat, and waved to his parents, all at the same time, slipping and falling. The “surprise” fell from his grasp, landed on the floor and broke with an obvious ceramic crash.
The child began to cry. He couldn’t be consoled. His father, trying to minimize the incident and comfort the boy, patted his head and murmured, “Now that’s all right, son. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all.”
But the child’s mother swept the boy up in her arms and said, “Oh, but it does matter. It matters a great deal.” And she wept with her son.”….
Our Advent worship, Advent hymns, Advent expectations – all that we are and do – they all matter – all the time. They matter because there’s one child out there that needs to experience peace for the first time. They matter because there’s one child out there – at no matter what age – needs to experience hope for the first time. Our actions matter. There’s more than one family out there who has lost a loved one and feels that loss very deeply this Christmas season. There’s more than one family out there who has been on the other side of the steering wheel – knowing it was they or their loved one that made the wrong turn at the wrong time.
It all matters. We need to offer peace, hope and yes, forgiveness.Forgiveness that leads to repentance and repentance that leads to salvation. We need to recognize when we’ve been among the brood of vipers… that we need to repent. The pattern prayer Jesus taught his closest followers offers these words…..”Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors….forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We can’t ask for forgiveness for ourselves when we don’t and won’t offer forgiveness to others.
Our commitment to share God’s love with others just reflects our commitment to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords – it matters. John the Baptist reminds us just how much it matters.
We can’t come to the manger without remembering the cross. We can’t read Isaiah’s “for unto us a child is born” without recognizing that we must invite him to “come and reign over us”. That’s how salvation comes - “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Father, forgive us.
God in Christ will come again. He will judge us – first through lens of the blood of the cross – and then through the lens of the lives we have led. Have we been, will we be the messengers of peace….the ones who offer hope….the ones who share the love of God – the salvation of Christ –that we have experienced -- with everyone we meet? Will we be the ones who recognize that our lives and the lives of all those around us matter….because the life that was sacrificed for us on that cross of Calvary wasn’t just another statistic on a roadway. He mattered, he still matters…all God’s people matter to him….all God’s people.