ADVENT SERMON
SERIES
All
I Want for Christmas is Peace
Isaiah 2: 1-5
Pastor
Our
theme for this morning is peace.
How
many of you watch the FOX News? If you do, you will see the same sound bites
playing all day long and it can reinforce some terrible, haunting news.
One
of our challenges is to stay in touch with the news and hold on to the hope and
peace we have from Christ at the same time. I want to say clearly and
unequivocally, that precisely just such a stance describes the committed
Christian. Some would boast of a strong faith, but would build it by ignoring
the realities of the news around them. Others see clearly the harsh realities
in the news and are unable to hold on to faith or peace in God at all. The
biblical faith to which you and I are heirs does not require such a choice. We
are to face each morning with the news in one hand and the Gospel of Christ in
the other. We are heirs of a faith thoroughly grounded in reality and history,
yet, through it all, trusting and hoping in God’s peace.
Advent comes right in the face of a world filled
with violence and pain, cynicism and doubt. Advent comes right in the face of a
culture, which right now is in its annual life-or-death buying frenzy which
will determine the year-end economic health for corporations. All of this
because of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Wow! How grateful the western capitalist
world must be for Jesus!
In
order for us to build a vital faith and be able to hold on to our peace in God,
we cannot ignore this crazy, materialistic and violent world. We must at the
same time commit to spend our lives coming to know God. This describes the life
of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. It also describes much of the life of someone
else whom we learn about in the scriptures today.
The name Jesus
in Aramaic means “God’s Salvation” or “God is our help.” And more than seven
centuries before Jesus there lived a man named Isaiah, a prophet, whose name
means “the salvation of God.” Isaiah brought together, as did no other prophet,
the tension between conflict and peace. I want us to begin to look at that
great message as we step deeper into the sacred and culturally colored period
of Advent, these weeks leading up to Christmas.
Most of what we know about Isaiah comes through
inference from the book of Isaiah. He moved easily among kings and the ruling
class. He stated in the beginning of his book that he saw his visions during
the days of four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (1:1). On
the other hand Isaiah was very comfortable talking about rural life and
vineyards, so he must have spent some time away from the urban centers as well.
The
context of this portion of Isaiah is probably a time when Assyria was
threatening Judah from the east, when Hezekiah was king and the people had the
form but no longer the substance of faith. Right in the middle of such fear and
breakdown of faith came this stirring image:
It shall come to pass in the
latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as
the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the
nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say, “Come, let us
go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He
may teach us His ways and that we may walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall
decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and
their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:1-4)
The
prophet Micah quotes Isaiah in his own work and then adds the following verse: ... but they shall all sit under their own
vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid, for the
mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. (Micah 4:4)
These beautiful words of trust and peace were declared
during the rumors of war and the rattling of armor. It’s as though right in the
middle of Palestine the people of Judah were moving in one direction, and,
somehow, through a force unseen by everyone else, Isaiah was moving in another
direction. How could it be that one could speak of peace during war? How could
one speak of the weak, backsliding people of Jerusalem as being one day “established
as the highest of the mountains” with nations flowing to it, not to make war,
but to be taught the ways of peace, the ways of God?
Hold on here and stay with me….I’m going to ask
you to think about icebergs! What do you think of when you think of icebergs?
The Titanic, perhaps? Or, if you’ve been on a cruise in Alaska or have seen it
as I have on television, you may picture huge walls of ice on the edge of the
sea “calving,” that is, giving birth to icebergs as they break off and plunge
with a spectacular splash into the ocean.
I learned something interesting about icebergs
some time ago. I learned that if we were to fly over the North Atlantic in a
blimp and were to stare at a large pack of icebergs, we would begin to notice
something. We would notice that all the small icebergs would be moving in one
direction, while the large ones would be moving in another.
Now why do you think that is?
The
scientists explain this phenomenon is caused by surface winds moving the smaller
icebergs in one direction while the enormous icebergs are directed and moved by
ocean currents deep below the surface.
Right in the midst of turmoil and hopelessness,
the surface winds of his day, Isaiah was undaunted in his faith. He knew that
such things would pass and that the day would come when the mountain of the
Lord would be established as the highest of all. He knew that the day would
come when, instead of the people of God turning their backs on the Lord who
loved them, once again they would be faithful and by their sheer radiance and
the power of God, people would flow back up the mountain to be taught the Lord’s
way of peace.
Isaiah speaks to us today to proclaim that the
way of war will one day be known as foolish and ineffective. Isaiah speaks to
us today proclaiming the vision of beating swords into plows and spears into pruning
hooks, so that men and women, boys and girls can sit peacefully under their
vine and fig tree, under their maple tree and cactus, under their palm and acacia
tree, and live in peace unafraid.
Advent is a time to prepare to receive the
Prince of Peace. It is a time to receive the One who shows us the way to be at
peace with God. It is a time to celebrate the coming of the One who enables us
to move with God no matter how the surface winds may blow and the waves may
seek to consume us.
Advent is a time to reconnect ourselves with
Jesus, with the depths of our faith, so that the mountain of the Lord can be
established, so that people will no longer stream away from it but rather will
stream to it. My friends, it’s time to reverse the flow. And it is the power of
the Holy Spirit of God which we celebrate in Jesus that will bring it to
pass.
Some
gifts you can give this Christmas are beyond monetary value: Mend a quarrel,
dismiss suspicion, tell someone, “I love you.” Give something away
anonymously. Forgive someone who has treated you wrong. Turn away wrath with a
soft answer. Visit someone in a nursing home. Apologize if you were wrong. Be
especially kind to someone with whom you work. Give as God gave to you in
Christ, without obligation, or announcement, or reservation, or hypocrisy.
May
the peace of God be with you.