Advent week 2 -peace

Good morning One River,

Peace be with you! (and also with you).

Today we enter the second week of Advent. We look forward to the figurative first coming of the Christ. Jesus, in the form of a baby. Born to us, over two-thousand years ago, for the purpose of saving us from our sins and from ourselves. We also look forward to his second coming. The final return. Where all will be made right and whole again in the universe.

Today we celebrate the peace of the LORD. I started with a traditional church opening. It’s call and response. I say, May the peace of the LORD be with you all. And you respond “and also with you.”

This traditional greeting, I think can sometimes get lost in the changes of church life. I think we all pretty much accept, at least in the big picture scenario, that we should have the peace of the LORD with each of us. I also think we often struggle to explain what exactly that is.

When I say peace, I think most of the time, people believe this to merely be something like a lack of conflict. In fact, I Googled the definition of Peace; every option was something that basically explained a lack of conflict, rather than a true state of being.

I’m going to jump in with a few readings for today.

Isaiah 40:1–5 (NIV)

Comfort for God’s People

40 Comfort, comfort my people,

says your God.

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand

double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare

the way for the LORD;

make straight in the desert

a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be raised up,

every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level,

the rugged places a plain.

5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,

and all people will see it together.

For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

2 Peter 3:8–14 (NIV)

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

Mark 1:1–8 (NIV)

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

1:2–8pp—Mt 3:1–11; Lk 3:2–16

1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way” —

3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.’ ”

4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

At first glance, some of these readings may not seem like they go together. But I assure you they have an overarching theme, or series of themes. One of those themes is peace. Specifically, the Peace of the LORD that we started talking about.

I’m sure you’ve heard messages before about “Shalom”. Peace upon you. Peace is not merely the absence of conflict. It’s a complete state of being. When someone wishes this “peace” on you and your life, what they’re in essence saying to you. That they wish a journey upon you that culminates in you living into the state of perfection that Jesus embodies and offers to his followers.

How many of you are familiar with the meaning behind “wheel of fortune”? I don’t mean that cheesy game show.

Rota Fortuna or wheel of fortune, is a symbol\ philosophy that evolved in the medieval period. You will often find it’s symbol in medieval churches and literature from the period.

The original belief behind it was pagan and basically meant that fortune and fate are cruel and unpredictable. We are all on this constant wheel, bettering our positions or worsening them.

But the Christians adopted it and found something, I think, happens to be rather profound.

They saw that life is like a wheel that God created. On that wheel, we are constantly in motion. Sometimes we’re rich, sometimes poor. Sometimes we’re in good health, sometimes not. Sometimes we’re in control of our fate, other times we’re not.

The thing we can control is our peace in the LORD. Our Peace with Jesus. Peace is the state of being that draws us into right relationship with Jesus. It is our worldly perception through Him that allows us peace and only through Him.

I’m sure all of you have heard about sandpaper people?

Sandpaper people are those people that God puts in our lives. They may be rough or crass, but for whatever reason they just rub us the wrong way.

That rubbing God uses to polish us into little Christ figures. It’s these little Christ figures that exude peace.

Picture this. How many of you have read a story about Mother Teresa? Most of us, right? How many of us have thought, I could never possibly do that? Again, most of us. How many have heard her story and somewhere in the back of our mind thought, ‘Oh God, that sounds like Hell!’

Calcutta, in the slums. Orphans, people with HIV and AIDS dying. Societal outcasts unwelcome anywhere in India. That sounds like Hell.

The processes that took a poor Macedonian girl with little education and moved her to Calcutta to teach. That’s the wheel of Fortune.

The processes that took that teacher and turned her into a champion for the unloved and unwelcome. The processes that started an orphanage, a hospital, hospice care, a food pantry and everything else she did for others in life – That’s the peace of Christ.

If we go back to that passage we read from Peter. This is the message he’s sharing with us. God’s timing is not our timing. His ways are not our ways.

It’s God’s timing that takes a teacher and makes her a saint. It’s God’s timing that works to our great benefit. He waits for us to become those little Christs, those perfect beings that no longer recoil at the thought of being put into a place like Calcutta with the undesirables. He waits for His peace to come upon us in all of its glory and spender. It is the gift of His great Spirit that allows us to go into places where angels fear to tread.

Pete describes the way we ought to live, holy and godly lives. But his description is that of a people of God’s Peace. The whole bit about the Day of the LORD coming like a thief, that’s not to scare us into salvation. It’s not meant to be a fire and brimstone message. He’s telling us to use the LORD’s timing to ready ourselves so NO ONE is left behind. Because Jesus’ desire is that no one should perish.

We’ve been looking at parables in our small group. One such parable is the workers with varying wages. One comes in the morning and is promised a day’s pay if he works. He agrees, then the owner goes out again at noon and 3. At the end of the day he calls them up to pay them and they all get the same wage. Some of the men get angry. ‘It’s not fair, we worked all day.’ ‘Why do they get the same pay when we worked all day.’

Jesus says this is like the kingdom. Yet some of us are still angered by this story. We see it as unfair, why should they get just as much, when I’ve been working all day.

This is where the sandpaper comes in. Sometimes it’s people, sometimes it’s Jesus and sometimes it’s us. He uses it to wear off the edges so we’re made more like him.

Getting to a spot where we’re no longer angry that someone else got just as much is one thing, but can you get to a spot where you can be happy for them?

A while back a mafia guy was in a shootout on main street. He was shot several times. One facet of the mobster life is that they all profess Catholicism. So, the cops called in a priest and the mobster confessed and received last rights.

The locals asked the priest one Sunday if the mobster would go to heaven. He, of course replied, yes, I believe he will. The citizens were beside themselves. This man had murdered, stole, run gambling establishments. He’d done all the things the mob is known for and they couldn’t deal with the idea that a man like that could go to heaven.

They’d lived good and holy lives their entire life. How can this be?

Sandpaper people.

They were Christian, but they had no peace.

God wants that none should perish. Can you find peace in that? That’s the true peace of Christ. It’s not always fare. At least by earthly standards of fare. You wont always get what you want. You want always get what you worked for. You wont always get what you deserve. But that’s the peace Christ has for each of us, so that none may perish.

Can you bear to walk into heaven and see a thief? Or a murderer? How about a Gazan, or a Jew? What about a Muslim or a Hindi?

Can you handle that in Christ’s heaven, there will be gays and pirates and Nazis and democrats and republicans. Maybe even some Trump supporters.

Now, can you be glad they’re there?

That’s the peace of the LORD. That’s the peace that passes all understanding, and doesn’t try to judge the One True Judge.

If anyone could run around yelling ‘that’s not fair’ it’s Jesus. But He said ‘I come, that no one should perish!’

This is what brings us together here today. This is the Peace that comes when the Holy and anointed one comes to meet each of us where we are. Born of a virgin 2K years ago in Bethlehem. He set aside the earthly order. The secular rules that have been put in place under the language of justice. Jesus humbled himself to the point of becoming human, only to allow us kill him on a cross with our sins. He did it all to set a mission of peace before us. Not a lack of stress or anxiety or conflict. If that’s what you’ve been sold you missed some stories in the bible. What he offers is peace.

Can we transform ourselves with his help, over the course of a lifetime, to reach a spot where we can say, and truly mean it! ‘May the peace of our LORD Jesus the Christ, be with each and every one of you.’