Peace is a Person

Lector reads Isaiah 11:1-10

Help me brainstorm for a moment: describe in one word what a perfect world would look like...

On Tuesday we woke to the tragic news of yet another school shooting, this time a Christian school in Madison, WI. According to CNN, this is the 83rd school shooting of 2024. This is the very opposite of kind of world we long for. Every day we wake up to new disaster somewhere in the world, or some new crisis close to home. We know this is not how things are supposed to be, and we long for something better. We long for someone to fix the mess.

One thing bad news does is rob us of peace. How hard was it for parents to send their kids to school this week after hearing the news out of Madison? What about the news coming from our economy? The Feds have lowered the interest rate again, but they say don’t expect it to make a big difference. How many people are anxious right now with whether they have enough money to be able to retire? This last two week I’ve spent more time at hospital bedsides and in living rooms praying for the gravely ill than I have in the last year. How quickly can an illness create anxiety and fear over the future? We long for better. We want to be at peace.

This theme of a better world is imbedded in many of the Christmas carols we sing each year. For instance, one we’ve sung the last couple of weeks...

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

O come Desire of nations bind

All peoples in one heart and mind

Bid envy strife and quarrels cease

Fill the whole world with heaven's peace

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world has suffered long

Beneath the angel strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong

And man at war with man hears not

The love song which they bring

O hush the noise ye men of strife

And hear the angels sing

O Holy Night

Truly He taught us to love one another

His law is love and His gospel is peace

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother

And in His name all oppression shall cease

Captured in these songs of Christmas is a desire for a world - and a heart - that is at peace. But who can give it to us? Where do we often turn to find the peace that we long for?

Right leaders/more government intervention - which looks very different depending on which side of the political aisle you’re on

Military - peace through superior firepower. Twisted idea that the threat of violence will create a lasting peace.

Fad diet or exercise program - I’ll fight off the effects of age and poor health - or the latest cream or lotion that promises to erase the effects of time on our face

Get lost in pursuing worldly success thinking if we accumulate enough we will be at peace.

Drugs and alcohol - I’ll just stay stoned and numb my anxiety

In spite of all these attempts, peace remains elusive. The comedian Richard Pryor said, “There was a time in my life when I thought I had everything - millions of dollars, mansions, cars, nice clothes, beautiful women, and every other materialistic thing you can imagine. Now I struggle for peace.”

By 1939 it became clear that Britain couldn’t avoid a war with Germany. In preparing the populace for a wartime footing, the British government launched a marketing campaign that featured a red background and a white Tudor crown with the now famous words “Keep calm and carry on” (show sign). It was a way of saying “you better get your mind right” bc our best efforts at peace have failed. War is coming and there is nothing you can do about it except to prepare as best you can and get in the right state of mind. As the world descends into hell, keep a stiff upper lip.

It’s been said that we are always living one of two stories - either a secular story or a sacred story. They secular story says something like this: the world is a jacked up mess and the only peace you will find is the peace you make for yourself. Because the rest of the world is going to burn and there’s not much you can do about it. Maybe if you get the right leaders in office, if you get the right laws passed, you can make a temporary peace. But it won’t last, and in the end you’ll have to keep looking within yourself for peace. Peace is just a state of mind that you have to try and achieve somehow. That’s one story you can live.

The other story - the sacred story - says something different. That there is a loving God who made the world good. And when it fell into sin and violence, he didn’t simply cast if off. He took on human flesh and entered into this broken world so that he could save it. The story of Jesus’ birth is of how God is remaking the world and restoring it to what it was intended to be all along. As we wait for this new world, Christmas is the annual reminder that real peace is not found in a right state of mind but in a person.

This image of the better world that all of us desire has a name in the Bible: the kingdom of God. On earth as it is in heaven. The truth is that everyone wants the kingdom of God on earth. But in our secular culture, we have hollowed out and thrown away the one component that can make this kingdom a reality - the king himself. We want the kingdom without the king.

While we sing “peace on earth, goodwill to men” we see all around us the inability of human governments and institutions to make it a reality. We are going to see in Isaiah on this last Sunday of advent that God has a plan for bringing about the world all of us long for, and he will do it through his king. Let me offer a spoiler alert: the king is Jesus.

Pray…

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This morning I want to share from Isaiah 11 why Jesus alone is uniquely qualified to be the king that brings peace to the world.

The scriptures exclusively and consistently point to him.

Isaiah 11:1–2 “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”

This was written when Jerusalem had been sacked by Babylon. The Temple had been destroyed. And the king of Israel and his children had been taken away into captivity. Metaphorically, the nation has been cut down and only a stump remains.

But Isaiah sees in that stump a promise of new beginnings. Jesse is the father of king David, and God promised David that one of his descendants would always sit on the throne. 500 years before his birth, Isaiah prophecies about the birth of Jesus. In fact, the whole Bible is filled with theses promises:

Moses promised in Deuteronomy a prophet greater than himself that we must listen to.

Psalms makes numerous claims about someone who will face death but not decay.

Isaiah full of references to someone simple called the Servant who will come to save people from their sins.

The Bible tells us this king would be born in Bethlehem, flee to Egypt, be called a Nazarene. These are all events that happened in Jesus birth and childhood that he could have had no influence over.

We could fill our whole time looking at prophecies in the Bible that refer to Jesus. Amazing thing about Bible: over 3 dozen authors, written over period of 1,500 years, most authors never knew one another or read each others work, but they all tell a unified story that points to Jesus. He is the root of Jesse that has sprung up from a dead stump. He is the one all of scripture points to.

If God can arrange the events of Jesus’ life to this degree - even before Jesus was born - how capable is he to bring about change in your own life? How capable is he to make life spring up again in something you thought was a dead stump?

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He has the character necessary to rule.

Isaiah 11:3–5 “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.”

The reason all earthly kingdoms eventually fail is bc their kings do not possess the character necessary to rule well. All of them without exception devolve into some kind of corruption or exploitation. One of the geniuses of our founding fathers is that they recognized the fallibility of humans and set up a system of checks and balances so that no single person has ultimate authority. And, yet, even our own system is flawed because in the end, people are people. Our democratic system cannot form the kind of people necessary to lead it.

But here King Jesus shows why he is uniquely qualified to lead. Using very descriptive language, what he wears closest to his skin is righteousness and faithfulness. Righteousness means he will always do right on behalf of people. A word closer to the meaning here is justice. Jesus will pursue and enact justice for those who have been overlooked or unfairly ruled against. Faithfulness means that he will always do what God desires. And he will hold this justice and faithfulness in perfect harmony.

This passage demands that we evaluate our relationship to this king. To be aligned with him means to stand in solidarity with the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized. One uncomfortable truth is that our actions toward those in need is the best indicator of the reality of our faith. Following Jesus means to follow in both his justice and faithfulness.

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The legacy of his kingdom will be a lasting peace.

Isaiah 11:6–9 “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Isaiah uses poetic and metaphorical language to describe the effects of Jesus’ reign. Wolves, leopards, lion, and bears are paired with lambs, young goats, cows, and oxen. The world will become so tame that a little child could lead them all. The picture he paints of this new world is one where the predators of the world have lost their ability to do harm. Why? Bc the earth will be full of the knowledge of God. It’s just another way of saying, the kingdom of God has come. This kingdom has been inaugurated with the birth of Jesus; it will be consummated when he returns.

This is exactly the same message sung by Mary upon finding out she was to me the mother of the Messiah. She sings, Luke 1:51–53 “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Together, Isaiah and Mary sing the same song. They describe a world at peace. Or in Hebrew - shalom. Not just the absence of conflict but perfect well-being in the heart. Shalom is the world we long for, where everything is right again. All is as it should be, with no more violence, injustice, oppression, or disease. This shalom, this peace, isn’t found in a state of mind. It’s found in a person. Jesus alone can bring about the kind of world we all want to live in.

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How do we respond to this?

Isaiah 11:10 “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”

“Dwelling” == “rest”. Rest can have a double meaning here. One, it has to do with reigning. The reign of Jesus will be glorious. But it can also mean “rest” like we normally think of - to be restful or at peace. The other way of reading this passage is that the rest this king provides will be glorious.

Christmas marks the beginning of God’s plan to restore the world through his chosen king. As we look to a new year, and as we long for a world that is better, where are you looking for real peace? Will you look at the secular story - one where peace is a state of mind and of your own making? Or will you lean into the sacred story the Bible tells us? Jesus alone is uniquely qualified to bring about this world desire, and to give you a true peace. His invitation this morning is Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

We can’t always do something about the unrest around us, but Jesus promise is that in the midst of it you can still find rest. You can be at peace. You can be at peace with God, knowing your sins are forgiven. You can be at peace knowing that you have a new life in him. Have you ever accepted Jesus’ love and peace into your life?...

What would it be like if we began to live in light of the reality of king Jesus? This knowledge should have a profound effect on how we navigate the brokenness of the world. Let me give an illustration: have you ever watched a recording of a football game where you already know your team won? How does that change how you watch it? Your quarterback throws a pick six to end the half. Big deal, I already know we won. Your starting running back leaves the game with a sprained ankle. Bummer, but the outcome of the game is already determined. There’s not anger or angst in watching that game bc you know how it turns out.

Let me suggest that is a good way to view this present world. There will still be tragedy and loss. There will still be times when it seems like the bad guys are winning. But bc we live within the sacred story, we already know how it ends. If you are a follower of Jesus, he has commissioned and empowered you to go live his kingdom reality in front of others and invite them to join you in his peaceable kingdom. Because Jesus is king, you can be people of peace in a world in conflict.

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Ministry...

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Communion

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What an amazing time of worship we’ve had today. I’m glad you’ve been a part of it. If you’ve been blessed today, why not invite a friend to join you next week. We have some invite packs on the back table.

*** Announcement reminders ***

Dismissal prayer

Now as we prepare to take this time of worship into the week ahead, the Lord who loves you says to you:

John 14:27 NRSV

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

GO BE THE CHURCH!!