The Candle of Peace

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

It was the year 1871. And in the great city of Chicago there was this unexplainable great fire - that destroyed businesses, people lost there homes, and many people were left with nothing. One of these people who were impacted by the fire was a man named Horatio G. Spafford. About that time in his life, he also saw his son die who was 4 with scarlet fever. So in response to all these tradegy Horatio spent time working - rebuilding the city of Chicago and rebuilding his life. A few years later, his wife and 4 daughters went on ahead of him to visit friends in Europe. The boat that they were on had a shipwreck and some of the people who drowned were his 4 daughters. Horatio was left with the note, a telegraph from his wife, “Saved Alone.” Of course in this difficult time, he left everything to be in person with his wife. As he got one another boat, he was feeling this sense of unease. The captain came and told him, “I believe we are now passing over the place where the ship your family was on sunk.” And Horatio responded - “It is well - the will of God be done.” He later wrote a famous hymn that we sing in chruch - and the refrain goes something like this based on his own words and life experience

Sung by a band member, “It is well, it is well with my soul”

We gather here at church in the season of Advent, and many of us have never had as many or as difficult trials as Horatio - losing so many close family members and dealing with so much tragedy. However - there are many reasons that can cause our lives to be filled with hardship - filled with anything but PEACE. Maybe for you, the idea of gathering with all your family is challenging, because there are some pretty big disagreements - the family isn’t getting along right now and you can’t stand it. Or perhaps, you gather here wondering about the last couple of test that you have take before school gets out wondering if you going to be able to get it all done. Maybe some of us today we are simply dealing with the unknown of life and that can cause of to worry. As we look at our lives - living in this world - we tend to experience anything but PEACE; and instead we dealing with hardship, pain and doubt. If we rely only on our lives, there are alot of reasons for us to sing:

Sung by a band member, “It is well, it is well with my soul”

In the book of Micah, the people of God just like many of the Old Testament books, the prophet Micah is speaking to God’s people who have lost their way and have forgotten the promise of God. They failed to live as His people. And the early part of the book of Micah we hear about the judgement that is coming toward the wicked. At the beginning of our text, we hear the call to muster up troops because the enemy is upon them. The enemy that is coming to strike against them. And it you were a person of that day, we would expect the great Savior - the One who is going to rescue you from these evil nations. But we hear in Micah - that the Savior is coming from a tiny place, a place too small to count and that is the city of Bethlehem. From there - there will come a person who be their Peace. The come and stand so they can dwell secrure in Him. For the people of Israel, despite the prophecy of of enemies coming against them, despite this possible destruction coming their way, they are given this promise of peace. And because of this promise - they could have lifted their voices quietly in praise and sing. Let’s imagine how they might have sung — as we sing together:

-“It is well, it is well with my soul”-

We today have the blessing of knowing that this promise in Micah is not just about an ordinary ruler. It’s not just about the an ordinary King. But this promise all the way back to Micah is about the Prince of Peace, Jesus! Jesus has come to bring Peace to the whole world through His death and resurrection from the grave. Jesus gives you a place where you can now dwell secure in Him! Jesus doesn’t just come to fight against armies, but He came to remove the and to defeat the greatest enemies that we have in sin, death, and the devil. And even as we hear in the Christmas story from Luke 2 - we hear the angels cry out that this news of the Savior being born will be a news of great joy for all people! And we hear the angels cry aloud in praise to God - Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth and good will to men. Jesus saw the sins of the world - He saw the sin in your life and He came to this world that you could experience a peace with God; He came so that you may be able to dwell and be with God forever in faith. In Jesus, we see a peace that He can only bring and it leads us sing- it leads us to praise God, it leads us to cry out together:

-“It is well, it is well with my soul”-

The writer of this famous hymn, Horatio wasn’t able to sing the refrain of the song because the life that he was living was so great. He wasn’t able to sing this chorus about contentment because his life was just full of complete joy. But he was able to sing this song - because he knew the source of his peace; he knew Jesus. And for him, Jesus and that message was greater than anything else. For us, today, even as we know Jesus there are moments when our lives won’t feel too peaceful, there are moments when life is not always going to have the nice still waters for sailing, but even in these hard and challenging moments - we have PEACE. We have peace because the news of Jesus. We have peace because Jesus has come! We have a peace because Christ invites us to dwell in His promises. And its only as we find our rest in Him where we are able to fully sing:

-“It is well, it is well with my soul”-

Now may the peace of God, the grace of God which surpasses all understanding, may it guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.