Christmas 2007 Luke 2
Christmas Eve, 2007, Luke 2:14
The Peace of God Born in Bethlehem Luke 2:14
When God finished his work of creation on the sixth day, the first book of the Bible says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Man was at peace with himself, and at peace with the world around him. Man and woman were at peace with God and at peace with each other. But that peace was short-lived. The last book of the Bible records, “And there was war in heaven. As the angles also had free will, Satan chose to appose God. Satan determined to take the place of God, at least in his own eyes. As a result there was a war in heaven. In the end Satan and those angels, now called demons, were cast out of God’s presence. They lost their place in heaven. Then war came to the earth. Think of it, war, brought right into the middle of Paradise. Satan invited the first man and the first woman to join in that war by tempting them to join his side. “You shall be like gods,” he told them, “if you eat of the forbidden fruit.” Man listened. He ate. And at that moment, he went to war too. That is man as he is now by birth. He is at war with God. He wants to dethrone God. He will be his own god. For this God cast humans out of Paradise and if man remain in his sin God has decreed that man should be cast out of God’s presence forever. He will not give his honor and glory to anyone or anything else. And the sin and rebellion of his creatures must be punished.
God is known not for His justice or His judgment. He is known for His mercy, grace and love. He is known because He offers peace. He offers peace through the forgiveness of sin.
The angels on the fields of Bethlehem sing of peace. They sing of peace at the birth of a new born baby. Why, because it is he who is to bring peace to the world. He will bring peace between God and man. He will bring peace between heaven and earth. He will repave the road to God and to eternal life that had been blown apart by man’s disobedience. He will build the bridge that will span the abyss between heaven and hell. Do you remember the titles that Isaiah gave to this Baby in the manger? The last one was “Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6). Prince of Peace! And how did Peter sum up the Christian message to Cornelius and his household? He spoke of “the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:36). This is the mission of this Child: to make peace…
But just how can this little Baby accomplish such a task? Not by negotiation or sitting around a table where each person must give a little and take a little. This is an all-out war, and there can be peace only if the sin that caused the war in the first place is removed. The Christ Child is the Second Adam, who is to make good what the First Adam made wrong. And that is why he had to be just like us, that is, he had to be a true human being. So he was “born of woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4 ESV). He was a flesh and blood child. He could suffer and feel pain. He could die and indeed would die for the sins of the whole world. The prophet Isaiah speaks; “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities . . . and with his stripes we are healed” (Is 53:5 ESV). Jesus Christ came and took our place in the judgment of God, suffered our punishment, and so removed once and for all every remembrance of our rebellion from the sight of a holy God. And this is what St. Paul meant when he said that Jesus made “peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Col 1:20).
How, though, could one mere man put an end to the war that has shaken this earth for all the centuries? He can do it because He is not mere man. The angel tells us, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:11 KJV). It is the Word who was made flesh, the Word, who is God and by whom all things were made. He is the immortal eternal all powerful God that became fully man, made of flesh and blood just like you and me. Only the God-man can keep the Law in our place. Only the God-man can bear the awful wrath and judgment of God for us. Only the God-man can make peace. That is why we do not stand when we enter the stable on this Christmas Eve. We kneel. We kneel before the crib of him who is our Lord, our Maker and our God.
And now there is peace. “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). God’s anger has been put away, and we, who have been led to believe the promise and to confess this Child as our Savior, we, too, are at peace with God. No longer do we see God as a stern and harsh Judge, but rather as a kind and loving heavenly Father, whose hands are stretched out to receive penitent sinners into the joy of their Lord.
This is the peace that the world of our day needs to hear about and know about and rejoice about. So much of what is happening in our world today is people shaking their fist at God. Many are still in revolt, and they need to know that Bethlehem is God’s “cease-fire” order. And our task, also in this congregation, is to plead with people to be reconciled to God through this Christ Child. It is our privilege to approach them and to say, “Why will you die? Accept God’s terms for peace. He who lies seemingly helpless at his mother’s breast is truly your God, your Savior, and your Friend. He came for you. Turn to him and find peace with God.”
The angels do not only sing of a heavenly peace, they also proclaim peace on earth. They proclaim that there is peace even in the midst of the on-going war. They proclaim that we can have peace within ourselves, a peace that surpasses all understanding. When a person believes in God’s offer of peace through Jesus Christ, there is peace of mind, peace in the heart. There is the peace of sins forgiven. Oh, yes, there are plenty of people on the road to hell who feel no sweat. They are completely satisfied with themselves just the way they are. Yet they will have a rude awakening when they stand before the judgment seat of God. But in the minds of millions of people today there is a desperate search for peace. They are not satisfied with their lives, but they don’t know what to do about it. There is no sense of fulfillment, no real meaning for their lives. They are like a person desperately looking for a cool cup of refreshing water, yet wander out into the desert to find an eternal spring. We know where true meaning for human life is found. It is found in a manger. It is found in a cross. It is found in an empty tomb. Will we tell them?
Jesus Christ alone satisfies. Jesus Christ brings peace! Yes, we are sinners, but also through Jesus Christ we have been declared free from all sin by the blood of the cross. And so we accept ourselves for what we are: weak and far from what we want to be in our behavior, but strong in the grace of God who has made us his sons and daughters. That is what Jesus was talking about to his disciples in his last discourse when he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. . . . Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (Jn 14:27). “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace” (Jn 16:33).
Now don’t say, “That can’t be me, because I have all kinds of trouble.” This peace does not mean the end of trouble. It does not mean the end of doing battle with doubt and temptation. It doesn’t mean there will be no more tears and no more sorrow. It does mean that even though the sea of life may boil and foam, there is deep down that “peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Phil 4:7), the peace that comes with sins forgiven and the assurance that he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all will also with him freely give us all things. It is the peace that tells us that he will never leave us or forsake us. So, if we want that peace this Christmas, let us go to Bethlehem. Look into the eyes of the little Baby and know that in him you have peace.
However, while peace between God and his creation is the best gift, and inner peace is great, what about peace between human beings? Does Christ’s birth in Bethlehem have anything to do about that? At Christmas time we love to sing, “O Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Ah! What a picture these words paint for us of the quaint little town peacefully sitting in the country side. Let me tell you about Bethlehem as recorded in the most recent National Geographic. They write, “This is not how Mary and Joseph came into Bewthlehem, but this is how you will enter it now. You wait at the wall. It’s a daunting concrete barricade, three stories high, thorned with razor wire. Standing beside it you feel as if you’re at the base of a dam. Israeli soldiers armed with assault rifles examine your papers. They search your vehicle. No Israeli citizen, by military order, is allowed in. And few Bethlehem residents are permitted out- the reason the wall exists here, according to the Israeli government, is to keep terrorists away from Jerusalem. If you are cleared to enter, a sliding steal door, like the one on a boxcar, grinds open. The soldiers step aside, and you drive through a temporary gap in the wall. Then the door slides back, squealing on its track, booming shut. You’re in Bethlehem.” “O little town of Bethlehem is besieged by occupation, war and terrorism. The war that is evidenced there is only a small picture of what is going on throughout our world. Right now there are at least one hundred armed conflicts going on around the world. Of course, since man’s first sin and rebellion from God it has always been this way for the people of the earth. If we cannot get along with God, how can we expect to get along with each other? Of course we know that when Jesus was born in Bethlehem it was a town under occupation of Rome and only seventy years after the angels sang this song the armies of the Roman emperor, almost within sight of the fields of Bethlehem, sacked the holy city of Jerusalem and filled its streets with blood. Our Lord said that there will be wars and rumors of wars till the end of time. At the end of time, because of Jesus Christ, there will be peace.
When we talk about peace between people and people, however, there are things closer to home that matter to us What about right in our own homes? There are many homes in which the stereo plays “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled,” where there is no peace but only anger, hatred and suspicion. There can be healing for this. As we understand what the Lord has done, offering us peace through Jesus Christ in the forgiveness of sins, we too offer this peace and forgiveness to the people in our lives. After all how can we kneel at the manger and accept God’s terms by grace and not offer the same peace to a fellow human being, especially if that human being is husband, wife, or child? If we want to know how we follow our Lord Jesus. Zechariah said, that Jesus came “to guide our feet into the path of peace” (Lk 1:79). As Christian being at peace with God, we desire to live in peace with all people. It begins in Bethlehem.
The writer of the National Geographic article concludes his article talking about the church and cave in Bethlehem where the Christ child might have been born. “But no matter your version of Christianity – or even if you’re not religious at all – there seems to be something significant the the cave beneath the church floor, with its odor of incense and candle wax, lit by a string of bare bulbs. Visitors from all over the world descend the 14 steps into the earth. Many drop involuntarily to their knees. They pray, sing, weep, and faint in the Nativity spot. It happens all day, every day. The air in the grotto, dank and musty, has the smell of history. The conflicts played out in Bethlehem are capable of transcending borders – the future of millions of people, after all, is at stake. A major breakdown could engulf much of the globe. “It’s easy to think of Bethlehem as the center of the world,” says mayor Batarseh. “This can’t be a place where calm never exists. If the world is ever going to have peace, it has to start right here.”
How right he is. If the world is ever to have peace, it has to start in Bethlehem. It has started. Two-thousand years ago, the Savior of the world was born to Mary. He was born to save us from sins. He was born to save us from ourselves. He was born to save us and make way the path of peace.
Lord, we thank you for giving us this peace in the Christ Child. We pray that this peace may ever live and rule within our hearts, even in the day of trouble. And we ask that in the name of the Baby of Bethlehem we may, as much as can, live peaceably with all people, that all may see that we are your children and, as they see our good works, may glorify you, the God of all peace, in Jesus Christ our Lord.
“O Little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in the darkness shineth, the everlasting light, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.” Amen! Merry Christmas and Christmas blessings to you all.