Sermon Tone Analysis

*Planetary Peace Talks*

 

Words from the prophet Isaiah:

 

Isaiah 9.6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness

from that time on and forever.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

Prince of peace.

We are in the season of Advent and it’s the day we focus on the word peace.

What does it mean to you?

What do you want it to mean?

 

Peace means many things to many people.

Some look at the world they know and think in terms of the end to conflict.

Did you know that the great American historian~/philosopher Will Durant once calculated that in all of recorded history there have been only 29 years without war?

Right now, there are 8 wars going on in our world and as many as 15 civil wars or insurgencies.

It makes those words from Isaiah all the more distressing.

We read,“Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.”

So, when?

We wonder, the end of war?

The end of fighting, bullying, conflict?

The end of endless arguing in Parliament?

The end of domestic violence and some know that violence can be verbal as well as physical.

And for some peace can mean an inner calm.

The world is what it is, but at least I can be at peace, in my heart and my mind.

This peace is a means to being centered and to get the maximum amount of joy out of the life we have.

It isn’t a retreat into self-centeredness, so much as a spiritualized view of peace.

So, one view is rooted in the physical world and the other in the inner, spiritual world.

It’s almost like they are opposed to each other.

But can peace of mind sustain us when the world is exploding?

Or, can an end to open conflict be satisfying if there is war simmering yet in the heart?

Can we really be satisfied with one or the other?

Settle for one or the other?

Must it be one or the other?

Where do we go from here?

What I want to invite you to do today is to imaginatively enter a story.

The story of the Magi in Matthew 2. What we’ll do is read the story and then look at it from three different points of view: Mary and Joseph’s, Herod’s and the Magi’s.

What we’ll see is that peace is a difficult thing to accept and to participate in; and that ultimately, for peace to happen, God must intervene and humanity must cooperate.

Matthew 2.1-23

 

* “*After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?

We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

4When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.

5“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

6“ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for out of you will come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

7Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.

8He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child.

As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

9After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

10When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.

Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

12And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

13When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

“Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.

Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15where he stayed until the death of Herod.

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

 

16When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

17Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18“A voice is heard in Ramah,

weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.””

19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.

22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.

Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth.

So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

There is a three part plot to the story that we’ll use as we look at each point of view.

The first is that life is filled with anxiety.

Secondly that anxious people act out of their anxiety.

And finally that appropriate action affirms peace or a lack of it.

And I just want to make one important note about the word anxiety.

Some here know that word in a clinical form.

That is not what we’re talking about.

The definition of ‘anxiety’ in this message is the generalized stress that people can feel at greater or lesser intensity depending on what is going on at the time.

So, first up, Matthew 2 from Joseph and Mary’s point of view.

There is no doubt that Joseph and Mary are anxious.

They’ve had a baby before their wedding, which was not cool for their time and culture.

They are in a strange town having travelled through the final stages of their pregnancy only to give birth in an animal shelter.

They survive all of this, move into a house and a while later some strangers show up.

No ordinary folk, these Magi, magician, slash government official types bring very expensive gifts and worship the baby.

Now, if the story is too familiar, imagine how it would be for you if you’re trying to quietly make a new start for yourself and suddenly the TV trucks roll up to announce to the world that you’d won a prize that you hadn’t even entered the contest for.

Yes, they are anxious.

And then Joseph has dreams.

Again, it sounds nice, doesn’t it?

To hear from God via dreams.

But Joseph hasn’t heard anything to date that has been non-anxiety giving.

Your fiancé is pregnant . . .

marry her anyway . . .

now go run to Egypt there is a death warrant out for your son.