"The Way of Peace" - Sermon for Advent 2, 2015
Sermon:
Text:
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus
Christ who helps us see our prayers realized.
Advent is the
time of preparation for Christ’s coming. The word advent itself is Latin for
coming, or arrival. We prepare ourselves for Christmas. Last year I went on the
Tour of Homes in Vermillion, this years tour happened on Friday during the
midst of the 7th and 8th grade lock-in so I couldn’t go.
But, it was an amazing thing to witness as Sarah and I explored 4 very
different houses all nearly perfectly cleaned and decorated for Christmas. Each
one done just right to make it feel warm and inviting. They were ready for
company to come, for family Christmas to be celebrated.
That’s often
what Christmas and Advent have become, advent is the time to bake cookies and
bars, (which I still need to do) it’s the time to buy, make and wrap presents
(again what I still need to do), it’s the time to get ugly Christmas sweaters,
to have hot chocolate and cider at Christmas parties, to decorate the inside
and outside of our houses, and Christmas is the time to see family and friends
in good cheer and festivity.
And Advent and
Christmas are indeed those things, but they’re also much more. And it starts
quite small and different than we would think. It’s not a huge Macy’s
Thanksgiving Day Parade with Santa leading up the end. In fact when we look at
our Gospel for today it starts in the reverse order.
I can imagine
this as the beginning of a movie as it pans towards character after character
each one we expect to be the major player in the story. First it zooms down to
Emperor Tiberius in Rome, the most powerful person in the world at the time,
yes! He’ll be the one to announce the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Nope, it pans
right past him, next Pontius Pilate, the governor! Yep, he’s the major
character. And it again goes past him to
Herod, the son of Herod the Great from Jesus’s birth, who rules over Galilee,
then Herod’s brother Philip, who rules a smaller section, then to the puppet
High Priests, Annas and his Son in Law Caiaphas. But, the Word of God doesn’t
come to any of them, it passes them all and we find ourselves settling on a man
who is living out in the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere, called John. Now
he has a rather interesting birth story, his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth
are very old when God tells them through an angel that they will have a son,
Zechariah laughs at this so much that God makes him unable to speak until John
is born and presented at the Temple. We read his triumphant song upon regaining
his speech as our Psalm today. “In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn
from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and
in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
John has a
similar exclamation around 30 years later when he begins his own ministry
getting ready not for Jesus’ birth, but for Jesus to come to him and be
baptized in the river Jordan. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be
filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be
made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the
salvation of God.”
John is not the
major player in the world, he’s not an emperor, a governor, a ruler, a high
priest, he is a man out in the wilderness.
And God chooses
him to tell people about Jesus’ coming ministry. And just like John, God calls
us to tell about Jesus too. It doesn’t matter if we’re small or feel insignificant.
God chooses us too. And God wants us to prepare for Christ’s coming, as a baby,
as a teacher, and his coming again. All of it.
And so this
leads us back to preparation. When God asks us to prepare, what is meant? Does
God send Jesus to us to tell us to make sure our houses are pretty? Or that we
make good cookies and get good presents for others?
All of that is
indeed good, God wants us to gather as family and friends, and give thanks and
praise that Christ is born. But Christ did not come into the world to come to a
party, give some good hugs, sing some carols, open some presents and then head
home. Christ came to change the world.
We were talking
about the Lord’s Prayer in confirmation on Wednesday, and we ended up talking
about the second petition of the prayer for a while, thy kingdom come. And how
that doesn’t mean, bring us to your kingdom or bring us to heaven when we die,
but it means that we want God’s kingdom to be here and now, not just in the
future or in heaven, but here on earth.
And that’s what
Jesus came to do, to bring change here in our world. I read Zechariah’s song at
the birth of his son and I hope that we can work to bring his words to fruition.
“In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon
us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death and to
guide our feet into the way of peace.”
We had yet one
more mass shooting this week. There have been 355 mass shootings this year in our
country, that’s 355 times this year alone that a shooting has resulted in 4 or
more people being shot, 21 of those times more than 4 people have been killed
in that shooting. And each time we send out our prayers and thoughts to all the
people affected. And then we seem to not do anything about it. We don’t do any
studies trying to figure out why here in America we have so many more shootings
than other countries, we don’t do anything about helping those with mental
issues receive assistance and support, we don’t do anything about addressing
the many forms of inciteful language we can find all over the media and coming
out of our very mouths.
We say we pray,
and then we don’t follow our prayer up with anything. That’s not what Christ
calls us to when he comes. He calls us to work to bring God’s kingdom here, to
make the rough places smooth, the crooked straight, the have us walk on the way
of peace.
As we move
forward in advent, we prepare ourselves and our homes for Christmas, we
decorate, we bake, we wrap, let us also pray, for ourselves and all in this
world, and then let us also work to see those prayers realized. Let us allow
God to guide our feet into the way of peace, even when like this week we find
ourselves dwelling in darkness and under the shadow of death.
Let us allow
God to work among us, making peace in this world, for that is the only way we
can truly prepare ourselves for Christ to come again. That’s how we become,
like John, characters in this story.
Amen.
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