Advent 2: Peace

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  ² 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.  ³ 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;  ⁴ 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.  ⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.  ⁶ 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.  ⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  ⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.  ⁹ 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.  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.” – Isaiah 11:1-10

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“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,  27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”  29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.  32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.  36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.  37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”  38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.” – Luke 1:26-38

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I have a confession to make.

I have a weakness for Chuck Norris jokes.

Mind you I don’t usually watch martial arts movies. I don’t like watching fights. But I’ve seen probably two Chuck Norris movies and I get the idea: Chuck Norris is tough. Chuck Norris can’t be beaten.

Here are a few of my favorite Chuck Norris jokes:

• When Chuck Norris slices onions, the onions cry.
• There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
• Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
• Chuck Norris was once exposed to COVID. COVID had to quarantine for a week.
• Chuck Norris was once bitten by a cobra. After two weeks of agonizing pain the cobra died.
• And my favorite: Death once had a near-Chuck-Norris experience.

This Sunday, the second week of Advent, we have two interconnecting themes. Our advent wreath brings us to the candle of Peace. And our advent series, From Generation to Generation, focuses on fear, and how God meets us in our fears.

The problem is, these two things – peace and fear – usually cancel each other out. If we’re afraid, we have no peace. If we are at peace we are not afraid. We need a Chuck Norris! (as in, “there is nothing to fear but Chuck Norris himself.”)

Let me shift gears for a moment. At the Advent service this past Thursday night we were talking about the first words God speaks in the time of Advent. In Isaiah 40, God says:

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.”

These are the first words sung in Handel’s Messiah. The words to Messiah were pieced together from scripture: from the Old Testament, the Gospels, and Revelation; telling the story of Jesus the Messiah in God’s own words. These words from Isaiah are where the story begins.

As we live in these fearful days, where we see so many lives being pulled apart by hurricanes, tornados, floods, earthquakes… and the cost of food going through the roof… and all the shootings… just to name a few things… people have a lot of reasons to be afraid.

But as Christians we have even better reasons to not be afraid. Before I get to today’s scriptures I’d like to share a scripture verse that tells us why we don’t need to be afraid.

This verse is Isaiah 45:12.

To give context: In Isaiah chapter 45 God is talking to Cyrus, the king of the Babylonians. Most of Isaiah was written for (and to) the people of Israel who were in captivity in Babylon. Whenever we read all the beautiful Advent and Christmas readings from Isaiah, it’s important to keep in mind God was talking to people who were in captivity in a foreign land. They were living in a dark world,  much like we do.

In Isaiah chapter 45, God takes the unusual step of talking directly to a king who is NOT from Israel. God speaks directly to Cyrus, King of Babylon, and God says basically, “look, you don’t know who I am, but I know who you are, and you don’t know who you’re dealing with.” (v. 3-5) (God is sounding a little Chuck-Norris-y here!) God says to Cyrus: “you have taken my people captive… and I am watching” (v. 4, 11) God also says: “it’s not your place to question Me, it’s My place to question you” (v 9-11).

And then comes vs 12. God says:

“I made the earth,
And created humankind upon it
It was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
And I commanded all their host.” (Is 45:12)

This verse puts me in mind of the old saying, “don’t tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big your God is.”

Let me add quickly: it is perfectly OK to bring our problems to God, large or small, because we are God’s children and God loves us. It is more than OK to share everything with God. But the saying is often true: it can be helpful to tell our problems how big our God is.

Turning to our scriptures for the day, there’s no doubt in my mind that Mary, the young Jewish teenager from Nazareth, knew how big her God was. We can see this in the way she handled herself when she met the angel Gabriel.

When Gabriel greets Mary, one of the first things Gabriel says is “do not be afraid”. This seems to be a standard greeting throughout scripture whenever angels talk to people. There must be something about angels that we humans find frightening, though the Bible doesn’t say why. Are angels physically big? We don’t know. We do know angels don’t have wings – wings were added by artists in medieval times to express the concept that angels move very quickly, and can appear and disappear in an instant. But there are no wings involved where it comes to meeting angels. So do angels have eyes that are fiery and penetrating? Do they have voices that resound and fill the room? Do they have something of God’s perfect nature about them, so that people fear angels the way we fear God? We don’t know.

We do know that most of the time in scripture, when someone meets an angel, their first reaction is to pass out and fall over. It is a testament to Mary’s courage and godly character that she stays on her feet during this whole conversation with Gabriel.

The writers of our Advent series point out that the phrase “do not be afraid” is one of the most commonly-spoken phrases in the Bible. It appears 75 times. By comparison, widows and orphans – who we are commanded throughout scripture to take care of – are mentioned only about half as often. But from generation to generation, God has arrived in the middle of our fears, in spite of our fears. And Mary’s reaction was exceptional.

For the rest of us, in today’s world, how do we get past the places of fear or pain or uncertainty? In our world fear is a common experience. We may fear for our safety, for the well-being of our loved ones. Many of us fear the things we see on the news at night. Some of us fear having too much month left at the end of the money. The list of things people might fear is extremely long. In fact there are over 400 officially recognized phobias in the world of psychology… and that doesn’t include just everyday garden-variety fears.

Where it comes to God, we may be afraid of not being good enough. We may be afraid that we’ve committed sins God can’t forgive. We may be afraid that God is like Santa, keeping track of who’s naughty and who’s nice. We may try to rack up some extra points in the “nice” column by volunteering or making a donation on Giving Tuesday.

(My take on Giving Tuesday:)

Just in case it needs to be said: God is not like that. We who love Jesus do what we do, and give what we give, because God loved us first. And when you’re in a relationship with Someone you love, you want to do things for each other that will bring joy to each other.

But sometimes our feelings and worries go deeper than that. Sometimes we miss out on shalom – that deep peace and sense of well-being that Jesus talks about when he says “peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you: not as the world gives, do I give to you.”

How do we find peace like that, in times like these?

Let me get back to Isaiah 45:12, where God is talking to King Cyrus. God says two really important things:

1. “I made the earth, and created humankind”, and
2. “it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.”

Our God – the God who teaches us to pray “Our Father” – created us. God also created this good earth. God designed and made the mountains, the canyons, the rivers, the waterfalls, the oceans, the animals: lions, and cheetahs (I love cheetahs – they run as fast as cars!) God made giraffes, and snails, and sharks, and whales, and trees, and strawberries, and grapevines… you name it. God designed and made everything on earth. And when God created us, God gave us the ability to create also. So we make houses and businesses and parks and cathedrals and so on – demonstrating that we are created in the image of God who creates.

God made the earth, and all humankind. And then God says: “it was my hands that stretched out the heavens.” I want to think about that for a moment. God didn’t create just this planet. God created everything we see in the night sky, and some things that we can’t see!

Where it comes to the stars, the star nearest to earth, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.25 light-years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year. To give an idea of how far a light-year is: someone traveling around the earth at the equator at the speed of light would go around the world about 7½ times in a second. That’s a light-second. Traveling at the speed of light, the nearest star is 4.25 light-years away. And that’s the closest star. There’s much more further out.

GOD MADE ALL THIS!!

In Psalm 8 King David says to God:

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made [us] a little lower than divine beings, and crowned [us] with glory and honor.”

Knowing this – knowing what God can do – puts my mind at peace about a lot of things. I don’t know how everything in life is going to work out. I don’t know how the troubles in our world will be solved. But I know the power of the One we believe in, the power of the One who saved us. And I know God has called us to be part of the work to bring justice and compassion to people who are hurting, or in need, or find themselves alone in this world.

And I also know our reading from Isaiah 11:1-10 is talking about the coming of Jesus the Messiah when it says…

“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… He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear;  4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth… 5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.” (Is 11:2-5)

This is the God who saves us. We don’t need to be afraid. And Isaiah’s prophecy assures us that when Jesus returns,

“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.” -and- “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.”  (Is 11:6, 9)

From generation to generation, people have followed Isaiah’s example, and Mary’s example, and have said ‘yes’ to God, in trust and without fear. And the word of God, and faith in Christ have been passed down from them to us, and we in turn will pass it on to others.

And if we see anyone who afraid, God calls us to be bringers of peace in God’s power. One writer puts it this way: “Advent is a season both to long for God’s peace and to become lights of peace in the shadows.” 

So today two things today to take with us today:

• Fear is common in a world that has turned away from God, in a world that does not listen to God’s call for love and justice. The closer we are to God – the closer anyone comes to God – the less fear there is in life, and the more we know how to bring peace and compassion into the world.
• Peace comes from knowing the Prince of Peace. God, who created a universe bigger than anyone can imagine, loves us and hears our prayers, and by the power of Jesus has included us in the eternal Kingdom. We have nothing to fear.

Peace be with you. AMEN.

 

Preached at Fairhaven United Methodist Church and Spencer United Methodist Church, 12/4/22