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Christmas Eve, 12/24/2015
What Kind of Peace Is This?
Sermon on Luke 2:10-20, by Walter Harms
It was the angel chorus, wasn’t who sang: Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased? Peace on earth? They must have been joking. There is no peace on earth. Or it could be that God is not very pleased with what is going on these days.
On Google I found out that at this time there are hundreds of armed conflicts in the countries of Africa alone. I was too frightened to read the rest of the stories about Asia, Europe, and the Americas—too many, too many. Peace is where? Certainly not on earth.
In the United States we have had San Bernardino, the Twin Towers, and who knows how many more. France and England have seen terrorist attacks also. The angels could not have been proclaiming peace like most of us would like to think about it. Right in the USA, we have become increasing afraid of attacks by terrorists and who knows when the next person will find it the correct action to massacre people in quantity.
The Babe lying in the cattle feeder was said to the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. That’s a pretty big job description for a baby just born. Would he be up to it? Was he up to it? Would he save us from what really ails us? Would he somehow be the Christ, the promised King to rule the whole world? Could he possibly be God? Isn’t all of that way over the top?
Is it any wonder that we have reduced the celebration of what this Baby is purported to be into a celebration of giving mostly about things in reality we surely didn’t need a month ago?
Perhaps a little perspective on the “peace” Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and all the rest in the Roman Empire were experiencing would be helpful. Peace was accomplished by squashing like a roach any opposition to what the Emperor wanted or that might acknowledge the rights of a particular territory. And the Emperor was hailed a “son of God.”
It is into that kind of climate that this Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit entered. This Son of God who could have called on armies of angels to serve his purpose while on earth had them serve him only when he was tempted by the devil in the wilderness with all the really wild animals.
So what was the peace he was bringing to this world, to us? What kind of war, struggles, and conflicts do we face? What kind of peace do we want, do we need? The battles we face most of the time are inner conflicts. We want to do what is right and good, and we end up all too often shooting ourselves in the foot with the resultant pain of disgust with self, hatred of others who seemed to have caused this conflict, and worse, we have permitted our emotions to run out of control, ruled by what our society wants. We end up impaled with a sense that we are worthless or that we are simply out of control.
Why the drug problems, even among churchgoers? Why is alcoholism such a big problem? Why is obesity with its resultant physical ailments the almost #1 problem in our country? Why is violence up? Why are the rich getting richer and the poor poorer?
It’s what the church has always called: sin. How can others love us or God? How can we even love ourselves? Well, the devil that father of all liars says: “What the ____, why pay any attention to all that garbage put out by the church? Most of them are hypocrites anyways. And besides isn’t it finally all a myth? Should we just eat, drink and do our own “be merry” because all too soon its all going to end? Hasn’t science improved our lives a lot, while the church is sagging like an old barn door?”
It was a battle for Jesus. He almost got murdered as an infant. His cousin was beheaded not by a jihadist, but by a local governor. His hometown people thought he was too big for his own britches. His mother and brothers one time thought he was a little touched in the head. He seemed to have been able to attract only a type of terrorist, a couple of IRS-types who always cheated people, people who fished and you know how fish stink, the mangy, the very sick and weak women.
The religious folks thought he was a subversive heretic. The legal authorities had nothing to do with him. In fact, they were instrumental in finally finishing him off.
What a sad commentary at Christmas!
Why all that? Because he promised peace, the kind of peace we must have in order to live like the human beings God fully intended us to be. If we feel often out of sync with society, this world, and ourselves, it is because of sin. We often like to forget that sinning is deadly. Yes, deadly! It destroys now and will destroy forever if it is not destroyed.
That’s what this Baby is all about. He had come to destroy. He has come to do battle. He has come to bring peace with God, so that we can live with ourselves, despite the stuff we get into so often deliberately.
It is hard to see the cross this day, the cross where this Baby went so that we wouldn’t end up there. He went to hell then to show us that we need not fear anything in this world because he is in charge. OK, buy a gun or twenty. They won’t keep death away in any way. But the rising from the grave, this Child did ends death cruel clutches forever.
Try at all times to remember the first words of the angel: “Fear not!” That is said to shepherds, to Mary and Joseph, to the world, and today to us. Fear not! Don’t fear that your sinful actions will destroy you. Fear not that death is the critter that cannot be killed. Fear not when everyone does forget that we even ever existed. Fear not life or death, what you face today or will face tomorrow, the highs and the lows of life, the powers out there that you can’t see, much less control.
Why? Because unto you is born a Savior from all the evil we do and are, the devil and the world of lies we live in, and death and all of the hells we live in; for to you, yes, to you is born God’s Son, the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords, the One who is the way, the only truth, and truly life itself.
We could not do better that the Blessed Virgin Mary did. She ponders all of this for as long as she lived. Will you do as she did? To the praise of the Christ Child. Amen.