God of All Wisdom, our hearts yearn for the warmth of your love, and our minds search for the light of your Word. In this hour of worship, increase our longing for Christ, our Reconciler, and strengthen us to grow in love.   Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

You are here, as you know, for the final Sunday of Advent, the season that all leads up to what is going to happen tomorrow night. It is the arrival of a very special occasion, the birth of Jesus, the Christ. As most of you also know, it is the most-celebrated holiday on the planet. For the past three or four weeks we have been trying to get at the question of “Why?” What is so special about Christmas? Why does the world celebrate this incredible thing in such an amazing way? 

 

Hopefully, we have discovered during the Advent season, the secret can fairly well be unlocked in the gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, which has been sort of our memory verse throughout these past three or four weeks. Remember the angel appearing on that dark night out in the field, in the middle of nowhere, to a bunch of shepherds working the nightshift and making this announcement:  

 

Folks, when good news of great joy comes, what do people do? They celebrate. It’s party time. 

 

Christmas is God’s way of saying to the entire world, “I love you. Not only do I love you, but also I am with you, and I am not only with you, but also I am for you. I am not against you. I am constantly One who is encouraging you to do the good, the right, the loving thing.” 

 

And that is good news, folks, not just for us but for all people.

 

Let’s do a quick review.

 

The first purpose of Christmas then, we said several weeks ago, is to celebrate. The second purpose of Christmas we talked about was something called “salvation.” Or if the word “salvation” has a lot of baggage for you, substitute the word “healing.” They are the same word in Scripture. 

 

The angel goes on to say, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, a Healer, who is Christ the Lord.” 

 

Christmas says, “God is here to help, to rescue, to heal from that which separates us. It is what the Bible calls “sin.” It is not only to rescue us, but also to do so for a purpose, and not only to do it for a purpose, but by God’s amazing grace. It is amazing.

 

Today, I would like for us to talk about the third purpose of Christmas, if you would, biblically, and that is the word, “reconciliation.” 

 

The angel went on to say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will towards all humankind, towards men and women, towards all people.” 

 

That third announcement: “Let there be peace on earth.” That is what I would like for us to talk about today. That’s called “reconciliation” which, as you know, is just a big word that means what happens when broken relationships get restored. It’s when a boyfriend and a girlfriend get back together again. It’s when a husband and wife get back together again. It’s when a child, or a parent, or siblings, or friends get back together again. It’s when coworkers, or communities, or even nations restore their relationships, get back together, make peace, and live in harmony with each other. That is what the Bible means when it says, “reconciliation.”

 

The question I want to lift up for us today is, “Where do you need reconciliation in your life this Christmas?” Let’s make this personal. “Where do you need peace? Where do you need good will?” 

 

I asked some folks that question recently. “Where would you like to see peace this Christmas?” The responses were interesting. They were all over the place.

 

“Where would you like to see peace?”

·        “I would like to see it everywhere.” (Well, OK.)

·        “I would like to see peace in broken families.”

·        “I would like to see peace in my home.”

·        “I would like to see peace in my school.”

·        “I would like to see peace in politics.”

·        “I would like to see peace in this state.”

·        “I would like to see peace in this country that you and I live in.”

·        “I would like to see peace in Iraq.”

·        “I would like to see peace in Afghanistan.”

·        “I would like to see peace in Israel.”

·        “I would like to see peace everywhere.”

 

Isn’t that sort of a pipe dream? Don’t you think? To hope and to pray that peace would break out, somehow, everywhere?

 

Let me say something out loud, which I know you already know. There will never be peace on this earth until there is peace between nations. There will never be peace between nations until there is peace in our communities. There will never be peace in our communities until there is peace in our families. There will never be peace in our families until there is peace in each individual heart.

 

That is your heart and my heart, because the root of the human problem, folks, is not economics. It is not social. It is not political. The root of the human problem is the human heart. There will never be peace until the human heart is open, until the human heart invites the Prince of Peace to live and reign in that heart. That is why the Scripture calls the Living Christ “the Prince of Peace.” 

 

What kind of peace? The Bible talks about three kinds of peace – three kinds of peace that Jesus offers. That is what we are going to talk about today. Peace with God, peace of God, and peace with each other. Let’s take them one at a time. 

 

Number One: Peace with God. Spiritual peace. 

 

I don’t know if you realize this or not, but if you are a person, or you know people who are trying to run their own lives, who are doing their own thing in their own way, who are giving themselves without reservation to all kinds of things – be it their agenda, or their work, or their family, or their country – listen up. Anytime anybody gives herself or himself, without reservation, to something else, they are worshiping. If it is anything other than the Creator of all that is, you are at war with God. Did you know that? 

 

You are at war with God, because basically, you have not come to grips with a very basic fundamental truth. You have yet to learn whose you are. You do not have your identity squared away. You don’t know in whose likeness you have been created. 

 

One of the things Jesus came to do was to tell you, and to tell the whole world, that you are a beloved daughter, a beloved son of God. We talk a lot about Jesus being the Son of God. Guess what? You, too, are a son of God, a daughter of God. Did you know that? That is who you are. But more than that, as Henri Nouwen says, “Your belovedness precedes you in your birth.”  

 

God loved you before your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your church, or anybody else loved you or hurt you. God loved you before you were born, and God will love you after you die. 

 

Jeremiah 31 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” 

 

That is a fundamental truth about who you are, about who I am, about who all of us are. Whether you feel it, whether know it, whether you have accepted it, whether you believe it or not, you belong to God, from eternity and to eternity. Until you get that, you are at war with God. 

 

Folks, God made you to love you. Life is just that little opportunity, that little window of opportunity of a few years, in which you get to say back to God, “I love you, too.” 

 

Until you understand that, until you have accepted that, life is not going to make a whole lot of sense to you, and the people you care about, because you are, by definition, not at peace with God. 

 

Romans 5 says it this way, “Now that you have been put right with God through faith, you have peace with God.” 

 

That is what God is asking, that we have faith in God’s unconditional love. By faith, what Jesus means is, to trust, without reservation, that you are loved eternally by the Creator of all that is. That is peace. 

 

You want peace? You want peace in this world? The place it starts is at the spiritual level – making peace with God. It is a spiritual peace. We usually do everything backwards.

 

Number Two: The peace of God. Emotional peace. 

 

It is something that happens inside of you. It is something that happens in your heart. It is something that happens in your very core being. When you have made peace with God, when you know whom you are, and when you know whose you are, when you know there is one who loves you and will never let you go, suddenly, something happens inside. It is emotional. It is something you feel. 

 

People say stress goes down in their lives. They find out they are not as angry as they used to be. They are not as afraid as they used to be. They are not as ticked-off. They are not as hostel as they used to be. 

 

That doesn’t mean that they are indifferent. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. They genuinely care, but they are not as aggressive. They are not as belligerent. They are not as self-absorbed. They are not as agitated as they used to be. Indeed, people who have experienced this peace with God are a lot more gentle. They are more kind. They find themselves being more patient, more compassionate. They find themselves worshiping instead of worrying. They find themselves praying instead of panicking. 

 

They just seem to be people who feel a whole lot more of something called “love and peace.” They are a lot more loving, a lot more peaceful than they used to be. Why? Because they have actually experienced, they have actually felt, they actually have peace with God. 

 

When they have it with God, then they receive the peace of God. The Bible puts it this way, “Don’t worry about anything. Instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank God for all that God has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. God’s peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4). 

 

So, once you have made peace with God, and you receive something of the peace of God, God says, “I want you to be a peacemaker.” 

 

This is where we usually start. You don’t start by making peace. 

 

Number Three: Peace with each other. Be a peacemaker.

 

“I want you to make peace with other people.” It is the ministry, the work of reconciliation, putting things back together that belong together, things that are broken. Jesus said it this way, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” 

 

How? How are we to make peace from a Christian viewpoint in this world? 

 

One: We have to break the silence. 

 

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986, said it this way, “You know what? The world knew, and the world remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim, and sometimes we must interfere. Whenever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that is the place, at that moment, that needs to become the center of the universe.” 

 

How do Christians make peace? Number One: We have to break the silence.

 

Two: We must act. 

 

We must do something. Mother Teresa, again a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1979, said it well. We have heard it many times: “We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”

 

Just write that one down in your mind. “We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Every time you do a small act that you offer someone else in great love, you are helping to make peace. We must act.

 

Three: Christians have to love everybody. 

 

That is a tough one. Jane Adams, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1931, was an amazing woman. I had never heard of her before. I read about her this week. She was a pioneer social worker, a feminist, a pacifist. She was a moving spirit of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. She was president of the Women’s International Organization for Peace and Freedom. She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union. She reminded us in 1931, “The spectacle of the Christians loving all people was the most astounding thing that Rome had ever seen. It literally changed western civilization.” 

 

Christians have no choice. We have to love everybody. And that is hard. That leads to Number Four. 

 

Four: Christians pray the most powerful prayer there is. 

 

Do you know what the most powerful prayer in the world is that exists today? Do you know what that prayer is? It is the prayer for our enemies. That is not easy. 

 

I can’t think of many things that would be more difficult. It requires great spiritual discipline to allow those who hate us to come into intimate contact with the center of our hearts, our souls. 

 

But as Henri Nouwen, the great Christian, pointed out, “Praying for our enemies is an act of reconciliation.” 

 

Why? Because it is impossible to lift our enemies up into the presence of God, and, at the same time, continue to hate them. 

 

There is no prayer more powerful than the prayer for our enemies, and no prayer that I know that is more difficult. It is difficult because it is so contrary to our instincts. That is why those who pray for their enemies are considered in this world to be holy people. 

 

Well, what’s so special about Christmas? We have been talking about that for sometime. 

 

The Spirit of the Living Christ is God’s gift, the Christmas gift that has been given to you. It is the Spirit that says essentially:

“I can replace the frustration in your heart with peace. I can replace the guilt, the shame, the mistakes that you have made with forgiveness. I can replace the worry and the anxiety that covers up some folks with confidence and faith. I can replace fear and despair with hope. I can replace for anyone who is struggling with emptiness with a sense of meaning and purpose, but I will not break down the door to your heart. I made you to be a human being. You have a choice. I value that choice more than you have any idea. I challenge you. It is beyond imagination. You have to open that door. You have to invite me in.” 

 

That is why, in the last Scripture I gave you today, the Bible says it this way: “It makes no difference who you are, or where you are from; if you want God and are ready to do what God says, the door is open.”  

 

That is our prayer for this Christmas. There is a gift waiting for all.

 

And we all say together… “Amen.”

 

 

Author of Peace, we are reminded of your peace when the countryside is blanketed in midnight snow. We get a glimpse of your peace in the face of a sleeping child. Let us know your peace in encounters with one another. Let us share this peace until it covers all your earth. Turn our hearts and ears to heaven to take in the comfort and joy found in your peace. Amen.