As we light the second candle of Advent, we reflect on our own readiness for receiving your hope in our midst. We place our lives alongside your intention for a world where wolves can live with lambs, and the peoples of the earth will not bring harm to each other. May our lives reflect hope as we pray for a world of peace. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scenario 1:

When I was in the fourth grade, I had a girlfriend named Rachael. I really did. We were real sweet to each other. You know how it is when you are in the fourth grade. You hold hands, and you giggle a lot.

 

But after a while, after about four days, the sweetness soured, and our relationship, quite frankly, was in trouble. In those days, they didn’t teach the niceties of conflict resolution in the classroom. We handled things a bit more directly.

 

One day Rachael walked up to me on the playground, and she kicked me in the shins. Of course, I kicked her back. That seemed to take care of the matter. We were officially separated then. We went on with our lives. No big deal. Forget about it and move on. She had her life to live. I had my life to live. 

 

Even though we went to the same school and sat in the same classes for the next eight years, we never became friends again. We didn’t even acknowledge the existence of the other person. In fact, I have not seen Rachael for nearly 45 years. For all I know, she may be sitting out there right now, but I have never forgotten that event.

 

Scenario 2:

Casey is a cousin of our youngest child, Mollie. They grew up together, going to family reunions in Estes Park. I remember him when he was just a baby. 

 

Casey is a Second Lieutenant, platoon leader, in the United States Army stationed in Iraq today. He has 38 young men under his command. 

 

In an e-mail I got from him this week, he says, “I’d love to be home for Christmas. It’s my favorite time of year. But I’m very busy here. We run patrols on a daily basis, doing any number of things from offering civilians aid, to doing police-type work, to engaging in combat. It’s an exciting job really. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Where else can a 23-year-old travel the world, immerse himself in a culture, with a position of authority, and interact with people who are different than he is on a daily basis? It’s pretty awesome. Well, thanks for the e-mail. Got to be going. Take care. God Bless. Casey.”

 

Casey, like many others, is a soldier today. He’s also a Christian, and he believes that the war against terrorism is the way to peace. He is willing to put his life on the line to help make it happen.

 

Scenario 3:

Jim Loney is a Christian pacifist. He wrote several weeks ago: “My father’s name is Patrick. He is 70. I am 39. I told him I was going to Iraq with a group of people called Christian Peacemakers to do human rights work.

 

“My Dad said, ‘Well, James, I’m really not very excited about that. I wish you would think about your mother and me before you would do such things.’

 

“I told my Dad, ‘Dad, I’m scared, but it’s something that I feel I have to do.’ I told my Dad about the friend I had in school who was sent to Afghanistan as part of Canada’s war against terrorism and about how one of his closest buddies was killed by a roadside bomb. If he is being asked to risk his life as a soldier, then I, as a Christian pacifist who believes that war is not the way to peace, should be prepared to take the same risks.”

 

Jim Loney was kidnapped this past week. He is currently being held as a captive in Iraq. If you watched any of the media yesterday, you learned that he and three other captives are being threatened with execution at the end of this week if certain demands are not met.

 

Scenario 4:

Muriel grew up in Belgium. They say she lived a rather conventional life in an industrial city in that part of the world. She went to high school, and like many in their culture and ours, she had a run in with drugs and alcohol, but somehow she graduated. They say she did some retail work in a bakery, and she moved on to become a banker’s assistant. She was a nice kid, a good daughter, according to her parents. 

 

But things began to change when she married an Algerian man, and they turned toward Islamic Fundamentalism. They became a member of a terrorist cell group connected with Al Qaeda. This past Wednesday, Muriel left Belgium, entered Iraq through Syria, and detonated explosives strapped to her body in a failed attack against U.S. troops.

 

This is the second Sunday of Advent, the time when the people of God celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace. But I must tell you. For most of this week, nothing seemed more futile than preparing a sermon on peace. Is there anything we can say? Is there anything we can do? Is there anything that can happen to make any difference in a world that is struggling with the kinds of things our world is struggling, that we’ve been struggling with since the very beginning of time itself?

 

It’s a world where people still choose to deal with one another within groups, within races, within religions, with violence, with brutality, inflicting pain and suffering and injury and death. What do we have to say today? Is there anything we can do?

 

Folks, I was a history major. Let me tell you. Every time we choose to use violence against another, as good as it seems at the time, we more often than not end up paying for it for years and years to come. If you don’t believe that the sins of the father get visited on his children, let us be reminded in the Middle East this very day, we are still paying for the stupidity of the Crusades that were initiated in Jesus’ name over a 1000 years ago. That is just one example. There are hundred of others.

 

So what do we have to say? What do we have to do in the world today? What do we have to say about peace? 

 

Perhaps we should follow the lead of the one the Scripture calls the “Prince of Peace.” According to Luke, Jesus begins to lead toward peace, not by talking, but by weeping. Jesus cried. Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem, the capitol, the center of the nation, and he wept. He cried over it. He grieved. He cried over the blindness of the human family. 

 

Just listen to this. Jesus approached Jerusalem, and he saw the city, and he wept over it, saying, “Would that even today, you knew the things that make for peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes. And so the time will come when your enemies will encircle you. They will hem you in on every side. They will dash you and your children to the ground, and they will not leave one stone turned upon another, and all because you did not see. You did not recognize the time. You did not recognize your opportunity when God offered it to you.”

 

Well… What are the things that make for peace? There is a ton of things. Let’s start with prayer. I’m getting to the point, folks, where prayer is a lot more powerful than I ever knew. We need to be praying for peace. We need to be praying for our leaders, and not just our leaders, but all leaders everywhere. We need, according to Jesus, to be praying for our enemies. We need to be praying for justice, that people do what is fair with one another. We need to be praying for righteousness, doing the right thing, living the right way.

 

There is a sermon in every one of those, but today I want to offer two things that make for peace. There are two things that Christians must do if we are going to have anything to say to our world today about peace.

 

Number 1:

 

You and I and the other billion Christians in this world have to take the lead. You and I have to set the example. We must lead by example. That means we have to start seeing with things other than our eyes and other than our brains. We have to start thinking with our hearts. In our hearts we begin to see the peace the Prince brings – that God had dreamed for this creation to this very day. You can’t see it with your eyes. You can’t grab it with your mind. You have to be able to see it with your heart. The witness of faith says that when that happens – when our hearts see – they burst into flames. They ignite. They combust, and that fire has a name. Everyone in this room knows the name of that combustible heart. It’s called love – “agape love” in the Scriptures. It’s not soupy, mushy, romantic love, but the love of God, the selfless love, the outpouring love of God.

 

In the early days of the Church, people would look and say, “See how much those Christians love one another?” This led people to join them. People wanted what this group of people had. They had kindness, integrity, respect, joy, service, a pouring out of oneself for others. That is what makes for well-being. That’s what creates biblical “shalom.” That’s what makes for peace.

 

We have to lead by example. We have to show people what peace looks like, because they do not know. And the way we show people is how you and I treat each other right here. There is nothing more powerful, in terms of a witness to the world, than how we treat each other.

 

“See how much they love one another.”

 

It’s a struggle. It has always been a struggle. Paul, the architect of the early Church, for example, had a very straightforward view of the necessity and the benefits of love:

“Love is not jealous or boastful. It’s not arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way. It hopes all things. It believes all things. It endures all things.” (I Corinthians 13)

 

Love – God’s kind of love, not mushy love – that kind of love never ends!

 

Good old Paul never talked about peace. He could talk about love until the cows came home, but peace… When it came to peace, Paul waffled. He said in Romans 12, “If it is possible, insofar as it depends on you, live peacefully with everyone.” 

 

“If…” “If” was the key word there. Talk about loopholes. It is big enough for Rambo to drive a tank through.

 

Some say Paul was just being realistic, and I suppose he was. I suspect there will always be people who are going to mess with us, and we are going to mess with them, which means, I guess, that violence is here to stay. Nevertheless, we Christ followers, if possible, insofar as it is up to us, are to live peacefully with everyone. 

 

That’s not a bad place to start. Is it? We have to set the example. That’s our calling. That’s our job.

 

Number 2:

 

Celebrate the small victories. World peace? Don’t hold your breath. But small victories are everywhere. 

 

Hear the voice of Mother Theresa who said from the past:

“There are no more big things. There are no more big deals to be done in this world. There are only small things that need to be done with great, big love.”

 

Two centuries ago, Edward Hale said:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse the something that I can do.”

 

That’s our calling. Don’t refuse the thing you can do, whatever it is.

 

You know that old classic story that Lauren Easley tells. It think it sums up our task. It’s the story about the man who is sitting looking out the window of a coffee shop at the sea. He watches a woman down by the water who is throwing starfish back into the sea.

 

The man from the coffee shop goes down by the water, and he informs the starfish thrower that her work is in vain. He tells her that millions of starfish get washed up on the shore. “They have no hope of life,” he says. “You don’t think you are going to make any difference by throwing just those few back in?”

 

The starfish thrower picks up one of the starfish and speaks the classic line, “Well, it’s going to make a difference to this one.” And then she hurls it with all of her might into the deep.

 

So, Rachael, if you are out there… “I wish you hadn’t kicked me. But, oh, I am so much sorrier that I kicked you back. And all I can do is promise you that insofar as it depends upon me, it shall not happen again.”

 

And we all say together… “Amen.”

 

Prince of Peace, you were born in a barn, and still you knew when to close and open the doors. Give us this wisdom that we might bring your peace through the shutting out of violence and hatred, and the opening up to justice and kindness. The peace of the earth hinges on us. You are knocking; let us answer! Amen.