Since tomorrow is the day that Sadaam Hussein must declare the willingness of his country
to disarm, and our own President will move toward this country's position regarding war, lighting the candle of
Peace seems especially appropriate. We have been praying for peace for the world for a long time now, and most
of you gathered here have lived through previous wars and international conflicts, and know firsthand the cost
involved. Who would not choose an alternative resolution instead?
If one defines "peace" however as the resolution of all conflict, then most of us who long for "peace"
must also accept the fact that individually we have a lot of work to do ourselves before that can ever happen.
It is when one begins to consider the individual price that must be paid for peace, the personal work involved,
that the real question emerges: Do we really want peace in the first place?
What fragments the hope of peace? Broken relationships, personal dissatisfactions, low self-esteem, an ungrateful
heart, these are all barriers to finding peace. As long as they continue to exist in our lives, real peace is blocked.
If we are not at peace, we cannot hope to bring peace to others.
Jesus promised peace "not as the world gives," and said that his peace, once achieved, could never be
taken away. Those words, spoken in a time of great turmoil, placed in the setting of the last supper, but actually
recorded following the second Jewish rebellion around 132 AD, were offering an alternative to the brief respites
and treaties that a failing empire had extended for the last seventy years. The message contained therein is in
sharp contrast to the way business is regularly done in the secular, or material world. It places the emphasis
for finding lasting peace on the inner, or spiritual plane, stressing the need to resolve personal issues first.
This is also true of John's call to a baptism of repentance in the wilderness of the Jordan, which was also a highly
political challenge. He was asking people to reclaim their rightful heritage by not only reenacting the first crossing
of the Jordan over a thousand years before, but also by renouncing their attachments to secular ways of thinking
and living which were other than the one's God had commanded to them. This was at the heart of what it meant to
"repent." It is through this same desert, the wilderness they were being challenged to return to, that
the people of Israel had come home twice before. The first time in the exodus from Egypt, under the leadership
of Moses, and the second on the return from exile in Babylon. Both times they had come through the wilderness and
crossed over the Jordan into the land of promise. This third time would be a complete act, renewing the covenant
and preparing the way for lasting peace.
William Barclay points out in his commentary that this particular desert would be a place of uncertain footing,
a far cry from the comforts they had grown accustomed to, yet, as unpleasant as it was, a clearly recognized "road
of hope" which their ancestors had traveled before through the power of God.
Preparing the "wilderness" is clearing the wild and untamed sections of one's experience and making it
possible for real life and growth to take place there. Part of the reality of that experience is the willingness
to face an unknown future with confidence. The psalmist expresses that kind of confidence when he assures the people
that God will not only grant them prosperity, but will establish a time when "Steadfast love and faithfulness
will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness
will look down from the sky."
How does one prepare for peace? Precisely by making peace with ourselves and God. As we re-image the theological
activity of John the Baptist, we find one whose work was to present the challenge of preparing hearts to receive
the Messiah. Contained in his message is the understanding that the Messiah will not come until our hearts are
ready to receive Him, and that without the presence of the Messiah in our hearts we can never have lasting peace.
Sometimes age old traditions can become a straight-jacket that ties us down and threatens to kill any new hope
for inspiration. John entered the age old role of prophet but did so in order to bring a new message of anticipation.
He incorporated traditional understandings, but put them in a new light for a present time. Soren Kierkegaard illustrated
this same idea by contrasting the wise men of our Epiphany tradition to the scribes who were an ever- present part
of life in the time period that Jesus was born. He pointed out that the wise men heard a rumor and set of on a
long journey to a distant land, whereas the scribes spent a lifetime studying the scriptures but sat tight in Jerusalem.
He asked the question: "Who found the truth?"
Christians have long debated the truth of the repentance/forgiveness connection. Scripturally, when anyone repents
of a wrong action they are forgiven, whether the offended person forgives them or not. Coming to a true knowledge
of one's personal guilt and responsibility, being truly sorry for the wrong done, and trying to the best of one's
ability never to repeat the offense is repentance. By contrast, when you extend forgiveness to one who has not
repented, or who has not even acknowledged the wrong they did, the one extending the forgiveness reaps the benefits
of the very gift being offered, but the offender cannot. It is a process of unburdening, or off- loading the unnecessary
baggage of hurt and ill-will in order that one might travel free to God. This throws increased understanding on
Jesus' words of encouragement, "Come unto me all you who are weak and heavy burdened, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
When Jesus said "if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven, but if you retain the sins of any, they
are retained," the language is somewhat vague. It is difficult to tell exactly who retains the effects of
unforgiven sin. In conjunction with other texts however, such as the Lord's prayer, it would seem clear that it
is the one who holds the grudge, who continues to stew over the offense dealt to them, who becomes the recipient
of the sin they won't forgive.
Perhaps our punishment is the very peace we deprive ourselves of.
Robert Frost expresssed that same idea in a poem entitled Desert Places.
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast in a field I looked into going past, and the ground almost covered
smooth in snow,..but a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it-it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to
count;…the loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness will be more lonely ere it will be less-
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow with no _expression,…nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces between stars-on stars where no human race is. I have it in me, so
much nearer home, to scare myself with my own desert places.
Robert Frost knew the desert places are our own. They aren't out there, some place in the Middle East, in Israel,
or anywhere. They are our own, here, inside. So too one of the earliest church theologians, Origen of Alexandria,
recognized how vast the interior of the human soul really is, and how it becomes by choice either a vast treasure
store or a wilderness. Little more than three hundred years after the death of Jesus he wrote:
You must realize that the human heart is not small when it can contain all this. You ought to judge it not by its
physical size but by its power to embrace such a vast amount of knowledge of the truth.
But so that I may convince you that the human heart is large by a simple example from daily life, let us consider
this. Whatever city we may have passed through, we have in our minds. We remember its streets, walls, and buildings,
what they were like and where they were situated. We have a mental picture of the roads we have traveled. In the
moments of quiet reflection our minds embrace the sea that we have crossed. So, as I said, the heart that can contain
all this is not small!
Therefore, if what contains so much is not small, let a way be prepared in it for the Lord, a straight highway
along which the Word and Wisdom of God may advance. Prepare a way for the Lord by living a good life and guard
that way by good works. Let the Word of God move in you unhindered and give you a knowledge of his coming and of
his mysteries. To him be glory and power for ever and ever, amen.
The imagery of our scriptures is rich indeed for those with eyes to see, and almost universal in it's application
to humanity. In the Hindu tradition there is Shiva and Vishnu- destroyer and preserver- and they are sometimes
portrayed as two opposite halves of the face of god. Can we not also see in the message of this strange Advent
prophet a similar theme. Could even John's diet be seen as a similar contrast within the character of God? Locusts
that descend upon the harvest, which people have toiled over, ravaging it and destroying the hope of life, and
honey, that sweetens even the mediocre and brings pleasure to the tongue, an added bonus that one did not labor
for? So too we find God as both uncompromising judge and compassionate savior, bringer of death and creator of
life, hand of punishment and word of hope? And we ourselves, longing for Christmas, it's simplicity and hope, over
complicating it with our own agendas of all the things that must be done in order for us to feel the holiday spirit.
Losing the very gift we seek by our own misguided ambitions.
Last week you may remember that we read in Isaiah, "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down..."
Mark whose interpretation of the life of Jesus is the oldest of the four gospels, does not begin his account with
a nativity scene. He begins the good news with the heavens torn apart and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like
a dove, flooding the reality of this world with the reality of the world to come.
This is the beginning of something new, the barrier between earth and heaven is opening up in the way Jesus lived
his life. And Mark ends his story with the curtain of the temple being torn in two at Jesus' crucifixion. This
is also the beginning of a new era. The holy of holies is opened up and people have direct access to God. We become
the place where God's Spirit can indwell…but such a space can only belong to God, and God alone.
This is the good news we are preparing for, not just forgiveness of sins, but access to God (which becomes possible
because forgiveness is the Way). Our Savior, the Prince of Peace has come to dwell with us. The real question is:
Do you really want Him? Do you really want peace? |