Have you ever noticed that peace is an elusive quality in our world today, whether in the Middle East or in Asia, or even right here in our own community?
I read about an enthusiastic group of 1200 would-be peacemakers who began a “peace march” a few years back in Los Angeles. This group wanted to make a statement about the futility of war, and the importance of peace. A noble venture, wouldn’t you say?
Before they had gone too far, however, the peace march stalled‑out. About half of the group had disbanded because of petty bickering within the group. “The remaining marchers quickly polarized between those who were walkers and those who rode vehicles. Following that was a dispute over a dress code. Finally, they decided to settle some of the conflict with an election, but there was disagreement over who could vote. Eventually they came to an agreement, allowing even the children to vote, but then the election was declared invalid. The ‘peace march’ ended with a large percentage of those assembled refusing to speak to one another.” (1)
Jim Bruton in an article on the web describing this event commented like this: “And we wonder why nations cannot get along.”
In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we find one of the most popular benedictions in the church. Verse 7 of chapter 4 reads: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
What an important verse for this season of the year! Advent and Christmas are times when our hearts and minds naturally move toward the hope of peace on earth. The angels that sang in the heavens at Christ’s birth of peace on earth, goodwill toward men remind us of the great messianic hope that Isaiah described hundreds of years before Christ was born: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” (11:6) Notice that phrase: “a little child shall lead them.” We have come to know the babe of Bethlehem as the little child that will one day lead the world to peace.
Every year at this time we rekindle this great dream of peace on earth. We look forward to that day when the wolf will indeed live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat.
We all long for peace, don’t we?--peace within our hearts, peace within our homes, peace within our world?
Dante, the great poet of the Middle Ages, was exiled from his home in Florence. Life had turned out badly for him. He decided to walk to Paris from Italy where he could study philosophy. It was his desire to find a clue to the riddle of humanity and his destiny. One night in his travel he found himself to be a weary pilgrim who could not go any farther that day. He knocked at the door of the Santa Croce Monastery to find refuge for the night. A surly brother within the monastery was finally aroused. The monk came to the door, flung it open, and in a gruff voice asked, “What do you want?”
Dante answered in a single word, “Peace.” (2)
There are plenty of us this Christmas season who could answer with that same word--peace.
Peace is very elusive in our world. Ever since Adam and Eve left Eden, the only thing we have been able to count on is the inescapable presence of conflict. Nations can’t get along with nations, families can’t get along with one another, and many people toss and turn at night because there is a battle going on in their own heart.
There is a story of a young Norwegian soldier during WW II. His mother and father and his whole family were killed in that terrible war. It was a tragic situation. He was now alone for his first Christmas Eve. He was very depressed. He came out and stood by the edge of a Norwegian fjord and in his frustration and bitterness, he shouted into the sky: “Glory to God in the highest” . . . and the fjord echoed back . . . HIGHEST Highest. Highest. He shouted again, “And on earth, PEACE,” and the fjord echoed back. . . Peace . . . peace . . . peace.
The young man sat down and cried . . . There was no peace. Peace for him was only an echo that began to fade and fade and fade far away. (3)
It is difficult to hold on to the messianic hope of peace on earth in a world where people are so much easier stirred up to hate rather than to love. “Each year,” writes Daniel J. Dyke, “we watch the news as people gather in Bethlehem to mark Christmas in the place where Jesus was born. We watch as armed soldiers mingle with the crowd outside the church. We see body searches, metal detectors, and security booths. Fortunately, no major incidents have marred the Christmas celebrations during the last several years, although several attempts have been foiled.
“Isn't it a shame,” Dyke asks in conclusion, “that the main concern in Bethlehem on Christmas is that there might be acts of violence on the night they honor the birth of Christ and in the place they believe the Prince of Peace was born?” (4)
There was an article in The Week magazine a few years ago about a tragic situation in the nation of Rwanda. In 1994 Rwanda was ripped apart by a civil war between the Hutu and Tutsi tribal groups. Many of you remember that conflict. Rwandan citizens displaced by the war crowded into refugee camps, where starvation and disease wiped out thousands of people each day.
The United Nations sent in a peacekeeping force led by commander Romeo Dallaire of Canada. Dallaire’s most pressing task was to stop the fighting between the Hutus and Tutsis. But his efforts failed miserably. None of the U.N. nations would commit enough troops to the peacekeeping effort. The hopelessness of the situation broke Romeo Dallaire’s spirit. In the year 2000, Canadian journalists tracked Dallaire down. He was living in a public park in Canada. As one journalist described it, Dallaire was “blind drunk, screaming for someone to kill him.” (5)
Was it despair over the futility of finding peace for Rwanda that drove Romeo Dallaire mad? If so, he would not be the first person to declare that peace is hopeless in a fallen world.
Peace is elusive on planet Earth, it is true. It’s elusive in our families, it’s elusive between nations; it’s elusive even within our own hearts and minds. How can we find that peace for which the world so desperately longs? How can we find that peace which transcends all understanding? There is but one place. Peace comes only through Jesus Christ.
Writer Gordon McDonald tells about a Nigerian woman who is a physician at a great teaching hospital here in the United States. This distinguished woman came out of the crowd one day to say something kind about the lecture McDonald had just given. She introduced herself using an American name.
“What’s your African name?” he asked. She immediately gave it to him, several syllables long with a musical sound to it.
“What does the name mean?” he asked her.
She answered, “It means ‘Child who takes the anger away.’”
When McDonald inquired as to why she would have been given this name, she said, “My parents had been forbidden by their parents to marry. But they loved each other so much that they defied the family opinions and married anyway. For several years they were ostracized from both their families. Then my mother became pregnant with me. And when the grandparents held me in their arms for the first time, the walls of hostility came down. I became the one who swept the anger away. And that’s the name my mother and father gave me.”
McDonald concluded, “It occurred to me that her name would be a suitable one for Jesus.” (6)
The child who takes the anger away. Yes, that would be a good name for Jesus. In the same way that this woman as an infant brought so much love into a family that old grudges and animosities wasted away, so the Christ child brought love into human society, enough love so that if each of us lived in that love all anger and all hatred in our world would quickly drain away.
Isaiah the prophet wrote, “A little child shall lead them.” It is the Christ child alone who brings peace to troubled hearts, peace to troubled families, and peace to a troubled world.
Lucinda Norman wrote an article in Lookout magazine titled “An Atmosphere of Calm.” She describes her Christmas shopping experience at a busy mall. It was far from a peaceful experience. People had been pushing, elbowing and cutting in front of her all day. Hardly able to take it anymore, she says, “During a 10-minute special [which featured a 10% discount off of the already 25% discount], a woman grabbed a lace tablecloth from my hands. I looked her straight in the eye and grunted, ‘Mine!’ and yanked it back. I won. By 4 o’clock in the afternoon, my mood was belligerent.”
At a mall restaurant Ms Norman met some friends and flagged down a server and said, “I need hot tea, now!”
The lady snapped at her and said, “I’m not your server. Wait your turn.”
She said, “Lady, I’ve been waiting my turn all day, bring me some tea!” But the waitress ignored her.
A few moments later, a friendly young man came to her table smiling and said, “I’m Rob, your waiter.” After he took their order she noticed that Rob stopped to help the rude waitress with her tray. He greeted the other customers and staff. In the midst of dozens of hurried shoppers and restaurant staff he conducted himself in a polite, unhurried atmosphere of calm.
When he refilled her tea, Lucinda noticed a silver ring on his right hand made of connected letters. After he walked away, she said to the other ladies at the table, “Did you notice that our server is wearing a ring that spells Jesus?” No wonder, thought Lucinda Norman, this young man has such a unique spirit about him.
From that moment her attitude changed. This one young man’s example had reminded her of the peace that Christ came to bring. This young man had apparently spent time with the Lord. For the rest of the day, she enjoyed shopping, opened the door for others, let people in front of her at the check-out line. In an atmosphere of calm. (7)
That’s what Christ does when he comes into a life. He takes away anger, takes away fear, takes away selfishness, takes away greed.
It’s like a story that author Frederick Buechner tells. A friend of his, a rector at an Episcopal church, took part in a Christmas pageant. Buechner describes the pageant like this:
“The manger was down in front at the chancel steps where it always is. Mary was there in a blue mantle and Joseph in a cotton beard. The wise men were there with a handful of shepherds, and of course in the midst of them all, the Christ child was there, lying in the straw. The nativity story was read aloud by my friend with carols sung at the appropriate places, and all went like clockwork until it came time for the arrival of the angels of the heavenly host, as represented by the children of the congregation, who were robed in white and scattered throughout the pews with their parents.
“At the right moment they were supposed to come forward and gather around the manger . . . and that is just what they did except there were so many of them that there was a fair amount of crowding and jockeying for position, with the result that one particular angel, a [little] girl . . . who was smaller than most of them, ended up so far out on the fringes of things that not even by craning her neck and standing on tiptoe could she see what was going on. ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will among men,’ they all sang on cue, and then in the momentary pause that followed, the small girl electrified the entire church by crying out in a voice shrill with irritation and frustration and enormous sadness at having her view blocked, ‘Let Jesus show!’” (8)
And that is the path to peace in this and every season of the year. Let Jesus show. The young waiter with the Jesus bracelet was doing that. Not so much with his bracelet, but with his patient and kind attitude with his fellow workers and with the people whom he was serving. Let Jesus show. That is how we bring peace to our families, and to our community and ultimately to the world. Let Jesus show until the peace of Christ reigns over all the earth.
1. http://www.ghg.net/clbc/09JimFeb7.99.htm.
2. Harmon D. Moore, et. al., And Our Defense Is Sure (Nashville: Abingdon Press).
3. Edward F. Markquart, http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/christmas_peace_of_christ.htm.
4. http://www.dabar.org/Homiletics/Celebrating/Illustrations.html.
5. “The ghosts of Rwanda” by Leroy Sievers, August 12, 2005, pp. 40-41. Originally published in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, copyright 2005.
6. Pastor Tim Zingale, http://www.dodgenet.com/~tzingale/sermonb/2adventsermon.html.
7. Matthew Rogers, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/how-to-handle-holiday-stress-matthew-rogers-sermon-on-christmas-41680.asp?
8. http://frederickbuechner.org/. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-peter-m-wallace/let-jesus-show-a-christma_b_6372394.html.