[An Advent Homily]
The second Sunday in Advent carries the theme, ‘preparation for the peace of God’. That peace comes with the birth of Christ our Saviour, and it is always and only through Christ that God’s peace comes.
Of course, we associate Christmas with an exciting and happy time—family, gifts, celebration, and services commemorating the birth of Jesus. The image of Christmas is warmed with pictures of cosy fires in the fireplace, children playing on the floor with trainsets and dolls around a lighted and decorated conifer, and a gentle snow falling outside—even if you do not live in the northern states of America or England and are sitting in the summer heat in South Africa!—so powerful is the marketed version of Christmas.
The coming season of Christmas is intended to be joyful and peaceful, but it can also be stressful, hectic, and even hurtful. Rushing around to complete Christmas shopping, the financial stress this entails, travelling somewhere in a car that needs service, hospitality to others without enough beds, meal preparations with every other relative allergic to something or other these days, and even making it to the services with hungry, sleepy children or grandchildren—all this can be and often is very stressful. Many of us also seem to have someone in the family who is an agitated curmudgeon for all the wrong reasons, and yet Christmas expects us to bring him together with everyone else for a peaceful and joyful time.
On top of all this, Christmas is a very confused holiday on the Church calendar. Our secular world either hates it with the greatest animosity as it does any Christian light intruding into its darkness, or it reforms it into a romantic Hallmark and shopping holiday. We need to separate all this from a truly Christian holy-day.
Some years ago, I wrote an essay recommending that we join the Orthodox Christian world by moving the day that we celebrate Christmas from 25 December to the 6th of January. These dates are the beginning and end of the Christmas season, so why focus on the 25th when it has become a worldly holiday? The 6th of January could be a completely religious holiday, with a service and traditions we might rediscover or even invent to focus on Jesus, as we should. I suggest it would become a day of peaceful celebration, as it should be.
Well, there is little chance that my suggestion will convert many. Christmas is as Christmas has been. But somehow we need to make Christmas what it is supposed to be in our Christian calendar, and this applies to Advent as well, the season preparing for Christmas. We just celebrated the Second Sunday of Advent. The purple Bethlehem Candle was lit, representing peace. This week focusses on preparation for the coming of God’s peace. What many are focussed on is Christmas shopping, working out who is travelling where and how we can host them, preparing a fancy meal, and the like. Preparing for the coming of peace seems a long stretch, and remembering that Jesus is the Prince of Peace is a challenge. Isaiah foretold His coming:
For to us a child is born,
to
us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and
his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9.6).
Paul confirmed this, saying of Jesus, ‘He is our peace’ (Ephesians 2.14). Every day of the year, we celebrate the present reality of the peace of Jesus Christ. As Paul says,
The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4.5b-7).
In our services, we have often passed the peace of Christ after confession and forgiveness of sins. Having been forgiven, we have peace with God and peace with one another. Having received peace from God and from each other, we boldly celebrate at the Lord’s Table, partaking the wine and eating the bread that remember Jesus’ body and blood given for us.
My favourite part of a morning service is when people file forward to the front of the Church to receive the cup and eat the bread. I see that moment in the service as a moment remembering the peace we have with God and with each other. I am reminded that the Church is itself the body of Christ, we are all necessary, all together, all in need of God’s grace, all welcome to receive it, all in a state of ‘peace’. The service is an enactment of the Gospel message itself. What we do first is prepare ourselves for peace, just as this week of Advent is the week of preparation for peace. Another word for peace is reconciliation: we are reconciled to God and to one another. Armed with this peace, we step out into the world in mission to the world to proclaim God’s peace to the world. As the angels said to the shepherds, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests’ (Luke 2.14).
As Christians, we really do not have to say when someone dies, ‘May she rest in peace.’ Someone who dies in Christ is with Christ (2 Corinthians 5.8; Philippians 1.23). She knows God’s peace so much greater than we do now. But we also know God’s peace now—it is not a wish. Paul says,
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3.3-7).
In our own circles of family and relationships, we have some with whom we share God’s peace and have sweet fellowship together. Yet there are also some who are thorns, and it is hard to think about anything peaceful with them around. We can, as God’s people of peace, do two things in regard to them. We can pray for them. Jesus told us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5.44). What should we pray? That they might find God’s peace through Jesus Christ and, in so doing, come into a place of peace with others in Christ, including ourselves, our families, and our church. We can also demonstrate to them aspects of the peace we have found in Christ: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the fruit of the Spirit that Paul mentions, a fruit that is growing within us by God’s Spirit. Can we give those thorns in our relationships a picture of God’s peace in our lives?
I close with an invitation to each one to prepare your hearts for peace with God, not just for Christmas but every day. Receive Jesus into your life and live in peace. To those already reconciled to God and who know the King of Peace, live in that peace and extend it to others. Here, finally, is a lovely blessing with which to finish, sung by Kristyn Getty:
May the Peace of God - Kristyn Getty, Margaret Becker, Joanne Hogg
English (US) · 