Peace.
How do you envision peace? For many of us, peace is a term that has had various meanings throughout our lives. For example, for a parent with young children, peace may mean when you are home alone, and the house is clean, and the windows are opened with a cool breeze coming in, as you sip your coffee. For someone who has seen military service peace may mean a time when no wars are being waged by or against our country. For a grandparent, peace may be having your home filled with the sounds of young children playing and having a table surrounded by family at dinner time.
Peace is something that we define in several ways depending on our current life situation. This begs an important question; can we definitively define peace? Our two readings today outline two ways of receiving peace. I say receiving peace because peace is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The reading from Philippians is obviously talking about peace, but the concept of peace Paul is outlining is hard to understand. And our Gospel text today doesn’t sound like it is about peace at all. However, each of these readings speaks to two specific virtues by which peace can be received
The Gospel reading begins with crowds coming to be baptized by John, and John yelling at them and calling them a brood of vipers, and chastising them, and comparing them to trees that are thrown into the fire for not bearing good fruit. I have heard this, or versions of this story read in church my entire life, and I have always gotten stuck on the introduction of the reading and have never paid close attention to what John says to the people who have come to repent and be washed clean by his baptism. I would bet that many of you are in the same situation that I have always been in, so let me show you something new I have found in this reading, something that I believe speaks to a greater understanding of peace.
The crowds ask John, what should we do to repent? John does not give them individual personal responses, he gives them specific rules of life to live by for which a greater rule can be gleaned for all of us. John says whoever has two tunics, share with him who has none, he says to tax collectors take only what you are allowed to take from the people no more, and he says to the soldiers, do not extort money from people or make threats or false accusations. Let’s break down those three sayings into something general that we can all take home today. Share, be fair, be kind, and be honest. If we all lived our lives at home, at work, and at play by those rules, I am positive when we laid our heads down at night, we would receive peace. This peace is the peace that comes from love. And it shouldn’t be foreign to any of us, because if I asked you all to recite the summary of the law, as given and affirmed by Jesus, I bet you all could. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart all your soul and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” On those two commandments hang all the laws and prophets, and John the Baptist in our Gospel lesson today is preaching that message. When we love God, and then when we reflect that love to our neighbors, we receive peace.
In Philippians, we hear about another way we receive peace. And again, if you are a liturgical Christian, it is a very very familiar saying. It is a version of a saying you hear most Sunday’s here at Redeemer, as we are blessed at the end of the Mass. Paul exhorts the Philippians and us, “do not be anxious about anything, but by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” What is peace that surpasses all understanding? At the beginning of this sermon, I outlined types of peacefulness, that you all could understand. The peace that comes from God is not that kind of peace, as it is peace that at times is incomprehensible, at least until you have experienced it. Peace that passes all understanding is knowing that God is sovereign and in charge, and has already won, as we struggle through life. The peace Paul is speaking of is peace while at war, peace while being persecuted, peace while your family hurts, peace while your finances are crumbling, peace when all the pressure is on you, peace even as you die. That kind of peace is something many cannot understand, it indeed for some surpasses all understanding. That peace comes from faith. Faith knowing that God is our creator, our redeemer, and is actively sanctifying each of us as we grow closer and closer to Him.
This is the definitive Christian definition of peace, that we receive peace by faith and love. Appropriately this Sunday’s nickname is Gaudete Sunday, which means rejoice. As in “rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice.” When we have faith in God, and when we love him first and then love our neighbors, we receive the peace of God, and when we live with that peace, what we then gain is Joy. My Advent prayer for each of us is that our lives be filled with faith, love, peace, and joy as we await the ultimate joy; the return of Our Lord.
Sermon preached by The Rev. Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
3rd Sunday of Advent
16 December 2018