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The Journey To Peace
This is the Second Sunday of Advent.
What an amazing season it has been as we have journeyed together toward Christmas.
If you were with us last week Advent, you know that the word advent is a version of a Latin term meaning “coming.”
And these four weeks leading up to Christmas are our opportunity to look forward with great expectation to the coming of Christ as we have embark on a journey to the Newborn King, a journey to hope, love, joy, and peace.
This week we began a, Advent Deviational Reading title Emmanuel: God With Us.
One of our reading was on the Pillar of Cloud that led Israel thru thilderness by day and the Pillar of Fire that led them by night.
That even in the seen and the unseen pathways of our journey God is with us.
In light and in dark.
Similarly the Star of Bethlehem lit the night and guided the Magi to the Newborn King.
That Star of Bethlehem briefly mentioned in Matthew’s account of the Christmas story drew those wise seekers from afar to the Savior thousands of years ago.
It must have led them over rough routes and smooth ones, through easy passages and ones that appeared difficult with no way to cross.
It remained before them as they undoubtedly encountered friends and fellow travelers and as they sat in the company of deceptive and powerful people like King Herod.
Through all the circumstances and surprises of their journey, the star never faltered or failed.
It faithfully pointed the way to Jesus.
So together we continue to look for the light today as we follow the LIGHT of the World on a journey of peace.
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When I think of peace, I am often reminded of the well-known hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.”
The old song is loved by so many because of its message:
“When peace like a river attendeth my way / When sorrows like sea billows roll / Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say / It is well, it is well with my soul.”
The song portrays such strength and steadfast trust.
But the song has also become famous and more revered for the story behind the words.
Horatio Spafford was a businessman in Chicago in 1873.
After already losing one child to pneumonia, he sent his wife and four daughters ahead of him on a ship to Europe.
While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank, and all four of Spafford’s children died.
He got a message from his wife that she had survived, and he left on the next available ship to go and meet her.
During his journey, near the place his daughters had died, Spafford penned the words to the song.
The painful circumstances he faced make the lyrics all the more powerful.
The words were not written by someone who was enjoying an easy life but by one who found peace—deep, authentic peace—in the midst of heartache.
Often, when we think of peace, we often think of the absence of hardship, trouble, violence, and fear.
As the hymn so beautifully captures, this journey of peace is not immune from those things.
In fact, they are central to the story.
On this journey to the LIGHT OF PEACE in the Manger we learn that peace is not the absence of trouble but rather the presence of God.
What pain are you facing this season?
What struggles are weighing you down?
What anxiety and stress are stirring up chaos in your spirit?
Maybe those pressures and problems are external; maybe they are internal battles.
Either way, they can feel just as real.
Either way, are you willing to open your heart to God’s peace even in the midst of your struggles?
This journey to peace is certainly an appropriate journey for our world today.
Just as the ancient Roman world must have felt during that first Christmas, our world seems full of violence and warfare and uncertainty.
And the pressures of our daily lives barrage us at an unparalleled pace.
Ours is a world in desperate need of peace!
But it is a world where the Prince of Peace has walked and understood.
He has come, and He is present.
His peace is available to us today.
Let’s explore that peace together.
Peace in the Midst
How do you picture that night Jesus was born?
So many images and songs focus on a picture of “silent night”—a peaceful moment when all was calm and bright.
But if such a moment occurred on that first Christmas, it was probably a very fleeting moment.
Mary gave birth in an animal shelter.
The city of Bethlehem was overflowing with hordes of people who had arrived after many dusty miles on rough, dangerous roads by foot and by livestock.
Visitors started arriving to visit the new baby within hours of His unsanitized birth.
Then King Herod was in angry pursuit.
And don’t forget the company of angels rejoicing and worshiping with abandon.
It’s no wonder an angel had to tell the shepherds first not to be afraid and then assure them they brought a message of peace:
There was noise and hurt and pain and struggle and fear that first Christmas.
And yet there was great joy and deep peace of the highest order.
Sound familiar?
Our journey of peace this season is not one separated from the realities of life but a journey of peace in the midst of life with all its noise and chaos.
Recording artist Andrew Peterson has a song called “The Rain Keeps Falling” that beautifully illustrates this state of peace within the storms of life.
[Optional: Play or have the song performed during the service.]
The lyrics contain a long and honest confession of so many struggles and interjected into and over them come the words
Jesus spoke: “Peace.
Be still.”
The result is a powerful picture of the reality of peace in the midst of life in a fallen world.
It is a message that can make you catch your breath or choke you up as the words wash over you.
Sometimes we need just such a pause.
As we journey toward Christmas, let’s acknowledge the fact that our lives are far from peaceful and the eternal peace promised at Christ’s second coming is still not realized.
But as we let the words of Jesus wash over us and through us, He brings His calming message to our spirits like soothing water.
Peace.
Be still.
Jesus brings peace right into the center of our hurt and frantic striving.
And He brings the power to cease the noise, calm the storm, and overwhelm our hearts with His restorative sense of perfect peace.
He is indeed the Prince of Peace.
Prince of Peace
The prophet Isaiah’s words reveal something very important about peace:
Peace is not just a feeling or a state of being.
Peace is a person.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
Throughout Jesus’s life and teaching we see that peace comes from the person of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit—God’s presence with us.
By sending His Son, God sent peace into the world.
When we abide with Him, we abide with peace.
And as we abide with peace, we learn to trust God with the unpeaceful parts of our lives, and we find ourselves transformed within.
In the midst of all that was happening that first Christmas, we are told that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).
On the surface, Mary’s life had not become more peaceful.
If anything, things got even crazier with the announcement of her miraculous pregnancy and the birth of a new baby.
But Mary was learning to trust the One who was in control.
When we can surrender our control—stop worrying, stop planning, stop striving—to the Prince of Peace, we can find rest in Him.
The inner and outer chaos, anxiety, noise, and busyness of life may not change, but we can experience peace because we trust the One in control.
Where do you need to surrender and enter the journey of peace this season?
Let me encourage you to encounter the peace of Christ by taking the psalmist’s words to heart:
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10 KJV).
Maybe your lack of peace is because of a fight.
A fight against God.
A fight against yourself.
A fight against others.
A fight against the devil.
Stop fighting against God.
Trust him.
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