THE WONDER OF PEACE
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Text: Isaiah11:1-9; Luke 1:68-79
Advent continues; our ruminations go deeper. Peace is the traditional theme for this second Sunday of Advent. We wait, we watch, we wonder if we will ever know real peace. Will we find peace in our own souls? Will there be peace on earth? Not just peace as the absence of violence, but peace that passes understanding, peace that heals and makes whole, peace that allows the wolf to live with the lamb and the leopard with the kid, peace that empowers a little child to lead the people and bring them back into full communion with God, peace that ensures there will be no more hurting or destruction on God’s holy mountain, because the whole earth will be full of the knowledge of God.
30,000 men and women, some of them little more than boys and girls, will be sent to join their sisters and brothers in remote regions of Afghanistan to fight a war in hope of ending terrorism and war, at least in that region of the world, and, possibly, on a larger stage. We will continue to use military might to try to win friends and influence people, in spite of centuries of evidence that this strategy never works. The spirit of enmity will be enhanced and flames of hatred toward the bullying power will be fanned again. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
This strategy is the ancient practice of seeking to bring peace through victory. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan write about the conflict between the Roman notion of peace and the peace promised in the incarnation of the Word in Jesus Christ (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth, pp. 59ff.) Roman peace, the famous Pax Romana, was peace through victory. It involved peace enforced by military might and the threat or use of violence. Victory in battle was seen as proof that gods were on their side. This is the preferred practice of empires then and now. But there is an ancient notion of peace that may actually come through justice. This is peace born of good will and nonviolent negotiation. It is the peace of which Isaiah dreamt, the peace that John prophesied, the peace that Jesus lived. Peace with justice, equity, compassion. The peace of God. It seems more difficult to achieve than peace through victory. It requires that all parties recognize their common humanity in the family of God. It asks us to treat one another with compassion, dignity and respect, to share our knowledge and resources, to learn to love and re-label those we have defined as enemies.
Peace through victory; peace through justice and nonviolence – a hard choice, a challenging mandate, a life’s work. As people of faith in the God who comes again and again to call creation back into sacred covenant, it is difficult to justify and support a surge in troops, an escalation of a war that should never have been begun. If we are ever to have peace with our sisters and brothers throughout the Muslim world, we must find nonviolent ways to witness to our good intentions and desire for peace, a lasting peace rooted in justice for all and not in military victory. Perhaps yet “by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The Benedictus, Zechariah’s great hymn of prophecy, praise and blessing clearly moves us toward that peace, peace that supersedes our limited understanding, peace that offers human wholeness, peace that heals the whole creation, peace that is indeed God’s shalom. We find ourselves waiting and watching for something that is deeply desired, wondering if it will ever come. Though we long for peace, we know we live in a world in which there is much too little of it, either personally or politically.
Like Mary, Zechariah, the faithful priest, is surprised by a visit from the angel, Gabriel. Like Mary, he questions the announcement of a miraculous pregnancy, that he and his wife, in their old age, will have a child. In the same vein that Sarah laughed at such news, Zechariah challenges the angel’s proclamation. Unlike Mary, he pays a price for his incredulous response to the angel’s announcement. He is struck dumb. He loses his ability to speak.
One might make the case that a man of his years and stature, a priest of the Most High God, ought to be better prepared than a peasant girl for such heavenly visitations. Perhaps the elderly priest is, and ought to be, held to higher standards of accountability than a teenager still finding her way in the world. Perhaps there is a standard here by which the more seasoned and mature are, and should be, expected to set examples, to lead the way for the young.
Surely Zechariah’s season of muteness leaves him with time to wait, to watch and to wonder. His physical state forces him to turn inward to consider the entire course of his life – his faithful service as a priest, his faithful love for Elizabeth, his faithful belief that God would redeem God’s people. He has time to consider the long arc of his life and how it has been disrupted by the sudden appearance of the Holy at a time and in a manner which he was not expecting. As Zechariah meditates on his fate, he gathers the thoughts that culminate in this hymn of ecstasy and blessing.
Finally, Zechariah is faced with the hubbub surrounding the naming of the baby. All the village expects that the child will be named Zechariah after his father. They mistrust Elizabeth’s decision to name him John, then are further baffled when Zechariah agrees with his wife’s choice of name. Led by the Spirit, the couple are no doubt following angelic instruction. The people of the village do see that something out of the ordinary has happened to the priest and his wife, but they do not really understand what they are going through. It is in the midst of the naming crisis that Zechariah finds his voice. In response to people wondering, “What then will this child become?” the old priest breaks out in his ecstatic song of prophecy and blessing. On Zechariah’s behalf, Tom Wright says, “Often it’s the old people, the ones who cherish old memories and imaginations, who keep alive the rumor of hope…Zechariah comes across in this passage, especially in the prophetic poem, as someone who has pondered the agony and the hope for many years, and who now finds the two bubbling out of him as he looks in awe and delight at his baby son” (Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone, p. 18.)
Who will this baby be? He will be called John, “God’s gift” or “God is gracious.” He will be integral to the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy of how God will redeem God’s people. He is the one who will prepare the way for the coming Messiah. In Luke’s account of Zechariah’s song, quotations from Israel’s prophets are interwoven with Zechariah’s own words of commissioning and blessing for his infant son. John will be the bridge between the law and its fulfillment, he will be the prophet who proclaims the Messiah’s presence, the voice who calls the whole creation to repentance in response to the promise of salvation.
In our Advent time of wondering about peace, this ancient hymn invites us to consider two threads – one that deals with social redemption, salvation for all people; the other that addresses more personal redemption, salvation for our souls. But the two are interwoven. Repentance which leads to forgiveness is to be John’s message, repentance and redemption that are both corporate and personal. If we look deeply into our own hearts, what repentance, what changes are needed in order to turn around and head in a different direction in our world and in our lives? What words of repentance and hope might Zechariah pray that his son John would preach to us in this Advent?
The wonder of peace is at the heart Zechariah’s ecstasy. Peace will never come through violence and victory. His hymn makes clear that true peace – in our hearts and in our world – will only come when we are right with God, when we have laid aside our own ambitions and passions and sense of superiority, or at least turned them over to God. The condition of souls and the condition of creation are both troubled by self-centeredness, self-absorption, and failure to understand what is available to all in true communion with God, what God has offered us in the ancient covenant and offers us still in the coming of Jesus, the Christ, what is available at this table around which we gather today. Though we may live in in-between times, times in which we do not yet fully walk in the way of peace, Zechariah promises that his little boy, John, will prepare us to bridge these times and live towards God’s reign, in the wonder of hope and peace.