December 22, 2024, Prince of Peace, Isaiah 9:6 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ December 22, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to the sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

Tiny sermon #1

Salutation – a poem by Luci Shaw

Luke 1:39-45

Framed in light,

Mary sings through the doorway.

Elizabeth’s six-month joy

jumps, a palpable greeting,

a hidden first encounter

between son and Son.

And my heart turns over

when I meet Jesus

in you.

Main sermon #2

The world has been a violent place this past week.

Sunday, a member of a United Methodist Church in Nigeria was shot and killed by members of the Global Methodist Church, which separated from the mother denomination when bans against LGBTQ people were repealed. Homes of UMC church members were set on fire, killing two little children.

Monday, a fifteen-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison Wisconsin brought two handguns to school, and shot a teacher and another student, before killing herself.

Friday, a doctor slammed his car into a Christmas market full of holiday shoppers in the German city of Magdeburg. Two hundred people were injured, and five people were killed, including a 9-year-old child.

Not to mention, war is ongoing, year after year after bloody year, in Myanmar, in the Middle East, in North Africa, in Mexico, in Ukraine, in Sudan. World without end. Amen.

During Advent, as we always do, we’ve been focusing our minds and hearts on the return of Christ. This year in particular, we’ve been reminding ourselves who the Christ is; who exactly is this One we are waiting for? We remembered that the Christ is Wonderful Counselor. We remembered that he is Mighty God. Last week, we remembered that he is Eternal Father, and we talked about how personal and how complicated a concept that is. We talked about how the word, Father, can mean so many different things to so many people, how it can evoke so many very different feelings, just because it is so bound up with our human experience and memory.

And now, today, we come to the fourth Sunday of Advent, and the fourth part of the four-part name that Isaiah gives to the Christ. And of all the parts of that name, it might be that the fourth part is the one we most desperately desire, the one we most urgently need – but also, it might be the one we have the hardest time really believing in.

Unto us a child is born, Isaiah wrote, unto us a Son is given. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father – Prince of Peace.

Is there anything, anything at all, more desperately needed in this poor, dark, war-torn world than the Prince of Peace? And yet, is there anything harder to really believe in than real, lasting peace between Israel and Gaza? Or solid trust and friendship between Russia and Ukraine? Or the laying-down of weapons, forever, by drug cartels in Mexico or rebel factions in Sudan or paramilitary groups in the US? Those things might be just about as hard to imagine as a wolf living peaceably with a lamb, or a leopard sharing a bed with a little goat. They might seem at least as impossible as a lion happily eating straw from a manger like a cow, or a tiny child playing safely around a nest of poisonous snakes.

But that is the promise. Not just temporary ceasefires. Not just humanitarian aid. Not just stronger measures of protection or harsher penalties for perpetrators. The promise is an end to violence, an end to suffering, an end to cruelty and hatred and fear and grief.

It shall come to pass in the latter days, promises Isaiah,
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Living on this tortured planet, surrounded by suffering and hopelessness and so many acts of shocking violence that sometimes we are just too tired to be shocked anymore, God’s promises beggar belief, if we’re honest. We are comforted by stories of kindness and healing. We are cheered by the small, brave lights of good people doing good things. On our good days, we do what we can, to practice generosity and forgiveness and hospitality and kindness and justice and compassion, shining as lights in the world. And all of those things are signs of God’s loving presence; they are all victories of grace and light over against the powers and principalities of darkness. As a friend said to me recently, we are called to be partners in the bringing in of God’s kingdom. But all around us, the silent voices of God’s creation know that there is so much more to long for, so much better to come, and they cry out in desperate longing:

“The whole creation,” Paul wrote, “has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth right up to this present day.” The creatures of God’s creation know that things are not as God created them to be. They know that the very best is yet to come. And they are waiting, anxiously, desperately, painfully, for the promise to come to birth at last.

John the Revelator wrote: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Micah wrote of the Christ: He shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.

He is the One we are waiting for.

O come, O King of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind.
Bid all our sad divisions cease
and be yourself our King of Peace.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen. +