Year B
Second Sunday of Advent
December 7, 2014
Cross~Wind UMC
Title: Restore Us with Peace
Austin, April. "Message in a box: Franck de Las
Mercedes's peace packages." The Christian Science Monitor, April 8, 2011.
csmonitor.com.
The Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNsjr-ukyok. Time: 1:19.
Going deeper
Psalm 85 is a communal lament. Israel is experiencing
troubled times. In the perspective of the psalm, God is angry with them.
The Psalm begins with an encouragement of the community to
remember a better past and remind God that God had previou sly forgiven the
people of God and done great things for them.
1 Lord, you were favorable to your
land;
you
restored the fortunes of Jacob
(the northern kingdom, Israel).
2 You
forgave the iniquity of your people;
you
pardoned all their sin. Selah (Pause
and reflect on this. In verse 3, he wants the Lord to withdraw hot anger. The
psalm asks that God will do so again. He wants restoration for Israel and put
away divine indignation toward Israel. Will the Lord be angry forever? If the
Lord revives them, the people will rejoice. He asks the Lord to show steadfast
love and grant to Israel salvation. In Isaiah 40:1-11, the theme of the prophet
becomes a word of comfort to the people of God and of speaking tenderly. After
all, the Lord has made Israel pay double for her sins.)
8 Let
me hear what God the Lord will
speak,
for
he will speak peace
(Shalom, individual and social well-being, something that no one can achieve in
the process of time. In fact, you make be here this morning with little sense
of peace. You may not have had a peaceful week. Thus, we may feel its absence.
When we think of the news, we may sense peace threatened by the march of
history, and with no final security) to
his people,
to
his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.
9 Surely
his salvation (yeshua,
the Hebrew form of Jesus) is at hand for
those who fear him,
that
his glory may dwell in our land. (Here
is what “salvation” will bring.)
10 Steadfast
love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness
and peace will kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness
will spring up from the ground,
and
righteousness will look down from the sky.
12 The
Lord will give what is good,
and
our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness
will go before him,
and
will make a path for his steps.
Introduction
The theme for this Advent is
“Restore us.” Some people like to restore old furniture or an old car. They see
something there, a treasure, that they think restoration will bring into the
open.
A Hollywood studio lamp, straight
out of the 1940s.
An aviator-wing desk, inspired by a
World War II fighter plane.
An 8-foot-tall architectural model
of the Eiffel Tower.
A space pen that works upside down
and underwater.
Are any of these items on your
Christmas list? If so, Santa is going to have to visit Restoration Hardware. Of
course, it has an online store. You can also go to the Fashion Mall.
This high-end store is where people
go when they want to step back in time and buy an item that reminds them of
some golden age from the past. Paris in the 1880s. Hollywood in the 1940s. The
space race of the 1960s.
People look back with longing,
feeling that something precious has been lost.
They want a missing treasure to be
restored.
And so do we.
Now maybe we do not feel the kind
of void that one can fill by a Hollywood floor lamp, crafted of solid cast
aluminum and steel, retailing for $1,995. One lamp, $2,000. Must be a good one,
but does it give us the light we need?
Our darkness is not going to be
eliminated by a Hollywood lamp designed to illuminate the famous faces of
classic films. Wandering through the darkness of daily life, we stumble and
fall, hurt ourselves and others, crash into obstacles and leave a trail of
debris behind us. We long for a lantern that will light our path, a beacon to
guide us and lead us home. And so we light a candle -- an Advent candle.
We know we need restoration. Not
Restoration Hardware, as great a store as it is.
Psalm 85 begins with a line that
was spoken by the people of Israel, back in their homeland after a time of
exile in Babylon: "Lord, you were
favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob" (v. 1).
The people are thankful that their long captivity is over, and that God has
forgiven their iniquity and "pardoned
all their sin" (v. 2).
But still, something is missing.
Some of the material desire had been met, but something is missing.
The emptiness they feel is very
similar to the void that remains deep within us after we earn a degree, start a
job, move into a bigger house, or drive a new car off the lot. We know how
fortunate we are. Yet, something is missing.
Saint Augustine had it right when
he said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are
restless until they rest in you" (Confessions,
Book I, Chapter 1).
A peace package
According to The Christian Science Monitor
(April 8, 2011), an artist named Franck de Las Mercedes is taking the idea of
peace packages literally. He observed that people like to receive packages and
unwrap them. I tend to take my time unwrapping, doing it carefully. Some of you
may rip the wrapping off so that you can get to what is inside. He turned his
peace packages into works of art, painting them on the outside. On the outside,
it said, Fragile. Handle with Care. Contains Peace. Of course, the point is
that here is a gift from a good friend who knows the gift you truly need. One
might open it and find any number of intangible gifts: love, joy, hope, peace,
and so on I think he is up to around
11,000 boxes since 2006.
Application
God's peace package
Psalm 85 tells us that God the Lord
will "speak peace to his people,"
and will call for them to respond by turning to him "in their hearts" (v. 8). God's salvation is sent out into the
land, and is received by "those who
fear him" (v. 9). God is generous with peace and salvation, but God requires
a response. The only way we will benefit from this gift is to receive it by
turning to God in our hearts and offering the respect that God deserves.
Each of us must accept this
package.
When we open it, a precious
collection of treasures spills out. Think of it. "Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet," says the psalm.
Further, "righteousness and peace
will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and
righteousness will look down from the sky. The Lord will give what is good, and
our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will
make a path for his steps" (vv. 10-13).
Packed into this box is the entire
character of God: Steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness, peace and
goodness. All of these qualities are intertwined and mutually supportive, since
love is connected closely to faithfulness, and true peace is always dependent
on the presence of justice and righteousness.
Just as it would be absurd for a
woman to say that she loves her husband while she is being actively unfaithful
to him, it is impossible for peace to exist in a community that is marked by
injustice and unrighteousness.
As one American leader said in the
mid-20th century, "Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin."
The speaker was Dwight David Eisenhower, five-star general in the U.S. Army and
34th president of the United States. Peace and justice are two sides of the
same coin, in the world as we know it and in the peace package that comes to us
from God.
When we tear open this package, we
find the gift of God's own self. Through an act of divine self-giving, God
enters more deeply into our lives, so that our hearts will no longer be
restless, but instead will rest in God. A priceless treasure is placed before
us, one that makes it possible for God's glory to dwell in our land (v. 9).
We need this gift now more than
ever. America faces its economic hardship. Many of our families experience this
hardship. We are experiencing riots in various cities due to some court cases. We
have yet another beheading of an American. We need the intangible gifts of God
more than ever.
The treasure that needs restoration
today is the gift of Christ at Christmas -- a gift we can receive with
gratitude and delight. Through the birth of Jesus, God speaks "peace to his people, to his faithful, to
those who turn to him in their hearts." And then, in the life and
ministry of Christ, the qualities of steadfast love and faithfulness meet,
while righteousness and peace come together and "kiss each other" (vv. 8, 10).
Conclusion
Send a peace package?
In this season of Advent, why not
respond to this gift by sending out some peace packages of your own? At a time
when Christmas packages are filled with everything but peace, you should reclaim
some of the missing treasures of this season.
So what could it mean to send a
peace package? Extend steadfast love to a teenager who is rebelling with every
ounce of his energy. Practice faithfulness in your marriage, and make an effort
to express appreciation to your spouse. Show righteousness in your school or
workplace, by being honest and fair in all of your activities. Work for peace
in your relationships, looking for ways to reduce tensions and increase
harmony, instead of picking fights and spreading gossip. If you invest as much
in these packages as in your holiday gifts, this will turn out to be your best
Christmas ever.
Restore us, O God. Give us the gift of your
peace, so that we can share it with others.
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