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The Peace About Which
the Angels Sang |
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As we talked about at the Festival of Carols and Lessons that took place here last Friday, music is such a connected part of our whole Christmas experience. It seems that so many of our traditions and our Christmas experiences have music attached to them. There are lots of special concerts and performances that go on. And as any singer will tell you, not all the people who come and join in singing are believers. They might just like the quality of the music and join in with the singing. So the words don’t have meaning… they aren’t real… they are words. A question we can challenge ourselves with as we hear lots of Christmas words in songs and on cards
is "Are these words to us… these things that we sing, and write in messages and say… or are they real to you?"
We hear about a Rejoicing, Peace, a Savior, a great joy inside. Are these words that have meaning to you in your day to day
life and something that we can touch and feel and experience? When a small group of shepherds on a hillside outside a little village one night many years
ago were letting the fire die down, and were covering themselves up for a cool
night, suddenly their world was thrown upside down, when there above them the sky is lit up and angels appeared… and Jesus' birth is announced to them. And while these simple, not clean, probably odor-filled, caretakers of many of the sheep and lambs that would be used at the Temple sacrifices are blasted with so many questions in their minds,
Why Tell Us? Is this THE Messiah we have been waiting for? the angels go ahead and burst out in song about one of the words we hear a lot with Christmas….
“peace”! What is this “peace” that the angels sing about?
It seems to be pretty important. And it is described as a “peace on
earth”. You can look around quite easily and see that there are wars going on. People are hurting and harming one another still. The peace about which the angels sang is a true, real, lasting peace inside that no one can take away from you. The angels didn’t come and sing about a 5-point plan for self improvement. “If you follow these steps… you’ll be happy and have peace”.
No, they came and pointed to the one person Jesus, and announced a Savior!
Luke goes on in the rest of his gospel to tell us how Jesus would face the temptations of sin, He would face the reality of death… and He would conquer them. He rose from the dead,
rose to life… so that “all people” might be able to live in the perfectness of heaven.
That is the PEACE Jesus brings as Savior. He came that night (the greatest birth event ever in history).
He came for anybody that is not perfect. He came for anybody that has ever sinned… (and that is all of us)
because God is perfect, and heaven is perfect, and we just can’t be in God’s presence as not perfect. You can’t make yourself get there from here. He came to make the way for you… to have forgiveness… to be seen as “free from sin”, clean and pure in God’s sight. He brought it to you as a gift.
Not by giving you a self-help plan or a path to follow and if you're “just good enough” you’ll get there. No, he came and made the way himself through His facing death and RISING to New Life… and through a relationship of faith… trusting in Jesus as Savior
(one who saves you). You have the promise of eternal life in God’s perfect presence!
The beautiful thing is that God Himself created this PEACE… and gave it to you.
Jesus is YOUR MESSIAH… He is YOUR
Savior! So…this “peace” about which the angels sang… That is the peace that is mentioned in Romans:
“Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ”. That is the same “justified” word that was in our reading from Paul’s letter to Titus. We teach the kids in
confirmation class what the “justified” means: “Just as if I’d… never sinned”. And that is how we are seen in God’s sight when personally trusting in Jesus as Savior. Not counting on being able to get ourselves to heaven… but trusting in a Savior! It is hard to grasp the real intensity of the meaning of the word Savior… if at the same time there is any clinging to the thought of being able to get one’s self out of trouble. We hear stories about people getting themselves out of all kind of tight spots in life. And sometimes even when we hear about them not making it
out, a person can think, "Well, I’d have gotten out. I’d have found some way to live!" When we talk about having sin, it is a condition that is a part of
us. It comes out in different ways, but it is a part of us. We are trapped in this condition. Just this past week a young man came to realize this idea of needing to be saved.
Yuan Shenglin, 26 years old, was a miner working at a gypsum mine in Northern
China, when the thing that all miners dread happened. The mineshaft collapsed.
Yuan was trapped about 200 meters underground. After the shock and the settling of all the debris,
Yuan realizes he is alive. He had room to move where he was, but with no tools, no electricity, and no one else
around he was truly trapped. He couldn’t get himself out of this situation. He needed someone else to come in and “save” him. Well, incredibly after a couple of days rescue workers did get to a point where they could hear Yuan, but there
were large boulders in the way and they couldn’t get more than a small tube for water and air through the boulders. Yuan had to wait many more days as they dug a channel from an adjacent mine shaft and brought him out to
safety. Eleven days total he was in there. He came to understand this idea of needing someone to rescue him.
He couldn’t get free on his own. He couldn’t get from here to there on
his own. That is how it is with us. We can’t get there from here on our
own. You can’t make it happen that you’ll be sinless and
perfect. That is the concept of having a “Savior”. TODAY, in the town of David, A SAVIOR has been born to you…
Let those words touch you. Feel
them. Know that they are REAL. And let them make a difference in your life! This is a real peace that a believer carries with them throughout life. When troubles happen, as we know they
will... when health fails, as we know it will… when all the stuff might
disappear, as it has a history of doing… YOU have a peace inside of knowing your promise of forgiveness and no one can take that
away. Listen to what the prophet Habakkuk
writes. For a chapter or so he has been doing some questioning (complaining really) about what he sees in the world
around. And then he wraps up his thoughts with this prayer… 16
I heard and my heart pounded, 17
Though the fig tree does not bud 18
yet I will rejoice in the LORD, (Habakkuk: 3:16-18) That is a peace inside that doesn’t depend on conditions being just right here… then I’ll have peace. This Christmas season let that peace fill you up and be real and true to you. Know that you can trust in God’s promises… know that He wants the best for you… you can trust Him with your life… with the choices that you make and the paths that you
follow. As believers we come before God, not with a great report
card, but to acknowledge our sin and to humbly acknowledge our need of a
Savior. A believer then tries to reflect an appreciation and love of God with all the choices that one makes in
life. This Christmas season… don’t gloss over those words… feel them… and
carry His peace with you all the days of your life! |