Dec 20, 2016
Readings Isaiah 9:2-7 Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-20
A direct download link can be found at the bottom of this post
An adapted version of this Sermon will be preached on Christmas Day. This sermon was frst preached Christmas 2016
There are lies damned lies and statistics but looking at some of the more conservative figures on the net we hear that in 2014 over 30 000 people were killed world wide in terrorism and over 150 000 were killed in just the top 20 wars. In Australia at least 100 people were killed in family and domestic violence. In the United States early in October 2015 this year almost 10 000 people had been killed by gun violence.
Even one of those deaths is one too many. Almost 2 000 years ago
Luke tells the story of some Angels who announce to some shepherds
a message of Peace on Earth and in the story we all know but did
not hear tonight we her from Matthew’s Gospel that some time after
Jesus is born some visitors from the East, possibly from Arabia
come to a Jewish family to honour Jesus a peasant boy or at best a
tradesman from a small Jewish village.
We have grown so used to the Christmas story and we’ve become so
surrounded by the commercialism of Christmas that we fail to see
how radical and how relevant the story of the first Christmas, the
birth of Jesus really is.
Jesus is born at a time of relative peace. It is Roman peace. Think
of Iraq under the dictator Saddam Hussain and you have an idea of
Roman peace. The Roman Empire enforced peace at the end of a sword.
The Jewish people deeply resented the Romans for two reasons first
they were their conquerors. Like the people of Iraq looking at the
coalition, seeing them as liberators at first but then as
occupiers, as Westerners had been in the days of the British and
French Empires and following World War one, and as they had been
centuries before in the Crusades, the Romans were the resented
overlords. The second reason they resented them was because they
were gentiles. Non Jewish people who worshipped many gods and who
did not respect Jewish faith. They built pagan temples in and near
their cities and towns and some Roman governors including Pontius
Pilate the governor who tried and executed Jesus, even tried at
times to set up pagan statues in and near the Jewish
Temple.
This was the peace, the great rein of peace called the Pax Romana -
the Roman Peace. It was not real peace at all and this was not the
kind of thing the Angels proclaim when they announce Peace on
Earth. What has really changed in Israel today?
Israel itself is a peaceful place. You will find there the rule of
law in most parts of the country you will find very little
terrorism or even unrest, yet the temple mount where the Jewish
Temple of Jesus’ time stood has two Islamic Mosques on it. Israel
is surrounded by many people who would wish it destroyed and Israel
itself has gained its peace like the Romans did through wars and
military strength. It is not real peace. This is not what the
Angels were singing about that night and it is not the vision we
heard in the reading from Isaiah of peace with justice and
righteousness. Peace of which there will be no end.
What the angels announce is reconciliation of all people with God
and with each other. That too I believe is the vision and hope of
the whole Bible and we find it coming into focus in the Jesus story
including today’s Christmas story. I believe too that, that vision
of peace, although it is corrupted and distorted is in the heart of
every human being, of whatever faith and no faith.
To illustrate this if you go to Israel today and you are greeted by
a Jewish citizen the chances are that they will greet you with not
hello but with Shalom. This word can mean, hello, or goodbye but
it’s main meaning is peace, it can also mean, healing, wholeness
and reconciliation. If you meet a Muslim Arab or Muslim Palestinian
in the same part of the world they may well greet you with the word
Salaam which means exactly the same thing - Peace. You see this is
because Hebrew and Arabic are closely related languages.
At the heart of the traditional understanding of the Jesus’ story
is this notion of peace. It is the belief that on that first
Christmas, God reconciled, became friends with, made peace with all
human beings and all creation, by coming to us, becoming one of us
in a feed trough, in a common family in a little Jewish town or
village. God came to bring peace. Peace with God and peace between
all people and indeed in all creation.
The two familiar Christmas stories illustrate this in two very
different ways. Luke with his story of the shepherds says that the
Jesus story, the peace of God is not just for religious people or
wealthy people but even for smelly, scruffy, shepherds who could
not regularly get to church (The synagogue) or the Temple
festivals. God’s love, friendship and peace is for anyone. So that
means that all the people no matter who they are, are loved by God
and so should be loved by each other. No matter what you think of
yourself, no matter what others think of you, no matter what you
think of some of the scruffy, smelly, difficult people in your life
the message of the Angels is for all for you and for them: Peace on
Earth and so in all our interactions we should work toward that
Peace with everyone our lives touch.
In the story of the Wise Men in Matthew’s gospel we hear that the
Jesus story is not just a Jewish story, it is not just the church’s
story, it is a story for all people even people like the wise men,
from the East, possibly Arabs, certainly of another culture and
faith, not Jewish and certainly not Christian. So that means that
God’s peace is for all people and it means we should work toward
peace with others. In this I make no political statement, I do not
say that other faiths or people are right or wrong, I simply say
that the message of Christmas is that God’s peace is for all and
that with or without compromise we should make, Peace, love and
reconciliation our aim and goal in all our relationships. For every
person, and every culture and every faith, and even those without
faith, the Angels sing, “Glory to God in the Highest an on earth,
peace, goodwill toward all!”