My assignment today is to talk about peace. So naturally I think of war. It seems that humans are very keen on war. In many ways, it is our thing. We talk peace and make war.
In the past 6,000 years of recorded history only 200 of those have been peaceful. It is estimated that between 90 and 95 % of all known societies have engaged in war on a fairly regular basis. And yet we talk peace. And all sorts of smart people have claimed we were on the verge of utopia. In 1897 Hiram Maxim invented the fully automatic machine gun. He predicted that it would bring about worldwide peace because his gun had such devastating effects. I wonder how that worked out?
Orville Wright believed that when he and his brother invited the airplane it would ‘make further wars practically impossible’. In 1912 Marconi, the inventor of the radio, predicted that ‘the coming of the radio will make war impossible.’ Two years later we had World War I. In 1871 Alfred Nobel - the man who started the Nobel prizes and was the inventor of dynamite believed that his invention would usher in world peace. It seems that in spite of all well-meaning intentions we humans keep on going to war.
Our Old Testament text from Isaiah 11 paints a startling contrast to this and to most of what we see around us.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and a little child shall lead them.
Nothing shall hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
When we pray Sunday by Sunday the prayer our Lord taught us “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is what it will look like.
All of us dream of a day when no one will have to carry a gun. When there will be worldwide peace. When everyone will be treated fairly; no babies bombed in Syria. No racism. No land grabs.
We dream of that day the prophet Isaiah saw: when there will be peace in the valley. The grizzly bear and the Jersey cow will eat from the same pail. The lion and the lamb will lie down together and little children will have rattle snakes for pets. And we will finally get the world leader we don’t deserve. King Jesus will take His rightful place. And the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
One of the functions of the Advent Season is to look at the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. At this time of the year we not only look back to Bethlehem and the tiny Baby but we also look forward. We look to the Mount of Olives when His pierced feet shall once more touch the Western Slopes in power and great glory. This same Jesus who was taken away from us shall come again.
Every Christian is a dreamer. Every time we recite the Lord’s Prayer we dream. Every time we say the words ‘thy Kingdom Come’ we dream of a world without war; without greed, without hunger. We dream of worldwide peace.
This glorious day will come when we get the world leader we don’t deserve. Up to this point in history, for the most part, we have had the leaders we deserved. Selfish, greedy, cruel, incompetent men – men for the most part. Men who became corrupt with power. Go back over the centuries. The more powerful the leader; the more corrupt he became. There are few exceptions.
• Stalin,
• Napoleon,
• James I of England,
• the Medieval Popes,
• the Caesars,
• Alexander the Great,
• Nebuchadnezzar,
• the Pharaohs of Egypt.
But didn’t we get what we deserved? Aren’t these leaders and exaggerated reflection of the common man? In our own homes, at work and school, with the little power we have are we not selfish, greedy and sometimes cruel? So isn’t it about time we got a leader who we don’t deserve. King Jesus is the Leader we really don’t deserve.
Psalm 72 that was read this morning tells us what this End Time Leader is going to be like. This is what we have to look forward to in the Second Advent. This is how our prayer ‘Thy will be done’ will be answered.
Jesus will Judge Fairly. He has absolute integrity and full knowledge of every situation. There has never been a judge or a world leader who could ever claim that he had absolute integrity and a full knowledge of every case. But King Jesus does.
Jesus at the Second Coming will bring prosperity to our world. Look at verse 16 in Psalm 72: There will be an abundance of grain in the land. Poverty has never been God’s will for humankind. God did not place Adam and Eve in the Garden and say to them: Now eke out an existence. He came to give us an abundant life.
Jesus became poor, the Bible says, in order that we might become rich. Poverty rides the coattails of sin. I am not saying that if you are poor it is because you are sinful. All I am saying is God wills for his creation to prosper. This is not the prosperity Gospel – this is the Gospel. In that day when Jesus shall reign upon the earth ‘the mountains shall bring prosperity to the people.’
Did you know that even today our food shortage is not really a food shortage it is a greed and distribution problem? We grow enough food to feed every man, woman and child on the face of this earth but millions are undernourished or worse because either we can’t get the food to them or greed keeps it from them.
When Jesus comes again he will judge fairly, he will bring prosperity and according to Psalm 27 verse 4 he will defend the affected. He will crush the oppressor.
1. Who is going to come to the aid of the girls from the Philippians who are being sold all over the world for the sex trade?
2. Who is going to help the world’s street children – abandoned, orphaned left to fend for themselves. 300,000 in tiny Guatemala alone?
3. Who else will take the side of the homeless in this city?
4. Who is going to come to the aid of the battered wife, the abandoned elderly, the forsaken sick? Those whom the world’s power structures have passed by. Jesus is always on the side of the oppressed.
King Jesus will come the aid of the poor, the dispossessed, the abandoned. And He will bring peace in the valley. There will be peace as we have never known it in human history. There will be lasting, everlasting peace on earth. Peace at last!
Isaac Watts wrote a well-known hymn based on our reading in Psalm 72.
Jesus shall reign where'er the Sun
Doth his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till suns shall rise and set no more.
That day will come. In the meantime, we are to be peace keepers in a war zone. The passing of the peace is but a snapshot of what we are to be doing all week long. Peace - PEACE that comes not from the absence of trouble, but from the presence of Christ. Instruments of peace – all week.
In our marriage, at work, in the car, at the shop. All week long - peace keepers. Making people’s lives better because we passed by. All week: instruments of Peace.
Let us pray…
Lord make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
And where there is sadness, joy.
O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive-
and it's in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
