Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
And He Shall Be Called...Prince Of Peace: Philippians 4vv4-7- Ian Graham
Pastor Ian Graham looks at the way we experience an absence of peace in our lives and how that both reveals Christ's presence in the midst of our circumstances and widens our definition of peace.
We've been looking at the names that have been given to the coming Messiah in Isaiah 9. Over the past several weeks we've looked at the. He Will Be Called the Wonderful Counselor, the Almighty God, the Everlasting Father. Today we arrive at the last in that series, as we look at Jesus the Messiah as the Prince of Peace, at Jesus the Messiah as the Prince of Peace.
Speaker 1:When you think about peace, in our culture, peace is construed as a project. It is something that we build and we maintain. Have you ever heard somebody talking about protecting their peace? And usually what they're talking about is well-intentioned boundary keeping, but the idea that peace is something that we create for ourselves and something that we cultivate and something that we defend. And then here we have Isaiah telling us of this coming king who will be the prince of peace and for us, instead of peace becoming a project that we have to somehow conjure and construe on our own, but that peace will be a gift. And this, as with so many of the other beautiful messages of Advent and Christmas, meets us where we are today that peace itself is not a project that we achieve, but a gift that we receive. And one of the questions that I'm always kind of wrestling with in my own head as I think about the promises of Jesus, as I think about the gifts. About the gifts is am I living out the life that I've been promised? Am I living out the gift that has been given to me? You see, peace is fundamental to the story. Luke, chapter 2, the story that we read so annually at Christmas time, beginning in verse 8, now, in that same region, there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord Beginning in verse 8. That will be for all the people To you is born in the city of David a Savior who is the Messiah, the Lord, and this will be a sign for you. You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger, and suddenly there was, with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth. Peace among those whom he favors. Chris, do you mind just turning down my mic ever so slightly? I'm getting right on the edge of just peeking out. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:When we talk about peace, it is at the beginning of the gospel story as the announcement about Jesus's impending birth is given to shepherds tending their flocks by night. This is what heaven has to say to earth Peace. But it's not just at the beginning of the story. As Jesus lives out his life, his faithfulness, his life, his death, his resurrection, he does all the miracles that some of us have heard of opening the eyes of the blind. He sits down to the table with sinners and inevitably he will give his life on a cross and for everybody looking on, they will think that that cross was the end of Jesus. But on the third day Jesus rises from the dead and he appears to his disciples and he says to them in John, chapter 20, when it was evening the first day of the week and the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear, jesus came and stood among them and said this again peace, be with you.
Speaker 1:Peace is not just the beginning of the story. Peace is the culmination of the story. It is the central operating system of the kingdom of God. Jesus says peace, be with you. John 14, the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I've said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world and Ecclesia. As we turn our attentions towards God here this morning, we believe that he's here. This is what Jesus is promising us in John, chapter 14.
Speaker 1:And as a way of kind of turning our hearts, our minds, towards his presence, I want to invite you just to a moment of quiet, because when we talk about things like peace, for most of us we are instantly aware where there is an absence of peace in our lives. And I wonder if you could just pay attention to your life right now. What burdens did you wake up with today? What circumstances have you been carrying around? You say, if this were to change, then I would have peace. Where do you feel a lack of integrity in your life? That the story you know you've been called to live in is not the story that you've been living out? Just as a way of welcoming God's presence it may seem like a bit of an upside-down way to welcome him is to pay attention to all the things that are wrong, but as a way of exploring his presence here today, just paying attention to your life, I'm going to give you just a couple of moments without me talking. We circle in on those things because often becoming aware or, in medical terms, diagnosis, is the first step towards healing. So this morning I pray and I've been praying all week that somehow the Prince of Peace would make himself present to you, because I know pastorally that peace is one of the fundamental promises that has been given to us. The beginning, the end, the middle of the story and yet I can't make that happen for other people. Only God can do that, and so I've been praying that he would show up in a powerful way here in our midst this morning.
Speaker 1:Psychologist Edwin Friedman, following the work of Murray Bowen and others, describes the person who is a non-anxious presence. This is a person who, by the nature of their very presence, can become a leader who can stay connected to a family system or a corporate culture that may even be quite toxic, but this person, this non-anxious presence, is not affected by the overall toxicity of the system, but they're also not checking out that's one of the responses that's available to us is, when things are going badly, just like pull out my phone or just take a step back right. The non-anxious presence is able to be a part and take part in the system but not be subsumed by it. And this person, in the presence of a frantic and toxic culture or system, is like a pressure release valve Peace from a family systems perspective counseling is almost palpable. Have you ever encountered a person like that? That person's at peace, something to them that is profound, that is going on underneath the surface.
Speaker 1:I often experience the lack of peace of Christ in my own life and the lives of other Christians, and today, as we enter into this last week of Advent, moving towards Christmas, I want to offer this simple thesis and this thesis is offered all in light of what I've said previously that peace is not a project, not something that we have achieved, but something that we receive. But in light of that, there is more of the peace of Christ that is available to us as a pure gift of the presence of God with us. Peace is our birthright because, again, we've looked, we've surveyed the story quickly. Peace is the beginning, the end, the middle of the story. But what I want to do is I want to locate that peace that is a gift from God as a part of the wider constellation of our lives. You see, I think what happens when it comes to topics like peace is. We have a very narrow definition of what peace is and what it isn't, and we can easily miss that peace is not merely circumstantial, that it's not just about those couple of things that we can identify on the surface, but it's about the way that God shows up in our lives and what we find is, if we pay attention long enough, we can see the truth of what's really going on. Many of you have been looking at the sky. You've seen the drones, you know. Somebody was like, yes, he's finally talking about it. Hey, if you have a theory, I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1:The biblical concept of peace is captured by the word shalom. Shalom is almost a word that would be best left untranslated, because we substitute peace or these kinds of ideas that we import, and for Westerners, especially American Westerners, peace is a very individualistic idea, but shalom is the world integrated fully under the reign of God. Look at what Nicholas Wolterstorff says. He's a theologian at Yale. He says shalom is present when a person dwells at peace in all his or her relationships.
Speaker 1:Now, you're hearing that you're like that'd be nice With God, with self, with fellows, with nature, to dwell at peace in one's relationships. It is not enough, however, that hostility be absent. Letting live is not yet shalom. Shalom is enjoyment in one's relationships. A nation may be at peace with all its neighbors and yet may be miserable in its poverty. To dwell in shalom is to enjoy living before God, to enjoy living in one's physical surroundings, to enjoy living with one's fellows, to enjoy life with one's self. Now I could send you out of here and say go and enjoy your life, and you might succeed at that for like 30 seconds, depending on your temperament. Like, okay, I'm going to try really hard to be joyful. And if that's the message that you hear about peace today, it will be received as a burden and as a strain, because again, even as you're listening to this quote, you're like, yeah, to be at peace in all of one's relationships, how nice would that be.
Speaker 1:But we all know that things fall apart. We all know that we've been a part of relationships where we fought for peace and yet that conflict remained or that distance between us remained. And so I don't say this to you as something that you need to undertake and, with Herculean strength, try to lift on your own. Herculean strength, try to lift on your own. What I say to you is that today, as we broaden our perspective on what God is trying to show us in light of the peace of heaven, that we will see the beauty of God with us. As we talked about, often we're only aware of peace because of its absence. We long for peace, we want rest, we want to know that our lives have integrity, that things are going somewhere, that the world that often seems chaotic and random will not topple our lives.
Speaker 1:One of the diagnostic questions that helps us understand both where God might be meeting us with his peace and to understand peace more thoroughly is to look at the question that we started with when is the void of peace in your life? And what I want to do today is look at a few of the areas that can present to us that void, that feeling of absence. Where is the peace here? And maybe, as we kind of circumvent these different areas, it's not all-encompassing. There are others that we could consider, but these several areas, where might God be meeting us today? So the question that I ask to you again is where do you feel an absence of peace in your life? There are reasons for that, and the reasons don't have complete explanatory power, but they can have revelatory power. I'll show you what I mean. First, we can feel an absence of peace in our life because of the presence of sin.
Speaker 1:Now, from the biblical vantage point, an absence of peace can often mean that we've tried to place an idol on the throne that belongs solely to God. Our immediate associations as again American Westerners with idol worship can be these sort of cartoonish like. I'm not bowing down to a stone statue in my closet. Maybe you are, but we distance ourselves from that to our peril. Idols in our culture are no less prevalent than they were in the ancient Near Eastern cultures from which we draw the biblical scriptures from. They're just a little more underneath the surface. Idolatry, ultimately, is not about the specific object of the worship. It's about the worship, it's about our attention, it's about where we look for emotional release, it's about where we put our trust in, and often anxious moments can reveal to us just exactly what we are putting all of those things into.
Speaker 1:The prophet Jeremiah was speaking to a whole culture of people who were awash in idolatry. They thought that, because they were at the geographic center of God's plans for the world, that no evil could befall them. They looked to the temple of God and said this is our safety net, this is our safeguard. God will never let anything happen to this place. Because of this important structure and in every way, they had turned something that was good and God-given into something that was less than good and something that was distancing them from God.
Speaker 1:Jeremiah 6 says this from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They've treated the wound of my people carelessly saying peace. They've treated the wound of my people carelessly saying Peace peace when there is no peace. They acted shamefully. They committed abomination, yet they were not ashamed. They did not know how to blush. Therefore, they shall fall among those who fall. At that time, I will punish them. They shall be overthrown, says the Lord. Thus says the Lord, verse 16, stand at the crossroads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way lies, and walk in it and find rest for your souls.
Speaker 1:We can experience an absence of peace in our lives because of the presence of unsurrendered sin in our lives, but there's a very important thing to pay attention to that's happening there in Jeremiah 6. The absence of peace is not on the part of God. Do you understand that the disconnect that is being experienced here, where the peace has been unplugged, is not from the end of the Creator, god? Even here in Jeremiah 6, god's punishments are not given as retribution. And I say this to you often because it's so important, especially for those of us who grew up with this image of a wrathful God, that God is not trying to get even with you for the wrong that you've done. That's not who he is. His justice is not retributional, it is restorative. Even here in Jeremiah 6, he says here are the things that you have done wrong, and yet if you would turn, if you would repent, there is a better way for you and it is available to you. Stand at the crossroads, look at the ancient paths, walk in my ways.
Speaker 1:The Prince of Peace has given himself for us to make for peace. Colossians 1 says it this way for in him, that being Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him, god was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven. By making peace through the blood of his cross, god is reconciling all things to himself. God's posture, god's heart, never changes, but Jesus takes on our human flesh, the word becoming flesh, living out the true calling of what it means to be human, living out the covenant that God has made with Israel. This is who God is.
Speaker 1:He has made a way for peace for us, and sometimes in our life there can be an absence of peace because we are going down a path that will not lead us to life. And God is faithfully, persistently, sometimes patiently, sometimes loudly, saying turn a different way. And we see this in the Christmas story. John the Baptist, the forerunner of the coming message of the kingdom, prepares the way of the kingdom and his message repent and be baptized. And so I trust that God is present here and revealing, not in a way that leads to condemnation and shame, but saying I have already healed that which you are trying to heal on your own. Turn a different way. And so one of the reasons that we can experience an absence of peace in our lives is because of sin, and the good news is Jesus has paid for all of your sins. That is who he is, that is what he's done.
Speaker 1:Another reason that we can experience an absence of peace, especially at Christmas time. Christmas has always had a revelatory power the collision of perfect love and the fullness of the blessing and joy of God. With our fractured world, shows the imperfections Like a light shining on a dusty window and for many of us, the absence of peace that we feel is grief. Christmas comes and it reveals sin and invites us to wholeness.
Speaker 1:But our absence of peace doesn't just come from sin, and it's important again for many of you that you hear that, because I think sometimes we internalize the narrative that everything that's wrong in our lives is because of something that you've done, and I assure you that it's not. You live in a world that is caught in the crossfire Between dark principalities and powers and evil forces and the God who is making all things right and new and will be faithful to steward this creation towards new creation and eternal life. But we are in the in-between times, and so I say this to you so plainly, ecclesia, that everything that you are suffering, all that absence of peace, is not because of something that you've done. Sometimes the glaring thing that is on top yeah, maybe that's you, but I assure you that part of the product of living in this fallen world is that there will be shrapnel and casualties, and one of the ways that we experience. This can come from our experiences of loss, regret, loneliness. How do we experience peace when all is not as it should be? Well, we have to reframe and widen our definition of what peace is.
Speaker 1:Peace and grief Ecclesia are not opposites, they're not poles that we somehow vacillate between, because peace is not just a feeling. Peace, shalom, is an arrangement of the world where God is king and the king is our friend, of the world where God is king and the king is our friend. We see at the tomb of Lazarus that the prince of peace is deeply grieved and disturbed in spirit. Psalm 34 tells us the good news the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and he saves the crushed in spirit. God is with you in your grief. Jesus coming to us, taking on the whole of our humanity, demonstrates that that truth of Emmanuel.
Speaker 1:But God is not just with you. I pray especially for those of you who are grieving. You could point to that faithful friend who has walked alongside you, who has been a healing presence, a balm in your life. But even that faithful friend cannot heal you. They cannot fill the void that is created by your grief. God is with you in your grief in the sense that that disorientation that grief brings, that all is not as it should be, all is not at peace. God is with you and that he is for you. He feels that same disdain for the holes that are created by this shrapnel-filled world and he is working on our behalf to heal it. He is not just with you, ecclesia, he is for you.
Speaker 1:And Isaiah 25 gives us a vision of the shalom that God is bringing to bear by giving of his very self. I love this passage. It is one that I come back to often, beginning in verse 6, on this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. Are you seeing the kingdom vision here? We are restoring all things and we are inviting the whole world to a party. Let's go on.
Speaker 1:And he will destroy, on this mountain, the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. God hates death. Then the Lord, god, will wipe away the tears from all faces and the disgrace of his people. He will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day. See, this is our God. We have waited for him so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation, for the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain. The last enemy to be defeated is death.
Speaker 1:Paul says in 1 Corinthians God has shown you that he is with you in all that brings us to that unease, that sense that all is not as it should be. But God is not just with us in that he experiences, he empathizes. God is with us in that he is working to return and restore all things. Jesus ascended the mountain hill we know as Calvary, to destroy the shroud of death. I know the pain, ecclesia, that so many of you are experiencing in your grief, especially at a time that is so adorned with the trappings of joy and light. I know that that pain is real. And the phantom limbs of loss. They ache and they throb, but they will be healed. There is joy that awaits. There is peace that is now and that is coming to us. Joy that awaits. There is peace that is now and that is coming to us.
Speaker 1:One of the other ways that we experience a lack of peace is probably one of the simplest ways. What's the opposite of peace? Noise, the Grinch noise, noise, noise. We live in the noisiest version of the world that has ever existed. That's a pretty bold statement, but, I think, pretty verifiable. Our phones are an ever-present source of anti-presence and, what's worse, just about every study shows that the more time you spend on your phone, the less happy you are. It makes sense, right?
Speaker 1:It turns out that looking at the curated versions of people's lives that seem awesome, that seem only about success, comfort and superficial beauty, without any of the complexity or awkwardness or shame that is really associated with being humans, has a disintegrating effect on our apprehensions of ourselves. Or you may not even be like that kind of social media user, right, like I know, a lot of people are on Instagram. You may be just checking your email 100 times a day, check the weather because it's something to do, refresh ESPN or stock prices. You're always available at work, no matter the hour of the day. You have music and podcasts going every waking hour of every single moment. Again, it's just noise.
Speaker 1:Now, I am not the anti technology. I wish I was a Luddite. I'm just not quite there yet. The noise, though, can hollow us out. We delude ourselves to thinking that we can exist in two places at once. Tomorrow, I am the parent of record for our children who are out of school. There's one day between today, a weekend, and Christmas Eve, which is a work day for me and Courtney has to work, so I will be at home with the kids and I guarantee you, about 8.30 in the morning after they finish their show, the temptation for me just to dip into adult world every couple of minutes is going to be strong. So I say this to you as a co-laborer, but what I find is that temptation that draw begins to draw me out of the goodness of the life that is before me, and we all kind of know this right. Like as we're told, I'll never forget, like I'll be scrolling, like Substack or something, and the article is titled like why I Got Off the Internet. I'm like this is so I don't know, ironic. I don't know what the word is here, but I'm just going to scroll past that. Go to something else.
Speaker 1:I think the image of Jesus silencing the storm is one that we can hold on to through this Christmas season Because, for whatever reason, when our rhythms change. Especially for those of us who are going to be doing a lot of sitting around around family, the temptation is always going to be like get me away from these people and whatever way I can subtly do so, and the socially acceptable way to do that is to pull out your phone, right. So, and the socially acceptable way to do that is to pull out your phone, right. But Jesus, when the disciples are sailing across the lake, they're caught in a frantic storm and they wake him up. They say Jesus, don't you care if we drown? In Mark 4?, jesus stands up. He says to the noise Remarkable to me that in this passage, the disciples' fear at the storm is then replaced by their fear at the Savior.
Speaker 1:They were afraid of the storm, but when Jesus shuts that thing down, they're like oh my gosh, who is this? The noise that our technology creates is a noise driven by consumerism and scarcity, that there won't be enough, that we will miss out, that we need this thing to keep up. And I just invite you, as a very practical reception of this peace that is a gift that is on offer to you, how might the Prince of Peace be inviting you to do your part in quieting the noise over Christmas To hear those words of Jesus spoken over the chaos of our lives Peace be still. Hear those words of Jesus spoken over the chaos of our lives. Peace Be still. Now I know we're not coming to our phone as a device that's trying to harm us in the middle of a storm, but often the franticness of that feels that kind of disorienting to me.
Speaker 1:For many of us, the additional time sitting around at Christmas time with family, instant impulse to reach for the phone to check out of there. For all of us, god is inviting us to contemplate the beauty of what Christ has done, especially at Christmas, to think of how astonishing it is. The church calendar has set aside 12 days for Christmas, not just one, to contemplate the mystery, to celebrate, to revel, to do a little foretaste of that Isaiah 25 feast that will be for all the nations to enjoy. And you think about the wonder of it. God became a baby, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have to pay attention to that story Because the scriptures are inviting us to thanksgiving, to wonder, to purpose. I love Mary Oliver's very simple line. She says instructions for living a life Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.
Speaker 1:When we talk about an absence of peace for many of us, we talk about the realm of anxiety Anxiety especially in regards to God and his posture. About anxiety, I think it's important that we speak in sort of two different registers here. First, there is general anxiety that every single one of us experiences. That is a normal ratio of brain chemistry in response to the situations that we are facing. Everybody experiences that.
Speaker 1:Philippians, chapter 4, tells us about this kind of anxiety. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. Jesus is inviting every single one of us with our general anxiety that is a part of the general course of being human to stop over-functioning, to stop placing our trust and our emotional release in idols and things that cannot sustain them and to bring instead our prayers, our supplications before God and say God, I need you here. Will you show up and this is a part of the general course of a life with God and somehow, in some way, the peace of Christ, the Prince of Peace, comes to us and meets us there. Wendell Berry says it this way he says, I go and I lie down where the woodrick rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free and again, if we are not so distracted, detached, we have, by the Spirit of God, the ability to turn to God to say I need you here in these subtle little moments.
Speaker 1:This is general anxiety, but for many of us in here and I know this there's a more chronic anxiety that several of us have wrestled with. Our mental health has been diagnosed by a professional as having some sort of affliction, and we experience this. I think often about how, how is the good news of Jesus good news to this person, to this person with this story? And when I think about people who struggle with chronic mental health, this is one of those areas I come back to often. I know what Christ has done is good news and I know that peace must be, in a sense, experience, and so in some way, even though it may not have all the texture of alleviating all of the conflict and the strain, I know that Jesus meets those of us here who struggle and wrestle with our mental health with the goodness of his presence.
Speaker 1:John Andrew Bryant, a Christian and a writer who struggles with severe mental health, writes of his experience being a pastor. He was a pastor of a local church who was eventually committed to a psych ward and he tells of the misfirings of the chemicals in his brain as being akin to that of an injury to his leg or to another illness. And I think that's really helpful and sort of leveling the playing field and saying like this is a malady, this is something I live with. It's chronic, it won't go away. It doesn't mean that Jesus hasn't healed me, it doesn't mean that I ultimately won't be healed, but this is something that I experience and John Andrew Bryant testifies to the wonder of God with us, even when it doesn't change every one of our circumstances.
Speaker 1:I'm going to invite the worship team forward and what I'm going to do as they're making their way forward is I'm going to read to you just a longer excerpt from this book because I think it's a really powerful testimony about how the Prince of Peace shows up in circumstances that often seem to us dire, and I'm going to try to read it. There's a quote voice that kind of hurries through the quote and there's kind of a preaching voice when I know where I'm going next. So I'm going to try to do the one on the left a little bit and just kind of invite you into it, not rush through it too much, but it is a bit of a longer excerpt as we turn our attention towards the Holy Spirit in just a moment. He writes this death was his word to us. I did not have a thought or a feeling, I had his word. By that word he had given himself to us completely and I knew that life was not about what was seen, felt, done or taken, because it was always about this. Instead, it would always be about what was given. And I knew that everything my mind said and every awful thing it showed me could not take the little awful peace and quiet given to me by the word of his death. That understanding was not the same as feeling worse or feeling better. I still felt horrible and would feel horrible for a long time. Horrible thoughts would abide and abound, but it was too late.
Speaker 1:The word had spoken, I had been seen, I was with someone, I had been given safe passage, mercy had been provided, the word of the cross and my patient, quiet understanding. There is found, at the foot of the cross, a solemnity and tenderness found nowhere else, a word that stands over all time and space and over every history and institution and heartbreak. It is more than can be done or taken, and yet it is an embrace. It has drawn us close, it is nearer than what can be seen or felt. It is Christ's tenderness and severity, christ's authority and embrace. Everything had been dealt with, Everything had been given.
Speaker 1:The cross is the place where God decided not to look away from us. Here in Christ, god stared down everything that might frighten or condemn or humiliate us, and to its teething, spilling desire to be the final word, he has said no, the prince of peace meets us here. I'm going to invite you back to that place of disconnect, where is the absence of peace in your life? And then I'm just going to invite you and, as intentional as you can be in these moments, sitting in your chair, just bring that before God Again. I can't do this for you, but just say, lord, take this from me, meet me here, because the truth of the gospel is that, at the cross, jesus has dealt with all that we will ever face. He is risen and he is reigning.
Speaker 1:And if the truth of the gospel is that he is risen and he is reigning, then he is here now, and so we invite his presence in all faith, in all the audacity that hope demands.
Speaker 1:We say, lord, come, holy Spirit. Lord, we bring to you our felt absence of peace, god. God, knowing that the opposite of peace is not that we would instantly have warm feelings or that every one of our circumstances would change God, but somehow, mysteriously, that we would feel ourselves embraced by you, by the arms that were stretched wide on the cross of Calvary, god, by the arms that were pleased with the blood of Christ to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth. We pray come, holy Spirit, god. Would you meet, dear sons and daughters, here with your presence, lord, the presence of your peace ministering to us? We ask these things expectantly, because we believe you are who you say you are and that you've done what you said you've done. We ask all these things in your name, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the name of the Prince of Peace, we pray Amen.