Dec 23, Immanuel: Our Hope for Peace

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Advent 4
December 23, 2007
W. Gregory Pope

IMMANUEL:
OUR LAST AND ONLY HOPE FOR PEACE

Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19;
Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Where do you look for hope and peace in this world?

In a recent Courier-Journal interview Wendell Berry said, “Hope is a theological virtue. That means that you’ve got to try to have it. It’s not just a feeling. You’re not hopeful just because you woke up in a good mood. You’re hopeful because you found reasons. You’ve convinced yourself that something better is possible, and you’ve found a way to work for it.” [1]

Have you found reasons to be hopeful lately?

Hope is crucial to rolling out of bed each day. Hope brings to us a way of looking at life with what David Stendal-Rast calls “openness for surprise.” People of Hope have the capacity to be surprised. Sometimes life has dealt us such grave hardships we will not allow ourselves to Hope, to be open for surprise. The latest surprises have been too painful. But C. S. Lewis says that surprise is the signature of Grace.

Have you found reasons for hope lately? They can be difficult to find.

Babies as Signs of Hope

Sometimes hope comes wrapped in a blanket and lying in a crib, making you roll out of bed in the middle of the night. The screaming song they sing pierces your night-time peace. But their presence gives you reason to hope.

Henri Nouwen writes about two friends of his who struggled with the idea of bringing a baby into this world but decided to do so anyway. The baby’s name was Hannah. Nouwen said when he held her, because he knew her parents and their struggle with this maddening violent world, he said he was able to see her in ways he had never seen a baby before. He said, “This small and fragile child, looking trustfully at me with her beautiful dark eyes, told me something new about resistance that I had not known before. She told me that there is hope even when optimism seems absurd; there is love even when people die of fear; and there is reason to celebrate even in a civilization dressed in mourning for its own rapid decline.” [2]

Giving life to a new human being can be an act of resistance in this world. It is saying loudly: For us life is stronger than death, love is stronger than fear, and hope is stronger than despair. [3]

Babies can be signs of hope.

The Sign of the Baby in Isaiah

Such was the case in Isaiah’s day.

Isaiah had been called by God, says Molly Marshall of today’s text, “to speak the divine word to a beleaguered nation suffering an identity crisis.” [4] Do you think we can relate?

Jerusalem is under the threat of attack from surrounded neighbors. King Ahaz is scared to death and intimidated. Scripture says his heart “shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” He’s so frightened he’s about to make a major policy decision to appeal for help from Assyria, a decision Walter Brueggemann says reflects “short-term panic and long-term foolishness.”

Into that situation of threat, panic, and foolishness comes the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah tells King Ahaz: “Be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint.” Isaiah invites the king to courage, based on a reassessment of reality. He engages in political analysis of the international scene. He tells Ahaz that the war-making kings will not be in power much longer.

The prophet is trying to help the king see that the world looks very different when you are not consumed by fear. The choice King Ahaz faces is the choice you and I face - the choice of “faith versus fear” and the two worlds that result from faith or from fear. [5]

Isaiah brings a needed word to us as he, firmly in the prophetic tradition, talks about faith and fear as a public policy issue. Whether we choose the path of faith or fear matters significantly in concrete decisions that must be made in the real world, in public discussions of war and peace, prosperity and poverty. [6]

Through the prophet Isaiah Yahweh makes the offer of a sign of reassurance to King Ahaz. Ahaz is either so afraid he is not willing to be reassured or he does not think Yahweh can be trusted. Either way it appears to be a failure of faith.

A sign is given anyway. Isaiah points to a woman great with child. The baby, he says, will be a sign of hope for Ahaz. The child’s name will be Immanuel, “God with us.”

It’s important to realize here that Isaiah is not predicting the birth of Jesus. This is a young woman in Isaiah’s day who is pregnant as Isaiah speaks, some 700 years before the birth of Jesus.

Isaiah tells Ahaz that before the child is old enough to choose between good and evil and eat solid food (say around two years old) the military threat will be over. The two kings of war-making will be out of the picture. Kings and presidents do not reign forever - only God does.

This child is a summons to faith for Ahaz. But Ahaz has abandoned faith. He refuses to trust Immanuel, that God will be with him and his people, that deliverance will come not through military might but through the God who keeps promises. Peace will not come through violence, but by learning the ways of God.

Ahaz refused to see the sign of hope and peace before him in the promise of a baby. And the result eventually was exile for his people.

The Sign of the Baby in Matthew

The sign of hope and peace in the promise of a baby also came to a young couple in Nazareth named Mary and Joseph.

Times were as dreadful, if not more so, as they were in Isaiah’s day. So Matthew remembered the story of Isaiah and Ahaz and made the baby connection. The baby of which Isaiah spoke to be named “Immanuel” was God’s sign of hope and peace for Ahaz. The baby of which Matthew speaks to be named “Immanuel” - though not the same baby - is God’s sign of hope and peace for all the world.

Just like Ahaz, Joseph is afraid. And just as Isaiah told King Ahaz, “Do not fear,” the angel said to Joseph, “Do not fear, for the child within Mary is Immanuel, a sign that “God is with us.” And miracle of miracles, in contrast to King Ahaz, Joseph had the faith to trust beyond his fears and the courage to act as God told him.

What Does It Mean to Be Saved From Our Sins?

The angel said to Joseph that the baby born to him and Mary shall be called Jesus, Yeshua, which means “God saves,” for he will save his people from their sins.

We must be careful when we hear scripture say that Jesus will save us from our sins to think it is only a reference to his death on a cross. A biblical understanding of salvation goes beyond our traditional limited understanding of “being saved” by believing in Jesus. Salvation is larger than that.

Biblical salvation regards every aspect of life - personal and public, individual and social. Salvation is a healing wholeness, a deliverance from those powers - political and spiritual - that prevent abundant life, a life of full, joyous, communion with God and one another. Salvation is peace, shalom. It is deliverance from death and enslavement to the law. It is deliverance from guilt and despair. But salvation is also primarily rooted in our daily, lived reality; it’s not just about reservations in the sweet by and by. And it is the work of God.

God brings peace-shalom-salvation in Jesus. In his life and teachings, death and resurrection, Jesus is saving us from ourselves and our sin

How does Jesus save us from our sins?

1. One way that Jesus seeks to save us from our sin is his call and the call throughout scripture not to be ruled by fear but guided by faith.

Many mistakes are made when fear is the context out of which we live.

So Isaiah tells King Ahaz: “Do not fear.” And the angel says to Joseph, “Do not be afraid.”

Why these warnings against fear? How is it possible not to be afraid in this frightening world? Both Isaiah and the angel point to babies as signs of hope and say they bear the name Immanuel. They are signs that “God is with us.” Someone has said that “Babies are God’s way of saying the world must go on.” They can be signs of hope and faith in a fearful world.

The choice between paralyzing fear and faithful trust in God is always before us. To live in faith is to trust our security and our future to the attentiveness of God, realizing that panic and anxiety are unnecessary. He’s got the whole world in his hands, including you and me, brother and sister. Our choice is to take the pilgrimage of faith rooted in the presence of God among us, or to take the way of fear, believing God is too small for the problems of this world.

We can be saved from the mad craziness that comes when fear rules our lives by trusting our lives in faith to the God who holds us all. And shalom, God’s all encompassing peace, can be ours.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. For God is with us.

2. To heed the call of Jesus to justice can save us from the sin of injustice. Our greed and consumption of material possessions leads to great injustices all over the world. We seek ways to control what we think we need. Others work for unfair wages so we can buy what we want inexpensively. The call to justice is a call to care for the poor. Learning justice was our second stop on this Advent pilgrimage of peace. Because to live in peace requires justice. And to live justly saves us from the sins of oppression and greed, an oppression and greed that often lead to violence and war.

3. Jesus calls us to nonviolence to save us from the sins of violence - the sins of unjust wars, needless, needless killing, and a cycle of violence that enslaves families, neighborhoods, national governments, and global politics.

When injustice is present, Jesus said, get mad about it and act against it, but do not resort to violence. If only the followers of Jesus in this world took the pledge of nonviolence most wars could never take place, and fewer people would want to make war against those who have learned the ways of nonviolence.

This is one way the cross of Jesus saves us from sin as it teaches us nonviolence and the willingness to suffer for others.

Nonviolence was our first stop on this advent pilgrimage of peace where we learned to pray and resist and join together in community. Such learning may be our salvation and the salvation of the world.

To choose the way of nonviolence is to choose the way of forgiveness.

4. The call of Jesus to forgive those who hurt us saves us from the sins of hatred and anger that often lead to violence. Again, his cross is our salvation. As he was brutally slaughtered on the cross, retaliation and violence was not his response. But rather, the most amazing word of grace our world has perhaps ever heard: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Hate can feel good. And anger can be justified. But hate that builds up and anger that boils over in violence cannot bring peace and salvation.

However, to let go of long-held grudges, to stop nursing wounds inflicting by another, and to forgive - to release someone from the arrows of your vengeful heart is to find salvation and give birth to peace.

Our willingness and ability to forgive others is nurtured within us by God’s forgiving grace in our own lives.

5. God’s forgiveness offered in Christ saves us from the shame of our past. Peace comes only as we learn to live with our past and to be released from the guilt and shame that past may bring. That’s what salvation is. To be made whole. To be healed on the inside from all that tears us apart. And it is the gift of God. We cannot atone for our own sins. The past cannot be undone. All we can do is accept grace and offer what restoration we can.

Jesus did that for others throughout his life. The woman at the well wounded by divorce. Zaccheaus disgraced by injustice. A woman embarrassed by adultery. Prodigals wanting to come home. Vengeance and judgment were not his way. The open arms of grace to heal shame and restore life - that was his way. And it is our salvation. It can be your peace, if you’ll receive it. Receive it like a gift on Christmas morning.

His way of faith saves us from fear.
His way of justice saves us from injustice.
His way of nonviolence saves us from violence.
His way of forgiveness saves us from hatred and shame.

6. And His presence as Immanuel - “God with us” - is the hope that saves us from despair.

God-with-us is our only hope for salvation, wholeness, peace in our lives and inn our world. God with us and in us is our only hope for faith, justice, nonviolence, and forgiveness. We cannot do it alone. We need the guiding power of Immanuel among us to teach us and the presence of crucified and Risen Christ within us to save us from ourselves and our sin.

The presence of the Christ Child we will meet in the manger tomorrow night and on Christmas morn has the healing power to save us and grant us peace. Such good news, Paul told the Romans, we are called to share in word and by the way we orient our lives.

King Ahaz refused “God with us” and proceeded to live and conduct policy without God. The result was exile.

Joseph faced his fear with trust in the God who holds us all and acted in a risking faith. And salvation was born into our world.

What about you?

Will you, like Ahaz, refuse “God with you” and proceed to live your life and make decisions without God? Or, like Joseph, will you trust the signs of hope around you and live with an openness to surprise and faith in “God with you”?

In the Bible hope is connected to the coming kingdom of God, or reign of God. This Advent season we have heard some of the scripture’s most beautiful images of this peaceable kingdom: swords beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. It is the dream of justice and joy, peace and rest. We sing of Hope when we sing the Hallelujah Chorus: “And he shall reign forever and ever.” It is a heavenly and historical Hope where “The kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” Hope believes in a God who will bring these things to pass.

Who knows? The surprise of Hope may even happen in this place. In babies and children like Matthew and Hana and Mary Grace Po and Hope Blossom Could it be Hope that, deep down, is what brings us here each week? The Hope that if we have our ears and eyes open, every once in a while some word in even the most unpromising sermon will flame out, some scrap of prayer or anthem, some moment of silence, or the sudden glimpse of somebody you love sitting there near you, or some stranger whose face without warning touches your heart - moments that in the depths of our dimness and sadness and lostness we hear the echo of a wild and bidding voice that calls us from deeper still.

I will end with the question that got us started: Where do you look for hope and peace in the world?

I would point you this day to the manger, to the One who came to save us from sin and self, with the Hope that we are known, each one of us, by name, and that out of the distressing darkness and brokenness of our lives God will call us by name. It is the Hope that into the secret grief and pain and bewilderment of each of us Christ will come at last to heal and to save.

This Advent pilgrimage may find you traveling through the darkest night. You may have given in to despair and cynicism. But I have good news for you. God has a Christmas package with your name on it. It says, “Hope is here.” Hope is here. Yes, even for you and me.
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1. “Wendell Berry’s still unsettled in his ways,” The Courier-Journal, September 30, 2007, A20
2. Henri Nouwen, Peacework, Orbis, 2005, 74
3. Ibid., 73
4. Molly Marshall, “Security Without Might,” in Interpreting Isaiah for Preaching and Teaching, ed., by Cecil Staton, Smyth and Helwys, 1991, 67
5. Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39, Westminster John Knox, 1998, 65-66
6. Ibid., 72