Jerusalem Peace
December 8, 2024 Advent 2
Al just read Paul’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. Wonderful guidance on how to live our lives. How to be the people God has created us to be. You also might have noticed that it is a perfect reading for Advent because all four themes, love, hope, joy and peace are woven together. It concludes with “If it is possible, so far as it depends on YOU, live peaceably with all.”
Zechariah had lived peaceably as a Jerusalem Temple priest his whole life. Luke starts his gospel of Jesus’ birth in the Temple with Zechariah. His once in a lifetime opportunity to enter the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God, is eclipsed by the arrival of the angel Gariel who promised the birth of a son. This is where Luke begins his gospel and the birth narrative of Jesus and where the angel Gabriel promises the birth of John the Baptist. READ Luke. 1:5-17.
Jerusalem, the City of David, Zion. The first thing I did in Jerusalem was walk atop the ancient wall of the city. Narrow embattlements, lookouts and pathways. These ancient stones protected the Old City from enemies past and modern development. In the distance I got my first glimpse of the magnificent gold dome, the Dome of the Rock. Under that dome is the Foundation Stone, Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount. All names for the place Abraham prepared to sacrifice Issac, the place David purchased as a home of the Ark of the Covenant, the place Solomon built the first Temple. Mohammed had a vision transporting him to this same Temple Mount It is now a holy Muslim site. As my group toured this site, holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, as I stood in line to descend to this ancient holy place, the spirit moved me to tears as my fingers touched the stone realizing all that had transpired here in the holiest of Holies.
This is where our story takes place, well the ground, even if it was a Temple that has long been destroyed. Zechariah is in the Jerusalem Temple serving the Lord and saying prayers. He is the priest on duty in the holy of holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple. He is as close as he will ever get the divine presence in his life. Here Zechariah is surrounded by the Bread of Presence, 12 loaves of unleavened bread representing the 12 tribes which symbolized God’s desire for close communion with God’s people. It is here that God answered prayers and promised the birth of John to Zechariah and Elizabeth.
John was born to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. That is exactly what we are doing during Advent. Preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ. We decorate our homes, we shop for presents, we attend holiday parties all to get into the holiday spirit. We even go to Christmas luncheons at church and sing Christmas Carols. But what we truly are doing is centering our lives in the power and love of Jesus and preparing once again for his miraculous birth.
Last week we started our journey in Rome, with the decree that set God’s inbreaking in humanity, the Bethlehem birth of his Son, in motion. We pondered our own longings and how we want to embrace them. Today we are in Jerusalem at the Temple. The priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth have their own longings. They desperately prayed for a child. But Elizabeth was barren. She had been waiting her entire life to be a mother, to welcome a child. But that blessing had never come. So, I ask you what are you waiting for? What have you hoped and dreamed would come true, but you have never gotten out of the holding pattern of waiting? Waiting is hard. We really don’t like to do it. Yet “waiting is the way to Christmas. This is what makes Jerusalem different from Rome. Rome puts us in touch with our longings, naming what we desire. But once we do, we go to Jerusalem where we hang up that longing and wait” (OTWB, 41).
Most of us do not like to wait. We want the world to go as we plan, and we do not want things to be delayed. We have the illusion that the world is in our control and so when it does not go as planned, or we hit a detour, we can get frustrated. This week a went to Los Gatos for an appt. I expect to be on time. But the traffic was bad, and it felt like people were in my way. Every light seemed to take an eternity. I was impatient and did not like waiting. My behavior was less than admirable. In my anxiety, I forfeited my peace and serenity. Looking back, I realize I will never get that time back to be calm, at peace, because I had not befriended waiting.
Have you befriended waiting? Do you have a sense of peace as you wait for something? How we wait can be as important as waiting. “Jesuit priest William Lynch has observed that there are two kinds of waiting. One kind waits because there is nothing else to do. The other is a waiting energized by hope. The decision to engage in this hopeful kind of waiting, he says, “is one of the great human acts. It includes, surely, the acceptance of the darkness, sometimes in defiance. It includes the enlarging of one’s perspective beyond the present moment… It simply chooses to wait, and in so doing gives the future the only chance it has to emerge” (Sermons.com, William Lynch).
Elizabeth and Zechariah had been waiting for a child for decades. They hoped and prayed every month that this would be the time of blessing. God heard their prayers and put an end to their waiting. Sound familiar? “The entire story of God’s covenant relationship with Israel, beginning with the promise to Abraham and Sarah, is coming to fulfillment. Fulfillment once again, with a promise and a birth, against all odds” (Working Preacher, Elisabeth Johnson). God’s promise to Zechariah and Elizabeth to bear a son echoes the beginning of God’s covenant with humanity. John prepares the way of the Lord and our covenant in Christ. A covenant of love born in our hearts with birth of Jesus.
“Waiting is not easy to do, but it is a spiritual activity” (OTWTB, 49). How can we find peace in our waiting? How do you live peaceably with all. Our journey to Bethlehem moves through Jerusalem, the City of Peace. Its very name comes from two Hebrew words “Ir” and “Shalom,” City of Peace. With all that is happening in the Middle East it is hard to think of Jerusalem as a peaceful, yet it reminds us that our waiting is not on our time table, but God’s. That so much of scripture is about waiting. A closing thought, John Ortberg said, “What happens in us while we wait is as important as what we are waiting for.” Let that sink in for a moment. What God does in us while we wait is as important as what we wait for. That’s a powerful thought. We discover the truth only when we wait in Advent fashion. Advent style waiting is not biding our time or pacing the floor. It is waiting like Zechariah. It is continuing to show up, to carry out our devotion, and to pray, “May the God of mercy come” (OTWTB, Pg 53). Let us pray.
Almighty, Eternal God, who has prepared the minds and hearts of Your children in every age for the coming of Your Son, and whose Spirit is working even now to brighten the darkness of our lives with His holy light, help us be fully prepared this year for the birth of our Lord. Do not let us be distracted from the real reason for the season. Do not let us get discouraged by the busyness of our days. Help us to make room for Him in our hearts, since there is no room for Him in the inn, that He may live in us and we may live anew in Him.
O Loving and Tender God, help us also to wait for Your word when we ask to hear it. Help us to wait for Your guidance when we ask to know Your will. Teach us patience as we come before You, and let our waiting make us strong in faith. Teach us to pray boldly and often, O Lord; and then teach us to stop speaking and start listening as we wait for Your reply. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen (prayer by Erskine White)
