One of Peace
a sermon based on Micah 5:2-5a|
by Rev. Roy E. Fowler, edited by Rev. Thomas Hall

Love and hate may be opposites but sometimes they’re next door neighbors. Young children are in a house unattended while the sitter and her boyfriend sit on the porch mesmerized by each other. They become intimate even while they hear yelling in the background. She hugs him and says, "I love you so much!" and he says "me too." He turns at the bottom steps and waves goodbye to her as she enters the house to attend to the children. A young boy runs out of his sister’s room as she starts up the stairs. He stops long enough to scream, "I hate you!" Love and hate in the same house.

The casual use of such terms as "love" and "hate" has emptied them of their true meaning. Do we understand what these words mean in today’s society? Is it possible to understand what God means when God tells us that we are loved while yet in the same breath we know that God hates our sinful ways?

This time of the year it is easy to think warmly of Jesus who came to earth wrapped in swaddling clothes. Jesus is the gentle and kind baby cooing in the manger. A soft Christmas package that’s all love and no hatred. Whatever hatred God has of sin, is tempered by God’s love. But let us not allow our misconceptions and wishful thinking see the warm and cuddly baby Jesus and not the God of justice.

God's justice is real and demanding, and must lead to restoration and atonement.   But God’s love is also real at the same time.  What seems humanly impossible, God has turned into a possibility with the incarnation of Jesus.  God found a way to atone the sin he hates with an offering of pure love. He became human with all of our desires, pain and sufferings. He came as a baby . . .

• born to the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem
• a baby, that warms our souls as we hear the Christmas story of his birth.
• a baby, that draws us to be generous with our money when we see the guy ringing the bell outside our malls
• a baby whom we call "Jesus" a God/human being to us, for us

As Luther quipped about the nativity, "The little baby lying in the manger was God." Barbara Brown Taylor tells of a little girl who retells the birth of Christ through six-year old eyes. "And then," she says "and then the baby was borned." She ends her story with a question. "And do you know who the baby that was borned was? She whirls around and around until she falls between big pillows on the sofa and whispers, "The baby Jesus was God."

Before he was this little baby Jesus, He was God. God bent down and formed the first person out of dust of the earth. The Holy Spirit breathed life into this body and it became a living being. Yet, God knew that the perfect creation would eventually need recycling and redeeming. God knew. That’s what the incarnation is: God becoming incognito in human flesh. Or as one Christian calls it, "decked out in flesh." Incarnation is the instance where God's hatred of our sin and our love for us is reconciled and becomes an offering of peace.

As we all know, this baby Jesus grew to an adult. This adult that is both God and Human died for our sins. It was a horrible death on Roman cross because of false witnesses. Jesus died for you and for me. He died for us.  He is the pure offering of love--God's solution to reconciling justice and peace  -- Will we make our peace with God?  Will we accept his gift, our Savior?  Will we be reconciled through the gift of Jesus' birth and death and the forgiveness of our sinful ways that God hates. Will we live for Him?

Today, step up to God. Look beyond the softness of mangers and shepherds to the Lord of the universe, to the source of all Wisdom, to Jesus. In him you will find a peace that passes all understanding. In him you will discover what the prophet Micah said: He will be the source of our peace. Amen.