December 4, 2011
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When we emptied out our church building before the retrofit in 1998, I brought three office chairs home to restore. My desk chair that’s in my office now is the same chair that I sat on when I was here in 1975! And most likely, it was the chair that Debbie Allen sat on for many years. I stripped off the old finish, sand down the wood, and applied some varnish. Many of you have sat on these chairs in my office. Restoring old furniture reminds me of what treasures might lay in the past.
But if you want something more interesting than old office chairs, there’s Restoration Hardware, headquartered in Corte Madera. Here, you can find a Hollywood studio lamp, straight out of the 1940s. There’s an 8-foot-tall architectural model of the Eiffel Tower if you love Paris. And for those of us who love gadgets, you can find a space pen that works upside down and underwater.
This high-end store is where people go when they want to step back in time and buy an item that reminds them of some golden age from the past—Paris in the 1800s, Hollywood in the 1940s, and the space race in the 1960s.
People look back with longing, feeling that something precious has been lost. They want a missing treasure to be restored. Is this the reason why you are here today? You want something in the past that has been missing in your life to be restored again?
That 1940s Hollywood floor lamp, crafted of solid cast aluminum and steel, retails for $1995.00. Would a $2000 lamp give you the light that you need?
Our darkness is not going to be eliminated by a Hollywood lamp designed to illuminate the famous faces of classic films. Wandering through the darkness of daily life, we stumble and fall, hurt ourselves and others, crash into obstacles and leave a trail of debris behind us. We long for a lantern that will light our path, a beacon to guide us and lead us home.
This is the reason why we light a candle—an Advent Candle. We light a candle for 4 Sundays and say, “Restore our hope. Restore our peace. Restore our joy. Restore your love.”
We know we need restoration. Not Restoration Hardware, as great a store as it is.
In today’s passage from Psalm 85, the people of Israel are back in their homeland after a time of exile in Babylon. They remember a better past and remind God that he had previously forgiven his people and had done great things for them. They ask God if he would do so again and in return they will offer God the promised assurance of this good outcome. The psalmist says, “Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob” (v. 1). Jacob is another name for Israel. The people are thankful that their long captivity is over, and that God has forgiven their iniquity and “pardoned all their sin” (v. 2).
But still, something is missing. While the people of Israel had their land restored and even their sins forgiven, they were still missing something. They were still looking for something that they haven’t found yet.
It’s like the emptiness that we sometimes feel after we worked hard enough to finally earn a degree, start that plum job, move into a bigger house, or drive a dream car off the lot. We know how fortunate we are. We appreciate God’s favor toward us. But we wonder why everything we thought we wanted still isn’t enough. We wonder why good fortune in this life gives us everything but a sense of peace.
Saint Augustine had it right when he said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest on you.” True peace will escape us until our restless hearts begin to rest on God. Serenity and lasting peace cannot be found in a diploma, a promotion, a mansion or a luxury sedan with a red bow on the roof. It comes to us as a gift from God, and it includes forgiveness of sin and the restoration of our relationship with the Lord.
Peace Boxes
Last Sunday, Mike Socia talked about “a silver box with a bow on top” and we started referring to giving and taking away silver boxes all afternoon! I hope you ended up with more boxes of encouragement and appreciation than you started at the beginning of the day.
There’s an artist named Franck de Las Mercedes who is designing and making small boxes with abstract designs on the outside and mailing them to anyone, anywhere in the world—for free. Pasted under the address is a label that reads: Fragile. Handle with Care. Contains Peace.
Franck says that we expect something of value to come in a box, like a watch or a book or a space pen that works upside down and underwater—especially at Christmas! But his boxes are empty of everything except a message that has no price, such as “Peace,” “Love,” or “Hope.”
Since 2006, the artist and his wife have mailed more than 9000 boxes to people around the world, and all he asks is that recipients send him emails with photos of themselves and the boxes. Franck’s hope is that people who receive his boxes will devote some thought and conversation to intangibles such as peace, love and hope. Is that what’s missing in our lives today?
God’s Peace Box
When God sends a package, the box is never empty. Psalm 85 tells us that God the Lord will “speak peace to his people,” and will call them to respond by turning to him, “in their hearts” (v. 8). God’s salvation is sent out into the land, and is received by “those who fear him” (v. 9).
God is generous with peace and salvation, but God requires a response. The only way we will benefit from this gift is to receive it by turning to God in our hearts and offering the respect that God deserves.
Each of us must accept this package, instead of choosing to “return to sender,” unopened. But when we choose to open it, we’ll be so surprised and blessed!
When we open it, a precious collection of Godly treasures spills out. “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet,” says the psalm, “righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps” (vv. 10-13).
In this package that God gives to us contains more than meets the eye. Packed into this box is the entire character of God: steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness, peace and goodness. All of these qualities are intertwined and mutually supportive, since love is connected closely to faithfulness, and true peace is always dependent on the presence of justice and righteousness.
Just as it would be absurd for a woman to say that she loves her husband while she is being actively unfaithful to him, it is impossible for peace to exist in a community that is marked by injustice and unrighteousness. This is the present problem for the Israelis and the Palestinians to live in true peace when there is still injustice and unrighteousness found in laws and territorial boundaries.
Do you know who said, “Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin?” He was no peace activist or antiestablishment radical. It was Dwight David Eisenhower, a five-star general in the U.S. Army and 34th president of the United States. Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin, in the world as we know it and in the peace package that comes to us from God.
When we come to the Christmas season, we want to return to those olden and golden days when we feel safe and sentimental. We listen to KOIT with 24-hour Christmas songs. We take out the decorations and every one we hang up on the tree gives us a flashback to the time when we first received it. We want to restore back the treasures that we have lost by buying a $2000 Hollywood studio lamp. And while we try to block out what else is happening in the world during these weeks of Advent, I hate to tell you but the world is still going on with injustices and unrighteousness.
At Christmas, we are not going to permit the world to dictate the way we live our lives. While the global economy might be tanking, we are saying that our worth is not defined by how much is in my 401K. While the Democrats and the Republicans are busy trying to win re-election and neglecting their legislative responsibilities, we are going to be lights of hope, ambassadors of peace, smiles of joy and agents of love. While geo-political challenges and massive unemployment are perhaps way beyond our abilities to understand and come up with possible solutions, we as people who have decided to receive and open up the box that God sent to us will work for peace and justice. We will stand on the side of any of these global problems for peace and justice.
When we tear open God’s package, we find the gift of God’s own self. Through the act of divine self-giving, God enters more deeply into our lives, so that our hearts will no longer be restless, but instead will rest in God. A priceless treasure is placed before us, one that makes it possible for God’s glory to dwell in our land (v.9).
We need this gift now more than ever because we are not going to find peace by shopping at Restoration Hardware—even if we could afford it. The economic recovery is moving slowly, and our material fortunes have not yet been restored. Advanced degrees, well-paying jobs, bigger houses, and fancy cars with a red bow on the roof remain out of reach for many Americans. But even in tough economic times, God gives us the gift of non-material wealth: Steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness, peace and goodness.
Such treasures are always available, especially to those who turn to God in their hearts. The gifts of the Lord continue to come to the world and to us seen most clearly through the birth of Jesus Christ.
Prince of Peace
We don’t really need Hollywood lamps or models of the Eiffel Tower or space pens. The treasure that needs restoration today is the gift of Christ at Christmas—a gift we can receive with gratitude and delight. It is through the birth of Jesus that God speaks “peace to his people, to be faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.” And then, in the life and ministry of Christ, the qualities of steadfast love and faithfulness meet, while righteousness and peace come together and “kiss each other” (vv. 8, 10).
The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. Shalom is spiritual and material wellbeing and harmony within the community, not just the absence of conflict. Jesus Christ is the promised “Prince of Peace, the Prince of Shalom” (Isaiah 9:8).
As followers of the Prince of Peace, Isaiah 52:7 declares, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’”
On this Second Sunday of Advent on the meaning of peace in the world, Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt. 5:9). We need to restore more than old furniture. We need to not be content with Restoration Hardware nostalgic furnishings. We need to restore the peace of Christ in the world. This is what we are still seeking for today.
Let us pray.
O gracious Lord God, we pray for peace today—peace in our personal lives, peace in our relationships with one another, peace in our country, and peace among all the peoples in the world. While the world will always want us to believe in easy and material answers to problems, we place our trust in you that in the coming of the Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace, we will see peace and justice “kiss each other.” We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.