CMLC 2025-12-07 Sermon

What is your expectation of peace? For some of

us, peace is finally getting home after a long

day and realizing you don't have to be anywhere.

Isn't that a good feeling? Just take your shoes

off or maybe you turn off the lights, right?

You're grabbing your favorite blanket, you're

cuddling up. Mine, it's this black and white

one that has a smooth side and the other side

is kind of fuzzy. All right? And you're watching

a movie that you've already seen a million times

because you don't really have the energy for

plot twists. I mean, Marty McFly is always going

to go back in time and always going to try and

fix his family and everything else. And it's

amazing. And I don't care how many times I see

it, it's still great. Hokeiest science in the

world, but it's amazing. Or maybe sometimes peace

is just simply trying to make it through a day

without having somebody tell you, hey, we need

to talk. You know, we often imagine peace as

the absence of conflict, everything going our

way, having control, being quiet, or even just

the chance to finally relax when the world stops

bothering us. Basically, peace is when everyone

and everything cooperates with our plans, right?

Michael Caine, the actor, one time said, be like

a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling

like the dickens underneath. And honestly, that

describes how many of us try to attain peace,

look serene on the outside, pretend everything's

okay, and meanwhile paddle frantically under

the water and hope that nobody notices the chaos.

But that raises a question. If there's paddling,

pressure, fear, uncertainty, does that mean that

peace has disappeared? Does peace only exist

when nothing is wrong? Because the truth is the

world around us has never really been calm, right?

Especially, I would say, coming from the experience

of being an exenial. Exenial? What is that? Well,

you've heard of Generation X. You've heard of

Millennials. Well apparently there's this little

pocket right there, right in the middle between

the two, about six years of people who grew up

with the old way of doing things in the world

that Gen X understood, but had to also learn

about computers and the internet. You know, those

of us who had the little Frogger bloop bloop

bloop and the number munchers and Oregon Trail

and everything else. Well, I started making a

note of all the things that exenials like myself

have had to go through. And some of them include

1984, giving us the first Apple Macintosh and

launching us into the age of personal computers

at home. 1986, where we were so excited to watch

the space shuttle going off into space, only

to see the Challenger exploding while we were

at school. 1989, watching the Berlin Wall fall.

But that same year, Tiananmen Square, in dealing

with what was seeing with China and its communist

party and the people there. The Exxon Valdez

spill and all the ducks trying to get away from

it. The collapse of Eastern European regimes.

91 having Operation Desert Storm, the end of

the Soviet Union, and Rodney King in LA followed

the next year by the riots. 93 being the first

World Trade Center bombing. How many of us forgot

about that eight years before 2001? and the Waco

siege with the Branch Davidians. Or in 94 with

the Rwandan genocide and watching O .J. Simpson

being chased down the highway while many of us

were saying, who in the world is O .J. Simpson?

The thing is is that that's the world that we

grew up in. Today's world? Not really all that

different. If peace depends on calm circumstances,

let's just be honest. None of us have experienced

that since we started going to school. So maybe

our expectations of peace are just too restricted,

too simple. Maybe we think peace is a mood or

a setting, a temporary ceasefire or an escape

from other people's expectations. But you know,

Advent, it asks this deeper, harder question.

What if real peace doesn't come where you expect

it? What if it doesn't look like what you imagine?

What if peace isn't the absence of trouble? What

if instead it's the presence of God in the middle

of it? But that question opens the door straight

into Isaiah See Isaiah shifts the camera for

us the devastation It's still fresh in their

minds the superpowers of the ancient world that

were all around them these massive empires that

looked immovable They're being felled over like

trees in a storm Assyria swollen with its arrogance

and boasting of its strength where it had brought

down Israel, it's going to be cut down as well.

And Judah, the southern kingdom, God's own people,

they're not going to escape from discipline.

They're going to fall as well. Their kings, their

pride, their defenses, all laid low. See, picture

the landscape after a hurricane has torn through.

Trunks snapped, roots exposed, the silence of

judgment lingering in the air. That's the scene

that Isaiah gives us to feel. But in the middle

of the ruin, he says something very strange.

A shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse.

Not from a palace with banners still flying,

not from a throne room still humming with life.

Not even from the stump of David. The famous

king that everyone remembered. This is out of

the stump of Jesse, his dad. Why Jesse? It's

sort of like saying, go back before the glory

days. Strip away the nostalgia of David. Start

from scratch with his father. And go back into

that line. from a dead stump, from forgotten

roots, from a people who have been through judgment,

loss, exile, shame. It's like whenever you try

to recover a plant that's at your home that doesn't

seem to be doing well. When I moved into my home

four years ago and the owners told me this bush

died during the winter storm of 21, well, did

I dig it out? Did I pull it out of the ground?

I broke off all of the dead limbs all over it

and left the base stump sitting there for two

years. And now it's beautiful and thriving again.

See, that's God's pattern. When people expect

peace to come through strength, God's peace comes

through weakness. When God expects peace to come

through victory, God grows peace through humility.

When people expect peace to come through domination,

God grows peace through righteousness and justice.

Some of you know what that feels like. You may

have given up on the very idea of peace a long

time ago. Maybe you're already telling yourself

there's no point in hoping or even trying. Just

count the days until this is over. Judah was

living under that cloud for over a century. watching

as Israel had fell already and feeling that weight,

wondering if they were going to be next, all

trying to appease the little idols that they

had adopted from all the other countries, imitating

powers all around them. They were exhausted,

they were anxious, they were spiritually numb.

And right there, in the long ache of waiting,

God whispers, Watch the stump. Don't look for

another David in the mirror. Don't look for him

to come in his armor. Don't look for a savior

who fits the old mold of success, power, force,

bravado. Look for something new. Something small,

gentle, unexpected. Look for life growing where

no life should be. And then Isaiah lifts our

eyes to see that world. transformed. Wolves lying

down with lambs. Children playing safely where

danger once lived. The earth itself overflowing

with the knowledge of the Lord. This is not peace

that tweaks politics. This is peace that rewrites

creation. A kind of peace the world has never

imagined. Is it any wonder that people weren't

ready for it? You see, for a moment there in

Israel's history, some people might have wondered

if the next king was the one who was going to

fulfill Isaiah's promise. And Hezekiah, he did

bring reform. He tore down the idols. He redirected

the nation to trust God again. And for a brief

season under his leadership, there was actually

hope. A little green shoot breaking through the

soil. But Hezekiah was only a taste, not the

meal. A hint, not the reality. A shadow, not

the substance. Because even Hezekiah, as faithful

as he was, he still struggled to trust God completely.

His famous moment with the Babylonian envoys

showed that even he wavered, revealing his wealth

instead of relying on God's wisdom. His reign

may have been good, but it wasn't the promised

peace they were waiting for. See, God gives his

people these little previews so that they learn

to expect more, not settle for less. Hezekiah

whetted the appetite. He reminded Israel what

it looked like when someone walked in the fear

of the Lord. But he was not the promised king.

That longing, that ache, sets the stage perfectly

for John the Baptist. And so we go to the wilderness

to hear John, who is preaching repentance. not

just to scold everyone and not to just bring

shame, but to prepare people. He's clearing the

space. He's leveling the ground. He's pulling

the weeds out of people's expectations so they

can recognize the Messiah when He appears. See,

John is saying, reset your expectations. Scrub

your assumptions. Clear the soil of your heart.

because you cannot see the Messiah if you're

anchored to the wrong story. See, the thing about

anchors though, there's something that we oftentimes

go through that's called anchoring bias. It's

the tendency to let the first thing that you

hear, the first voice that you trust, the first

explanation that you receive become your default.

Once the anchor is dropped, everything new gets

interpreted through it, even if the anchor is

wrong. And Israel had plenty of anchors. We have

anchors. John was trying to reset them. There

were three ways that people could have looked

at Jesus when he was coming along. If people

were coming from the anchor of the Pharisees,

if they were expecting peace through rule -keeping,

priority of purity codes and moral superiority.

Well, the problem is that Jesus was just going

to disappoint them. If they started with an anchor

of Rome, well, you expect peace through force

and economic strength and political dominance,

then Jesus was going to confuse you. But if your

anchor is John, if you expect peace through repentance,

openness, humility, readiness, Jesus will fulfill

you. See, this is why God, again in mercy, he

sent John first. John is not the peace. John

is the preparation for peace. John cannot give

the kind of peace that people wanted because

he was pointing toward the kind of peace that

people needed. See, some of Jesus' very first

disciples, they actually came out of John the

Baptist's inner circle. And it matters because

they were ready when others were not. You see,

John had trained them to expect humility instead

of power, truth instead of comfort, repentance

instead of defending yourself, God's surprising

work instead of their own assumptions. See, John

didn't just preach repentance. He was reshaping

the expectations. He was trying to loosen their

anchors to the old so they could find something

entirely new. See, the ones who followed after

John, they had begun unlearning the beliefs that

would have blocked them from recognizing Jesus.

So when Jesus appeared with a peace unlike anything

they had imagined, they didn't resist it. They

recognized it. See, this is a crucial insight

is that you cannot receive unexpected peace while

holding on to unexamined expectations. You cannot

receive unexpected peace while holding onto unexamined

expectations. It's sort of like that classic

sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, long, long time

ago, where Ted would have never been able to

meet Robin if it weren't for Barney coming in

and saying, have you met Ted? See, sometimes

we're open to the next voice when someone we

trust introduces it. John is the, have you met

Jesus? Of the New Testament. Pointing toward

beyond himself so that people could meet the

one who truly brings the peace. But you see the

tone shifts like it so often does. Matthew 3

moves from a warm invitation to a sharp warning.

John says the axe is already at the root of the

trees. Why does it have to get so sharp? Because

false peace must be cut down before true peace

can grow. False peace says everything's fine.

I'm not a problem. If everyone else would change,

then I would be happy. But you see, false peace

is denial dressed as serenity. Calm built on

avoidance. The illusion that we can keep everything

the same and still experience God's kingdom.

But you see, the true peace that Isaiah is bringing

says, Lord, start with me, even if it burns.

Prepare my heart. Cut down what is dead in me

so something alive can grow. See, this is the

collision here that the shoot growing out of

the stump and the axe at the root of the tree

have to go together. Because to bring real peace,

God often begins by cutting away the dead, the

diseased, and the deceptive expectations that

we have leaned on, because we cannot get the

new shoot without letting the old tree fall.

See, now we move, though, to the center of Advent,

because Jesus is fulfilling the vision of Isaiah,

a peace that the world has never known. Peace

that's not through force, but through compassion.

It's not through victory, but through vulnerability.

It's not through domination, but through righteousness.

It's not because of a throne, but because of

a manger. You see Jesus being the shoot from

the stump. He is the new David who is not in

armor. He's in swaddling clothes. His strength

is in gentleness. His authority is in love. But

maybe this is the deeper issue for us. Maybe

we expect too little from God It's too simple.

It's too straightforward. Maybe we're just expecting

the wrong things or maybe Peace is moving in

the wrong direction We expect it to be from the

outside moving in instead of the inside moving

out See we expect a Savior who often fits our

preferences instead of transforming them Jesus

though He confronts our expectations. The real

Messiah presents a peace that doesn't bow to

our assumptions, but redefines them. You see,

Advent, it's not just about waiting. It's about

preparing. This season is not just waiting for

Christmas. This season is that we need to prepare.

If John the Baptist prepared people for Christ's

first coming, then we... are called to prepare

people for his presence now, and that he's coming

again. We do not, however, we do not prepare

people for a Jesus that fits whatever politics

we like. We do not prepare people for a Jesus

who protects us and feel comfortable. We do not

prepare people for Jesus that never confronts

us and never disagrees with us. He is not just

the really nice looking guy sitting at the campfire

waiting to sing Kumbaya. Because that would be

false, safe, expected. Instead we prepare people

for the Jesus who grows peace out of places that

looked dead. Restores what sin has damaged. Brings

justice to the poor and burdened. heals creation

itself, challenges every false anchor that we

cling to. You see, we prepare people for the

unexpected Jesus, the Jesus who brings true peace,

not the peace that we invent inside. So this

is why the baptism of Jesus had to be different

from the baptism of John, because John's baptism

asked, have you repented enough to enter the

water? But Jesus baptism says something very

different You belong to me because my father

has claimed you Peace is not achieved through

your effort. It is received because of my presence

You see the Prince of Peace is not waiting for

us to prove ourselves He comes to us. He claims

us Restores us and sends us out So what do we

need to hear as we are closing today's Advent

message? The same voice that echoed in the wilderness

in a world chasing the shallowness of the peace

we want in a culture that's anchored by Pharisees

and Rome God still sends a voice that says prepare

the way of the Lord make his path straight Because

the peace that's coming the peace born in Bethlehem

promised in Isaiah proclaimed by John It's better

than what we expect. It's more surprising than

what we ask for. It's more beautiful than what

we imagine, no matter how hard it may be to get

there. So come Lord Jesus, bring your peace,

not the peace we wanted, all to ourselves. Thanks

be to God.