Peace, a sermon based on Malachi 3: 1-4 and Luke 1: 67-80 preached on December 8, 2024

My friends, prayers may not be answered in the way that we expect them to be answered. Miracles may not arrive on our timetable, but may they always come in such a way that you recognize them and receive them with thanksgiving. That’s my introduction to the story of John the Baptist’s birth, which we are focused on this morning. Jesus said that among men there has been none greater than John, and yet he was just the opening act to the main event, so in these weeks leading up to Christmas Day, today our focus is the birth of John the Baptist, which, like the birth of our Savior, was miraculous. Like our daughters, Lily and Cece, John was a preacher’s kid. His father, Zechariah, was a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem; his mother, Elizabeth, born into a family of great priests, and the two had longed for a child. They had been waiting for years for a child to be born. In fact, it had been so long that, as they were getting on in years, Elizabeth and Zechariah had pretty much given up on ever being parents. You know how this works. Some of you know their struggle personally. You get married, and for the first few years, you don’t even think about it. “We’ll have kids at some point,” so many newlyweds assume. In the beginning, getting pregnant is something that scares you. No one walks into a relationship expecting to have any trouble conceiving, and we may imagine that it was this way for Elizabeth and Zechariah, yet by the time Zechariah the Priest was given the high honor of going into the Temple, they had already gone through all the steps. They had tried and tried. They had gotten their hopes up. After their hopes were dashed, they finally went and asked for help. Maybe Elizabeth finally opened up about it to her sister who already had three kids. Maybe they sought advice from a wise woman in town. Maybe they requested prayers from a priest or a ritual from a healer. Whatever it was that they tried, none of it had worked. Some here know how that can stress a marriage. Somehow, they stuck together; perhaps they stuck together by making peace with the bitter reality of their situation. That’s what people do. To survive, many people make peace with sad situations. They accept that not all dreams come true. We can’t know for sure, but we can safely assume that they had pretty much made peace with the reality that children would never come because when an angel of the Lord, Gabriel, appeared to Zechariah to say that Elizabeth was pregnant, he didn’t believe it. From Luke’s first chapter, the angel Gabriel said: Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your payer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before the Messiah, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Can you imagine? Zechariah couldn’t. This morning, I invite you to think with me about why. Why would it be that a priest married to the daughter of a priest would not believe that their prayers had been answered, that their dream of a child would come true? Why would they make their peace with infertility? I imagine that it’s because, while they’d read the stories in the Bible of Abraham and Sarah who had a child in their old age, they’d also felt the pain of miscarriage. While they’d heard, and while Zechariah had even preached, that our prayers never go unanswered, they knew how bad it hurts to keep waiting with anticipation for something that never comes. This morning, as we light the candle of peace, I ask you to think with me about that word: peace. Sometimes, we make peace with disappointment and unanswered prayers. Sometimes, we make peace with disappointing realities that may never change. While we talk about peace, we also constantly read about war, and this unfortunate reality becomes such a part of our lives that we make peace, not with the promise that peace will come, but that it may never. Last week, maybe you read the story of the chef who was preparing food for the sick in a hospital in Palestine. He was targeted by a drone and was killed. We wait for peace, but we’ve grown used to war. Haven’t we? What else have we grown used to? At the recommendation of Jimmy Johnson, my wife, Sara, and I have been watching a new TV show on Netflix. It stars Ted Danson, who, in the show, has grown used to loneliness. The first episode begins with the toast he gave to his wife at their wedding: “I’ve found the one I want to grow old with” he says, but he has grown old, she died, and every morning, he wakes up on his side of the bed. He gets out of bed and makes just one cup of coffee. Then, he takes a walk by himself. He reads the paper by himself. He does the crossword with no one to ask for help when he gets stuck on 11 down or 17 across. After the crossword, he snips out interesting articles and sends them to his daughter, who doesn’t want to read the articles he sends her, but he sends them anyway because this is his only connection with another human being. Every night, after spending the day alone, he goes to sleep alone, anticipating the same lonesome existence to continue tomorrow. His wife died. The one he wanted to grow old with left him alone, and he’s made peace with his isolation. He’s made peace with that echo in the empty house. He’s made peace with his routine, even though there’s no brightness to it. He’s made peace, not with being alone, not with solitude, which can be good and healing and healthy, but with loneliness. Let us never make peace with loneliness. Loneliness will kill you, but yet, is it not easier sometimes to make peace with such hardship rather than get our hopes up for fear that our hopes will be dashed once again? Therefore, when the angel Gabriel said to Zechariah: Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord, Zechariah couldn’t hear it. He wasn’t prepared for this news. He had made peace with the disappointment and wasn’t expecting his hopes to be fulfilled. Therefore, the angel said, “because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” “Because you did not believe my words,” the angel said. Now, maybe a priest should be punished for not believing what an angel said, and yet, remember that priests and preachers come to doubt the miracles just as some of you may. When our prayers go unanswered, we are just as disappointed as anyone else. To make peace, though, with disappointment is a dangerous thing because prayers are answered all the time, and nothing is more tragic than an answered prayer that goes unrecognized. That’s the warning from the story of Zechariah. Make peace with your unanswered prayers so that your heart isn’t shattered, but don’t make such peace with your unanswered prayer that you miss the signs that God has heard you. What’s more tragic than an unnoticed miracle? I imagine such a thing just breaks God’s heart, and yet it happens. We get so fixated on the door that closed that we ignore the door that opened. What I’m talking about this morning is this strange reality of accepting disappointment, heartbreak, and isolation to such a degree that when salvation comes, we are too resigned to our dreadful lot that we can’t accept the invitation. It happens to the young: When their love goes unrequited, they become so fixated on the one who rejected them that they ignore the one who loves them in return. That happens. We have to learn to accept that not all our prayers are answered in the way that we expect them to be answered. Miracles may not arrive on our timetable, but may they always come in such a way that you recognize them and receive them. I once went to visit a woman who hadn’t been to church in weeks. She told me that no one from the church cared enough to call. No one knew her name. She’s been out, and not even the people who sit next to her have noticed that she’d been gone. As she was telling me all this, the phone rang. It was Gloria, who sits just across the aisle. “I was just calling because I’ve missed you and wanted to know how you were,” Gloria said to her. “I noticed you’ve been gone. Is everything OK?” I heard Gloria ask the woman these things because I was eavesdropping, and that’s the kind of nosy person I am, but I was so thankful for this miracle of caring in the church. This was the most obvious and tangible answer to the lonely woman’s prayer, and yet she said to Gloria, “Joe is over here. Thank you for calling, but I’ve got to go.” She hung up and then said, “Pastor, what was I saying? Oh, yes. No one in the church cares about me.” It's not that the reality she perceived was pure fantasy. It’s not that her sadness and disappointment wasn’t real. It’s not that her perception of the church was completely inaccurate. It’s just that situations change, people change, prayers are answered, and there are few tragedies greater than a miracle that falls in your lap yet goes ignored. There are few tragedies greater than the open door you missed walking through because you were still fixated on the door that closed. What is more discouraging than a priest who had made peace with his unanswered prayer in such a way that when the angel showed up to tell him that his prayers were answered, he didn’t believe it? My friends, heartbreak is real. Disappointment is real. There are sad realities in our broken world. If your hopes are getting dashed again and again and again, it is only natural to protect yourself by no longer getting your hopes up, but when an angel shows up in your life, I pray that you see him and that you believe what he has to say. A miracle is on its way to you. The King of Kings draws near to save us, but not everyone is going to see Him. Not everyone will have her head lifted in expectation. Some people will be so focused on their dreams dashed on the ground that they’ll only see the pieces of all their disappointment shattered across the floor, even while the King of Kings descends from the clouds from on high. Don’t stop waiting for peace. Don’t get so used to war that you begin to tolerate the bullets and the bloodshed, for hope is real. Peace is real. Christ is coming. And He’ll come in some place you least expect Him. Like a manger. Like as a child. Like as a miracle that those who walk by faith will see, and those who have become permanent residents of this broken world will miss. Don’t make peace with this broken world. Don’t treasure your shattered dreams. Get ready for the dawn of peace. Amen.