The cover story of the December 7 issue of Time Magazine shows the picture of a little baby who is wearing a New Year’s party hat and sitting among the litter of a party—tangled streamers, balloons, and a Champagne bottle. The baby is crying. We are nearly finished with the first decade of the new century and the new millennium. And it has been anything but a stellar decade. The list of disappointments and disasters is long, all the way from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the meltdown of the world economy in the fall of 2008. It’s hard to argue with the conclusion Time proclaims in the title of the article: it has been, in many respects, The Decade from Hell. The baby is not the only one who has been crying.

I didn’t know it last summer when I selected the theme for this Advent series of sermons, but it seems perfectly fitting to me—and apparently the Lord knew it was coming—that while we are focused on all the things that have gone wrong the last ten years, there is another message, another focus, another reality that gently and persistently invites our attention. It is an old message, and a familiar one, but also one that is so easily overlooked or forgotten. You won’t find it screamed from many magazine covers. But I am here today to proclaim that it is a more important and more powerful message than any other. Here it is: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”

Peace on earth seems to be the most elusive dream of all, doesn’t it? Ever since the dawn of human consciousness we have looked for peace in ourselves, peace with each other, and peace with God. Sometimes we think we have it, but most times we simply yearn for more. Some have given up the search. Some think it is only a dream. Some seem to have it, but why, then, doesn’t everyone? The great theologian Dave Barry wrote, “My therapist told me today the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what you start. So far today, I have finished two bags of M & M’s and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.”

When the Bible talks about peace it is talking about a complete wellness and wholeness of being and existence. It is talking about harmony, prosperity, and joy within human hearts and within the human family. It is talking about just the opposite of a decade from hell. Christmas, of course, is all about the proclamation of peace. We already knew that. But just what is it about Christmas that promises peace? A couple of weeks ago I went home for Thanksgiving, and I got to thinking about how I had grown up looking forward to Christmas every year. Like any child, I loved the decorations, the food, the music, the excitement, the anticipation, and especially the promise of complete and utter fulfillment on Christmas morning when all the gifts were opened. The only problem was that the complete and utter fulfillment usually didn’t last until the end of the day. Our celebration of Christmas never quite delivered, and yet, somehow, growing up in the home I did, I learned about the true message and meaning of Christmas. I learned about real peace, peace in myself, peace with other people, and even peace with God. I learned it from parents who loved me unconditionally and from a church full of people who proclaimed year in and year out that Jesus was the heart of it all. I learned that all the gifts of Christmas were really about the only gift that truly matters, the gift from God to us. Call it “The Jesus Gift” if you will. I do. And for me, the Jesus Gift is the gift of peace in my soul, peace with my neighbor, and peace with God.

Last week, Pastor Scott started us off on an Advent journey of looking at The Jesus Gift, the gift of peace, and he reminded us that in order to recognize The Jesus Gift we have a sacred responsibility to look for it with eyes of faith and hope. Today, I want to help us think for a few moments about inner peace, or how to get along with yourself.

The old prophet Isaiah spoke often of peace. In the passage we just read together, we see in his words that same universal human yearning for peace: “O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire,” he says. “My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.” That yearning and seeking are what it takes in order to open our eyes of faith. Isaiah spoke of the yearning for God because he knew that only a relationship with God would satisfy our desire for peace. “Those of steadfast mind,” those who follow “the way of the righteous,” those who “wait for” God, are those who will find God and in finding God will find peace.

But finding God is not necessarily an easy or automatic thing. So God had to come and find us. That is another way of saying what the angels and the heavenly host said to the shepherds near Bethlehem. The Savior is born. The Messiah is here. Peace. But how does that peace come into our lives and make itself real and powerful and able to help us live through our own moments or years or even decades of hell? The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians about “the peace of God which passes understanding,” which comes as a gift from the presence of the Spirit of God. But Helen Keller once commented, “I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.” It’s not that Paul was wrong, but Helen had a point. You and I have to understand something about Jesus in order to begin to have the peace within ourselves that he promises. What do we know about Jesus, and what do we know about God through Jesus, that leads to inner peace?

Last week one of you sent me an email with a Christmas bell in it. The bell is actually a series of scriptural affirmations written out in such a way as to form the shape of a bell. Here is what it says….

THE   BELL  
I  KNOW WHO I AM
I am God's child (John 1:12)
I am Christ's friend (John  15:15 )
I am united with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17)
I am bought with a price  (1 Cor 6:19-20)
I am a saint (set apart for God). (Eph. 1:1)
I am a personal witness of Christ.  (Acts 1:8)
I am the salt & light of  the earth (Matt 5:13-14)
I am a member of the body of Christ (1 Cor  12:27)
I am free forever from condemnation ( Rom. 8: 1-2)
I am a citizen  of Heaven. I am significant (Phil 3:20)
I am free from any charge against  me (Rom. 8:31 -34)
I am a minister of reconciliation for God (2 Cor  5:17-21)
I have access to God through the Holy Spirit (Eph.. 2:18)
I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6)
I cannot be separated  from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39)
I am established, anointed, sealed by  God  (2 Cor 1:21-22 )
I am assured all things work together for  good  (Rom.. 8:28 )
I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit  (John 15:16 )
I may approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph. 3: 12  )
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13)
I  am the branch of the true vine, a channel of His life (John 15: 1-5)
I am  God's temple (1 Cor. 3: 16).    I am complete in Christ (Col. 2: 10)
I am hidden with Christ in God ( Col.  3:3). I have been justified (Romans 5:1)
I am God's co-worker (1 Cor. 3:9;  2 Cor 6:1). I am God's workmanship (Eph. 2:10)
I am confident that the good  works God has begun in me will be perfected. (Phil. 1: 5)
I have been redeemed and forgiven (Col 1:14). I have been adopted as God's child (Eph. 1:5)
I belong to God
And so do
You.

How can you have peace within yourself? It begins by knowing, believing, claiming, and living by the truth of what God has done for you and me in Jesus Christ. It is impossible to be at peace with other people until you find some measure of peace within yourself. It is meaningless to have peace with God unless that peace begins to fill your own soul. And so the challenge for you and me is to learn to trust the message of the angels, that we belong to God, that God loves us and saves us, and that God has, in Isaiah’s words, “ordained” peace for us, in Christ.

I remember the last conversation that I had with my mother’s mother, my Granny Hodgin. She had lived all her life in North Carolina, and 30 years ago, when I was attending Princeton Seminary, I went to visit her. At the time she was still living alone in her little house, and I remember asking her how she was getting along by herself. I’ll never forget what she said. She said, “I get along just fine all alone here because I get along with myself just fine.” And she did. She was filled with an inner peace that came from knowing her Savior. She knew his forgiveness and strength, his friendship and love. She knew she belonged to him. As she neared the end of her life, and all the challenges that came with it, she had a peace that passed understanding because she understood the Jesus Gift in her soul. I hope you do, too.

Amen.