5th Sunday after Pentecost — Christus Victor Ev. Lutheran Church — Fayetteville, NC

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Prophet Isaiah writes, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” It was about 7 months ago when those words first came up in the lectionary readings. Advent, and Christmas. And you understand those words are about our Lord Jesus. How shocking it is, then, to hear Our Lord say today, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth.”

But isn’t that exactly what the angels say in Luke 2:14? “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and goodwill towards men.”? And that peace is to come through this Man, this Man whom Isaiah calls the Prince of Peace. And yet here he is, saying that He did not come to bring peace on earth! In fact, Our Lord takes it a step further! He says, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword!” Not only is He not bringing peace, He is bringing a sword, the very instrument of war! Listen how the Apostle John describes the Prince of Peace in his Revelation:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

This is our Prince of Peace. He comes with a sword issuing from his mouth, fire in his eyes, to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. He comes to us that our foes will be in our own household. How can you understand such a difficult passage.

In order to understand this passage, you must understand what Peace means and who our Prince of Peace is waging war against.

Peace means peace with God. You see, Dear Children, mankind in his natural state is not at peace with God. In fact, Saint Paul tells us in Romans 8 that you are at enmity with God. Emnity! It means a deep-seated hatred, mutual hatred and hostility. This is the natural state of mankind. In your sin, you hate God and you hate His Righteousness. And in His righteousness He hates your sin. How terrifying! How can you make peace with this wrathful God?

The answer is very simple, Beloved: You can’t!

There is no work you can do, there is no amount of money you can give to the poor, or to the church, that can put you at peace with God. There is no good deed you can accomplish that will set you right in the Lord’s eyes. It doesn’t matter how many homeless people you give a dollar to, or how many old ladies you help across the street. Even your greatest works are nothing but filthy rags before a perfect God. But why is that? Why are you incapable, on your own, of performing satisfactory good works and making up the difference to God?

Because of your sin! You see, Dear Christian, sinfulness is not just some stain that you can scrub out. It is a deep rot that has penetrated to the very core of your being such that it influences everything you do, everything you think, everything you feel. In your sin you hate God and yet you fear His wrath, so you attempt to appease Him. But you aren’t doing righteous things because they’re righteous and please God. You do them so you will avoid His wrath! This is the trap of sinful man. It is what makes reconciliation to God seem like such a hopeless endeavor. And it is why Christians consider it good news that our Prince of Peace comes bearing a sword, ready to wage war. Because He comes to wage war against this world, against the devil, and against your sin.

Christ came to earth to unite man to Himself. He came to bring peace between man and God. Because that is what true peace is: Knowing that the wrath of God against you has been satisfied, and that you are no longer under guilt or condemnation. The Peace Christ came to usher in for you is not as we think of peace today. Christ’s peace is not where you get along with your neighbors of a different religion. It is not a world without persecution, or a world where you never have to deal with rude strangers. Christ’s peace is not a world where the sun is always shining, there is never any strife, and the birds are always singing a cheery song.

Christ’s Peace is knowing that God does not judge you based on your works. Christ’s peace is an eternity where God does not count your sin against you. Christ’s Peace is when you are clothed in His own Righteousness instead of your filthy rags.

This peace can only happen if Christ destroys sin, death, and the devil. But there’s a problem, Dear Christian: We really, really love our sin. Think of the Alcoholic who knows that his liver is dying, but yet he won’t put down the bottle. The consequence is death, but he loves the feeling of being drunk – or perhaps hates the feeling of being sober – enough that he is willing to make the trade. Beloved, you are addicted to sin in the same way.

Or consider the man whose house is burning down, but instead of running out of the house as fast as he can, he tries to gather up his belongings to carry with him out of the house. Unable to part with a few worldly possessions, things that he loves, he perishes in the fire and parts with those things forever. Beloved, you love your sin in the same way.

It is because mankind clings to sin that the Lord says He comes bearing a sword. It is why He says He comes to turn a man against his Father, and so forth. When the Lord comes into your life – when you are washed of your sin at that baptismal font – you are suddenly not like your father, your mother, your brother, your sister. Suddenly you cling to Christ, and not to sin. And that brings division. When Christ brings the sword against your sin, and you become set apart by God – no longer at enmity with Him, but at Peace with Him – you suddenly will find yourself at enmity with the world!

That is a very uncomfortable place to be. After all, you still have to live in this world! Jesus says that “anyone who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” There is a temptation, Beloved, to try and reconcile back to the world once you have been reconciled to God. You now have peace with God, but that has created animosity with the world! And some, to their detriment, have tried to seek peace with the world again, only to realize that to have peace with the world – with sinfulness – is to create animosity with God.

Jesus says that “he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” He is cutting to the heart of this tension by presenting us this glorious paradox.

The Lord delivered you from this world in your baptism. And the world hates you for it. It is uncomfortable. Hear Christ’s words here and take them to heart. You’ve found your life in Christ. Do not now wander away and try and find your life elsewhere. Don’t look for your ultimate peace or meaning in your job, or your habits, or your pastimes, or your family life. Seek them in Christ. And Christ alone. The Christian life is not going to be a life of ease and comfort, where God has removed all your problems. On the contrary, you should expect it to be a life of strife against the sinful world. Christ did not come to bring peace with this world, but a sword. This is the cost of peace with God, for what fellowship can darkness have with the light?

But there is great comfort in this, my Dearly Beloved. Our Lord spends a lot of time talking about the worthy. Dearly Beloved, only Christ is worthy. Only Christ lived the life we could not live. He says we should take our cross and follow Him. My Sweet Children, He carried our cross when He carried His cross. He carried our sin, our pain, our death, our enmity on his bruised and torn back. He carried up to the Place of the Skull, and He held it tight as they nailed Him to that cross. And, after 3 days, He left it in that grave when He rose again and walked out of it. He did all that for you. And now what do you have left to do? Simply live in the peace of God that Christ accomplished for you. You have but to rest in it.

So do not fret if the world hates you. It is to be expected. Christ tells us that we will not have peace in this world. Because peace in this world is not what our Prince of Peace sought to bring us. He brings us Peace with God. We must be content that we have peace with God. There will be temptation to give up our peace with God to have peace with the world again. We must resist the devil in this! We have the Peace of God in Christ Jesus. Let us rejoice in that now, and forever. Amen.

Let us pray,

Lord, make us instruments of your peace: Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is error, truth; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

In Jesus Name,

Amen.