“The Source of Grace and Peace”

Romans 1:1-7

Listen! Can you hear it? Can you feel it? The Lord is near. Christmas is almost here. Do you hear what I hear? The whispered songs of prophets and angels are in the air. Do you see what I see? A light that outshines any star, glimmering in the darkness. Do you feel what I feel? Emmanuel is here. God is with us.

This Emmanuel is the One for whom Israel longed, the One they hoped for even as they mourned in lowly exile. He is the One who is the fulfillment of long-ago prophecies. Was it not Isaiah who foretold it? Did he not say that Christ would be of Jesse’s lineage? Did not Malachi say that he would be born in Bethlehem, the City of David?

Long lay the world in sin and error pining, until he appeared, bringing a thrill of hope to a rejoicing world. Even as Israel prayed for the long-promised Messiah the whole world waited with a sense of quiet anticipation. God was doing a new thing – a gracious thing, a merciful thing, a thing of joy and peace. Jesus was coming to save us from our own self-destructive sinfulness.

Have we not known? Have we not heard? God has broken into history to bring salvation to all who will believe. Jesus has been born. Jesus has died. Jesus has risen. Jesus will come again. By the power of the Holy Spirit he is with us right now. Listen! The voice of the Spirit is speaking Good News. Listen! Be still and know that he is God! If we will still our hearts and minds, letting God’s holy silence descend upon us, in the quietness we can hear, as Elijah heard, that still small voice of God.

And there is no better place to find that voice than God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, where we find today’s text. Let us be still and listen to Paul’s words about Jesus. Let us be still and listen to those words as they come to us in the unfamiliar text of The Message: “The sacred writings contain preliminary reports by the prophets on God’s Son. His descent from David roots him in history; his unique identity as Son of God was shown by the Spirit when Jesus was raised from the dead, setting him apart as the Messiah, our Master.”

God has spoken. Jesus, his living, breathing Word, has come to us, bringing the Good News of salvation and abundant life. In his incarnation as God made human, Jesus has shown us what God is like. More than that he has shown us what true humanity can be. In his crucifixion, by way of that mystery we call the atonement; God himself has suffered death and hell in our place. But it was his resurrection that sealed the deal of salvation. Death could not hold him. Evil could not overcome him. Sin could not corrupt him. The Devil couldn’t rule him.

Today’s sermon text contains the rather upbeat opening lines of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. But as soon as Paul finishes introducing himself, his next several sentences, in the words of John Paul Heil, … enshrouded and entombed his audience within a dark pessimism of gloom and doom…” Or as D. Stuart Briscoe described what happened, Paul “started his exposition of the Good News by showing the badness of the Bad News…”

In those sentences Paul described not only the despair of Israel as they awaited their Messiah, but the hopelessness of all creation. He gave Isaiah’s prophetic words a universal twist: “The people who walked in darkness… the people who lived in a land of deep darkness”- this described the hard reality of every man, woman, and child who had ever lived or ever would live. The only good news in this bad news was that we were all in the same sinking ship together. None of us was righteous, or as we say in the country, not a nary one of us had a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding hell.

But then came the 21^st verse of chapter three: “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed.” That one little phrase, “but now,” described the most significant turning point in human history. In his introduction to Romans in The Message Eugene Peterson said this about that turning point: “The event that split history into ‘before’ and ‘after’ and changed the world took place about thirty years before Paul wrote this letter. The event [was] the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus…”

In Bethlehem was born the Savior of the world. On that first Christmas night God, in an act of immeasurable grace, brought the light of salvation into the world’s darkness. A light that John’s Gospel tells us has yet to be quenched by the dark and oppressive weight of sin. Into the world came the ultimate source of grace and peace, Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was himself fully God and fully human. That is why Paul could write with assurance to God’s beloved in Rome, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Grace and peace: the fullness of salvation. Grace: God’s unmerited favor. Peace: an inner security brought about by the knowledge that one is reconciled with our Father God. Peace: a gift of God that can only be known by believing and experiencing the grace of God.

Paul was writing to strangers, people he had never met. He had not been involved with the founding of the church in Rome. He had, however, heard good things about them and their ministry, and risked writing to them because they had obviously heard about him. Just to make sure everybody was on the same page he used what we know as verses three and four to briefly spell out the Gospel that he preached – the Gospel he assumed was the same one that they had heard and believed.

He introduced himself as a slave of Christ, slave being the exact opposite of Lord. Jesus was Lord. Paul belonged heart, soul, body, and mind to his Lord Jesus, the One by whose blood he had been set free from his bondage to sin. His entire life and ministry were under the control and direction of Jesus. His was an apostleship defined by servanthood. He served Christ and his Church in the name and after the manner of Jesus the Suffering Servant.

He referred to his fellow Christians in Rome as those called to be saints. He understood them to be people who had heard God’s call and accepted the forgiveness freely offered to them in Christ, people who knew true grace and peace. They were also people who were well aware that this grand package of grace, peace, and forgiveness was a totally undeserved gift from God. They had done nothing to merit it.

We, the people of this day and age who walk in darkness and live in a land of deep darkness, have been offered this same free gift. In Christ we can experience forgiveness, grace, and peace. The light that shines in the darkness shines for us. More than that it shines on us, and if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, it shines in us so that others may be drawn it.

We too are the beloved of God, called to be saints. Just like Paul we have answered a call to be ambassadors for Christ, letting our little lights shine in the darkness. And like Paul we have pledged ourselves to Christ – heart, soul, body, and mind. We too are Christ’s slaves, servants of the Suffering Servant.

Although we are to proclaim the Gospel with boldness, making no apologies for whom we are and whom we serve, we are also to live lives of gentle, self-sacrificing humility. We are not called to inflict the Gospel on others or to bludgeon those around us with the Word of God. We cannot make people submit to God’s Word. People cannot be forced to accept the Gospel.

They can, however, be led to Jesus by way of the Holy Spirit working in their lives and ours as we share the love of Jesus in all that we say and do. In that way they can know that we are Christians by our love, a love we display, a love we share, a love that draws them closer and closer to God’s gift of salvation – a love that opens their hearts to the truth of God, a love that gives them eyes to see the light of Christ shining in the darkness, ears to hear the Spirit-whispered invitation to discipleship.

Listen! Do you hear what I hear? Look! Do you see what I see? Do we not hear the promises of those long-ago prophets, voices that have been carried down through the centuries on the wind of the Spirit? Do we not see Christ’s light shining its healing rays into the world, overcoming the darkness of sin, death, and evil? Do we not hear God’s call to lead others of this light? Do we not see the truth of God’s Word, a Word we are to share with others. We should in these two last days before the celebration of our Lord’s birth.

We should be hearing God’s call and seeing his truth as revealed in Scripture. God’s light should be shining upon us and in us and through. God’s Spirit should be working through us? Are we or are we not God’s beloved saints? Are we or are we not devoted servants of the Lord? Are we or are we not Spirit-inspired ambassadors for Christ? By God’s grace, yes, we are.

To all God’s beloved gathered at Grace Presbyterian Church on this last Sunday of Advent, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.