Reverend
Mel Baars
Isaiah
9:2-7
December
2, 2012
“Prince
of Peace”
It
is hard for me to believe that it has been two years since I was first assigned
by our newly crowned Moderator of Presbytery, Pastor Sara, with preaching on
the first Sunday of Advent. Back in 2010, when I had three or four less gray
hairs, and still no clue from the Army on where in the world I would be going
or with whom I would be going with, hope
was my assigned word. When Sara asked me to preach this Advent, again on the
first Sunday of the season, I had a fleeting thought that I would use that old
sermon once more, and “hope” that no one had been paying close attention two
years ago. After all, Sara has really put me to work this weekend. I had to
preach yesterday at the Presbytery meeting and between the Chester River
Chorale holiday concert on Friday night, which was a wonderful way to begin
this holy season and other, various homecoming meals shared with dear friends,
my social calendar has been full since I arrived in Chestertown. There was
hardly any time for preparing a sermon. But, wouldn’t you know it, Pastor Sara,
gave me a different group of words this year. There would be no sermon reruns.
As
Pastor Sara mentioned earlier, for Advent this year we are singing a new hymn, adding
a new verse each week. Today we sang, “Come Now O Prince of Peace, make us one
body. Come O Lord Jesus, reconcile your people.” I will admit, I was a little
miffed that I couldn’t reuse my hope
sermon. Hearing the words of this first verse though, I know how appropriate it
is for me to meditate on Jesus as the Prince of Peace. After my last year, I
know, more than ever before, that Jesus is the only real hope for any true
peace. Whatever your thoughts are on what is happening in Afghanistan or what has
happened there over the past eleven years, most of us acknowledge that
establishing a lasting peace there or anywhere for that matter, won’t come
through military strategy. Every time I heard a disparaging story about some
needless violence happening throughout the country, often involving harm of a
young girl or boy, I would wonder to myself how anyone could survive their
Afghan tenure maintaining any hope at all without holding on to Jesus and his
promise of true peace.
As
a chaplain, I don’t always get to talk about Jesus, at least explicitly. Now
please don’t get me wrong. Of course, I am a Christian minister, and couldn’t
never pretend to be anything else. But, like many who work for either the
government or for the county as an educator, I, too, must to wear different
hats. I am allowed to talk about Jesus during worship services and when I lead
Bible Studies or have people drop by my office to discuss questions of faith.
But, when I am in battalion staff meetings or asked to give an invocation at a
military ceremony, in those moments, I am supposed to speak of God more
broadly. This way persons from different faith backgrounds or who don’t have
any faith at all will not feel excluded or that their right to exercise their
own free religion is being infringed upon. There are some who worry that not
talking about Jesus effectively takes Jesus out of the equation, that Jesus
becomes invisible. Yet after a year in Afghanistan, I beg to differ. In fact, I
think not being able to talk about Jesus all the time instead gives us more
reason to work on acting like him.
Sometimes
I think that I learned this, at least in part, from you and the ways that you
ministered to deployed troops over this past year. I think of the blue
Christmas cards which were mailed to each of my soldiers bearing four simple
words, “And on earth, Peace.” Those letters written by so many of you,
including members of our youth group and some even younger than that, found
their way into the mailboxes of an extremely diverse group of people-- some
Christian, some Jewish, some atheist, some Muslim. And, I did not hear one
complaint because members of a Christian church had written a Christmas card to
an individual from a different faith. And, trust me, as the chaplain, I hear
all the complaints.
Instead
what I heard were things like this said by one of my Jewish soldiers.
“Chaplain, I got a letter from someone in your church. I just couldn’t figure
it out. At first I thought it was from a family member because the woman wrote
the letter to me-- personally. I even called my mom to find out which of our
family lived in Maryland. Then I figured out it was one of your friends.” Or, the letter that found its way to one of my
Afghan linguists who originally fled Afghanistan during the Russian invasion
when he was a young boy. “Can you believe it,” he said. “I got a letter from
your friends in Maryland. Come and see it on my desk. This is the first time
that I have been included with the soldiers at Christmas. Please tell them I am
also praying for peace.” And, then there was perhaps my favorite comment from
an old sailor who was working as a civilian contractor with our unit.
“Chaplain,” she said. “Your people are very sneaky. I don’t like Christmas and
I don’t like church, but their card was the kindest thing I have received
during this deployment.” I could go on and on, but perhaps the most telling
thing I noticed was, ten months later, those blue cards, with their white doves
and message of peace, still posted on computers and on walls and on desks. You
could hardly walk around our unit without being reminded of Jesus and his
promise of peace.
Of
course, the Christmas cards were just one of the many acts of God’s love which
this church extended across oceans and continents, all the way to Afghanistan.
Whether it was the over 6,000 Christmas cookies that you baked which fed not
only my unit but many others on our camp or the stockings or pillowcases that
you sewed, whether it was the fleece blankets you cut or the knitted sweaters
that you so lovingly made for the children we met at the Egyptian hospital,
whether it was the backpacks that you helped create, the last of which I heard,
just two weeks ago, were going to be given away when schools open again in the
spring as a part of a new initiative by Operation Pencil to partner with the
Afghan National Army and their version of a chaplain who has set a goal to make
a positive impact on each one of the almost 30,000 children who are in the
Bagram district. Whether it was the school supplies or chap-stick that you
brought to Vacation Bible School, whether it was hours you donated to packing
boxes or sewing or knitting or praying, especially praying, in all of these
actions you practiced being Jesus rather than just talking about him.
Throughout
the season of Advent, we prepare for the coming of Christ into the world. Yes,
we are always supposed to be ready for Jesus’, but in these weeks, we do things
to make even more room. As we light the candles of the Advent wreath or open
our homes for traveling Jesus to come over and spend time with our children, we
acknowledge that it is Jesus, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace, whose presence among us makes all the difference in a
world which, at times, appears to only grow darker.
At
the very end of our deployment, I had one-on-one counseling sessions with every
member of Task Force Viper. None of them had to use their entire thirty minute
time block, though many of them ended up going into overtime, but they all had
to meet with me. My hope was that brief reflection on their deployment as well
as conversation about the months of reintegration that were just over the
horizon, would help them to be ready for the emotional highs and lows of
returning home. One of the questions that I would ask during this session was
for them to name their best deployment memory. When I posed this question to
one of my soldiers, a Special Forces Ranger with quite a few other deployments
under his belt, he first answered me, saying there wasn’t one good moment over
the year, not in a place like Afghanistan. Before I could even respond, he held
up his hand and said, “Wait... I take that back. There was one good memory.
Christmas Eve, when we lit our candles and took the light out into the dark Afghan
night. I will never forget how I felt then, that just for a moment, peace was really possible.”
“The
people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a
land of deep darkness— on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2).” Advent is here
and with it a heightened awareness of the one promise which makes all the
difference-- the Prince of Peace is coming. He will accomplish fully what none
of us can do on our own. He will make us into one body and reconcile all his
people, every last one of us. This promise of true peace is what we witness to
our world when we act like Jesus, when we become his hands and feet wherever we
are, here, on the other side of the world, and everywhere between.
“Come
Now O Prince of Peace, make us one body. Come O Lord Jesus, reconcile your
people.” Amen
