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[Silence] [MUSIC] For the blood of Jesus, it will never lose its power. He was despised and rejected.

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He was despised and rejected. Man of sorrow. ♪ Man of sorrow acquainted with me ♪ ♪ He was wounded, wounded for our transgressions ♪

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♪ He was bruised for our iniquity ♪ ♪ Early one Sunday morning ♪ ♪ He said I got all power in my hand ♪ ♪ Going back to my Father in glory ♪

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♪ And soon, well it's soon to come again ♪ ♪ Oh the Blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh the Blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh the Blood of Jesus ♪

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♪ Oh the Blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ It will never lose its power ♪

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♪ Yes, he was despised and rejected ♪ ♪ Yes, he was despised and rejected ♪ ♪ Man of sorrow ♪ ♪ Acquainted with grief ♪

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♪ He was wounded for our transgressions ♪ ♪ Our transgressions ♪ ♪ He was bruised, bruised for our iniquity ♪ ♪ But early one Sunday morning ♪

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♪ He said I got all power in my hand ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm going back, I'm going back ♪ ♪ To my father in glory ♪ ♪ But he's soon to come again ♪

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♪ Oh the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh the blood of Jesus ♪

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♪ The blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh the blood, oh the blood ♪ ♪ The blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ It will never lose its power ♪

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♪ It will never lose its power ♪ ♪ It will never lose its power ♪ - Amen. - Today,

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we celebrate the first Sunday in the Advent season, when we celebrate the coming of our Lord. The passage of scripture which I would like to lift up for your prayerful attention is in the gospel according to Matthew, the 10th chapter, the 34th and the 35th verses.

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not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

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came not to send peace but a sword. Not peace but a sword. This is the first in a number of sermons leading up to Christmas

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based on contradictions in Christmas. Contradictions in Christmas. As I was growing up, my mother always reprimanded me if I said something which seemed to contradict what she had said.

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It was the opposite of what she said, and it was against what she said. And the word would often come, "Boy, don't you contradict me." Well, here we are talking about contradictions involving God. And in relationship to one of the most significant events in Christian history, the coming of

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our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It seems that Christmas is full of contradictions. Life and darkness, joy and sorrow, life, new life, life and death, love and hate, love and sorrow, life, new life, life and death, love and hate. And we could go on and on naming the contradictions involved in the celebration of this blessed

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event. News has come to us that the usual Christmas celebration held at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem has been canceled. It has been canceled this year because of war conditions.

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So they will not celebrate the peace of Christmas because of the war conditions that prevail with the Israeli and the Palestine forces. Nevertheless, we continue to spread the timeless message of peace on earth, goodwill to all men.

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So we say Christmas is about peace. The word of the prophet is that the Christ of Christmas would be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And it is the Prince of Peace who speaks to us in the language of our text saying, "Do

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not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies will be the members of his own household.

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That's the message of the Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace comes not to unite us on any basis that we may select. Often when we have opposite sides, people say, "Come on and get together." Why can't we just all come together and whether you feel like it or not just agree for the

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sake of agreement. We have something of that in our situation and the selection of our national leadership. People are saying go on to just give up. Don't worry about whether it's right or not.

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Don't worry about whether it's accurate and accurate counting. Don't worry about whether it's fag. all over so just throw in the towel. And according to the polls, most of the people vote that way. We compromise and we accept certain conditions that ought not be accepted at the time. So

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Jesus does not come to declare peace in that sense. He does not come to declare peace in peace in that sense. He came not to send peace, but a sword. He comes not focusing primarily on the outward conditions, but on inward conditions that will change the outward situation. I come. And he comes at different times and in different ways, but he is sure to come.

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We wait for his coming. Christmas comes, we wait through the night, through the darkness, and we are sure in our hearts that he will come. He does not come merely to establish peace and existence without strife and conflict.

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All of us would like to have a world where there would be no strife. Wouldn't that be wonderful? No striving when you come into this world.

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Childbirth would be easy and a pleasant thing. No strife, no conflict. We'd like to live in a world like that, but that's not the kind of world that Christmas celebrates.

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We may have our kind of peace for the wrong reason. Often we think of the coming of Jesus as a life that is free from conflict. But the truth of the matter is that once we accept Jesus,

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we may encounter more conflict than we've encountered before. In some countries where persons accept Jesus Christ, the family tells them to take their bag,

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pack their bags and leave because they have accepted Jesus Christ. Prophets in Jeremiah's time cry, "Peace, peace," but there is no peace.

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When Jesus comes, he brings a sword of persecution. And when people persecute us and speak all manner of evil against us falsely, the Prince of Peace says, "Rejoice!"

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and be exceedingly glad. So, think not that our Lord comes to bring a state of togetherness, that we may call peace at any price,

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the absence of war, go along in order to get along, do not raise any difficult questions, void all contradictions,

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And to do so would be to sacrifice Christmas, because Christmas is full of contradictions. No peace as the world knows it, in the setting that we face today

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with all of the contradictions in our national history, to say nothing of the contradictions we have in our lives. And somehow by the grace of God, we have to learn to live with these contradictions. Christmas involves persecution,

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not peace, but a sword, a sword, persecution. Prince of Peace was heralded by angels singing peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Yet in the background we see Herod's soldiers and we hear the cry of innocent infants who are massacred in the background.

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Angels singing peace and heralds armies slaying the innocent. Contradiction. And here, Jesus says,

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I am come not to bring peace, but a sword. And he says to Peter,

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put up your sword. Put up your sword. He says to Pilate, if my kingdom were of this world,

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then would my servants fight? But his peace is not the kind of peace that is based on violence, it is the kind of peace that only God can give.

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So the contradictions of Christmas are expressed all around the situation we see these contradictions. The Prince of Peace described in the prophet Isaiah's vision It's described by John in the book of Revelation.

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And it says, "Out of his mouth shall come "a two-edged sword." Not peace, but a sword. In the contradictions of Christmas,

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we are called to new life in Christ. And at the same time, we are called to martyrdom. Not to have it easy. All smooth, no bumps in the road.

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But we are called to engage in a life of contradictions. In fact, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that when Jesus calls his disciples, he calls them to come and die with him.

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and they burned their boats. Never again to be following the old way of life. Not peace, but a soul. When Martin Luther King answered one of the letters

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that he received during the civil rights struggle from a group of white ministers who were criticizing him because he was disturbing the peace. He was disturbing.

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In other words, people were happy. Race relations were smooth, and everyone was content in the South to listen to them as they described the situation.

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And here comes this troublemaker. And Jesus is saying that, that I come not to bring peace, not that kind of peace, but a sword.

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And this sword disturbs us. Sometimes the more we know, the more unhappy we are with the situations that we see in the world. If we didn't know all of these things,

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maybe you could just go on and sleep and forget about it. but the more God reveals to us of his goodness and his grace and we see people going in the opposite direction, it disturbs us.

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And it gives us sleepless nights. So Caesar has his forces and Herod has his forces And there is persecution because people accept Jesus Christ.

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Persecution in the family. A son is against father, a daughter is against mother, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

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Enemies in one's own household. That's the meaning of Christmas. full of contradictions, full of contradictions. I came to bring peace.

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I came to bring not the kind of peace that you expect, but the kind of peace that ultimately comes to those who accept me is peace that comes through a sword, through a sword.

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the story of Saddam Hussein, who had his cabinet meeting, and they were discussing strategies for the success of the nation, the crises that the people were facing,

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what should they do? And a certain strategy was recommended, and they went around the table, and all of those that responded to that point

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and said, "Yes, this is the thing to do." And they came to one man and he said, "No, this is not the thing to do. "This will cause defeat."

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And it is said that Saddam Hussein took his pistol and shot the man in the head and he died right there on the spot. And he said, "Now is there anybody else

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"who feels like this?" The man died because of the truth which he declared. He gave his life. The contradiction, I came not to bring the kind of peace,

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this kind of easy peace that the world gives, but I came to bring a sword, a sword of persecution, a sword of suffering. In other words, if you accept me

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And the meaning of Christmas, it means to accept suffering. For he left his home in glory and came to this sin-cursed earth and gave his life on a hill called Calvary.

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I came not to bring peace, but a sword. So it's peace through suffering, and yet it is a peace that comforts, it comforts us. You know, it's not enough to count the days before Christmas.

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We're summoned to embrace the contradictions of Christmas. not a hollow peace based on signatures on a document on some table somewhere that marks the end of a war, not swords of the temple police, not the Roman legions, not peace in that sense that the world gives, but a sword. The

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contradictions of Christmas are reflected in the fact that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Think about that. The blood of the martyrs, the seed of the church, that's the way the church grows. Sacrifice, suffering, persecution. That's the contradiction in Christmas. That's what we celebrate, the

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coming of that. That situation that so many people would like to avoid. It's the peace that reconciles man to man. It's the peace that reconciles man to God. It's the peace that reconciles children and parents. Peace that surpasses all human understanding. Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, I came not to bring peace but a sword.

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So as we face the contradictions of Christmas in peace that we would have without swords, we face the contradiction of Christmas in life and death I come that you may have life and that you might make that pilgrimage to peace is what Jesus says to us through this passage and so we join hands with this one who in the

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midst of our darkness gives us light. In the midst of our suffering he gives healing. In the midst of our disturbance, in the midst of our violence he gives us a peace that surpasses all human understanding. Even in the family, that intimate circle where people differ and where people differ and having divided,

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they separate themselves and destroy themselves many times. Jesus says, "I come." That's a sign of my coming, he comes, he comes. And so as we engage on this pilgrimage,

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we see it, life and death, and it's rather strange how we find ourselves in the midst of these celebrations. On the one hand, you're celebrating the birth of a new child.

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Next time, you're celebrating the marriage of a couple. And next time, you're celebrating a death. And all of these are, in some way, contradictions. And yet, God has chosen, through these contradictions,

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to reveal himself to us. >> Yes, Lord. >> Through these contradictions. We often think that the contradictions

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are to be rejected in the human way, but with God, these paradoxes are the ways that he expresses his truth. He comes to us in these paradoxes.

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He says that if you must be first, you've gotta be last. Paradox. So if you would win in this race,

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you've gotta lose. And on and on the paradox goes and we who are pilgrims of peace, of the peace that surpasses all human understanding are those who have chosen to suffer with Him. Thou my everlasting potion, more than life to me. All along the pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.

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Close to Thee, close to Thee, all along this pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee in the midst of all of the contradictions, "in the midst of all of the fears that are there

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"and the dangers that lurk in the darkness, "Savior, let me walk with Thee." We extend now the invitation to accept Jesus Christ as Lord of your life.

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We invite you to come by letter, by Christian experience, as we celebrate the coming of Jesus. May he come anew in your life this day as we extend the invitation to follow in his way.

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Door of the church is open. We invite you to come. [ Music ] [MUSIC]

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♪ No, no, wait before we go ♪ ♪ Hiding rocks and treacherous shoals ♪ ♪ Tithing powers of God and me ♪ ♪ Jesus, Savior, I love Thee ♪

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[Music] ♪ O still, O child ♪ ♪ Thou filth-filled, the ocean wild ♪ ♪ O truth great, obey thy will ♪

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♪ When thy saints to them be still ♪ ♪ Wondrous sovereign of the sea ♪ ♪ Jesus, Savior, pilot be ♪ ♪ When at last I near the shore ♪

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♪ And the vapor breakers roar ♪ [ Music ] Then while leaning on thy breast, may I hear thee say to me, "Fear not, I will pilot thee."

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(piano music) [ Silence ]