Dec. 9, 2018                    Peace                                                 

On this Sunday our gospel lesson is about John the Baptist and his call to repentence. Now in the years I have preached on this passage, I have spoken about changing our lives, or refocusing them from our will to God’s will. But I think in the light of our Advent devotion, I think we could look at repentance as choosing to surrender to God’s will for our lives. And in doing so, the valleys and the mountains of our lives, can be leveled, and the crooked ways of our lives can be made straight, and we can find the peace in our lives that so often times is missing. 

And so, as I looked for things relating to the idea of surrender, I came across this hymn, written by Judson Van DeVenter. It's title is, "I Surrender All".

1. All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give: I will ever love and trust Him, In His presenced daily live. Ref.  I surrender all, I surrender all; All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. 2. All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow; Worldly pleasures all forsaken, Take me, Jesus, take me now. 3. All to Jesus I surrender, Make me, Savior, wholly Thine; Let me feel the Holy Spirit, Truly know that Thou art mine. 4. All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee; Fill me with They love and power, Let Thy blessing fall on me. 5. All to Jesus I surrender, Now I feel the sacred flame; Oh, the joy of full salvation! Glory, glory to His name! 

Van DeVenter said of the inspiration for the text, "that for  some time, I struggled between developing my talents in the field of art, and going into full time Evangelistic work. At last the pivotal hour of my life came and I surrendered all to Christ. A new day was ushered into my life. I became an evangelist and discovered down deep in my soul a talent hitherto unknown to me. God had hidden a song in my heart and touching a tender chord, He caused me to sing!

I also chose this story about Judson Van DeVenter because of our devotion this morning about Mary accepting the news that she would be the mother of Jesus. 

Last Christmas Eve, I talked about Mary, and the reasons she had to be afraid of what would happen to her. As I mentioned above, she could have been accused of adultery and stoned or driven out of her community, she could have lost her husband Joseph and been left to raise her baby alone, or she could have died in childbirth with no one to care for her. Mary had a choice to either surrender to these fears, or to surrender to the will of God. And in surrendering to the will of God she found peace. 

Now during the Christmas season, we can often find ourselves getting so caught up in the commercial rush of Christmas, the rush of meeting our desires, and the desires of others, the Christmas rush that makes us crazy, out of breathe and out of time, and out of money. That is why surrendering our lives to the will of God, can help us to step back from this Christmas rush and determine what is truly important in our lives, God’s love for us and for one another, and in that surrendering, we can find peace for our lives this Christmas. And that's the Good News of Jesus Christ!