When I began preparing for this past Sabbath sermon, I knew I wanted to preach Psalm 46 and Isaiah 9. The question was: how do I communicate the heart of these passages? I translated them from Hebrew, wrote translation notes, and dug into commentaries. But as I tried to put the meaning of the passages into words, I felt like I was cheapening them. In the same way that explaining a joke takes the humor away from a joke, I felt that explaining the passages took away their power.

Then it occurred to me: no one had to explain these passages for the original hearers for them to understand why they were so powerful. The power of the passages is the lived experience of the hearer. Upon realizing this, I decided to tell a story. A fictional story that generally captured the lived experience of thousands of Israelite's who were exiled in Babylon. My goal was for all of us to hear Psalm 46 and Isaiah 9 from the perspective of exiles.

Personally, as I wrote the sermon, often I had to take a breather for the ache I felt in my heart. And when I wrote the words of Isaiah 9 I felt an overwhelmed sense of divine presence and comfort that brought me to tears.

Although we are not exiles in Babylon, we are exiles on this earth waiting for the return of Christ. And we have all felt, at one point or another, the feelings of Korah, Ephraim, and Zeera. We have felt anger, disappointment, confusion, loss of words, doubt, and resentment. But we have also felt hope. The experience of our spiritual ancestors is also our own.

So the truth of Isaiah 9 and Psalm 46 still applies to us: You will not have peace until you make peace with God. In our disappointment, we become angry at God, and that is understandable. But we will not find peace until we can make peace with God. In Christ, God has made peace with us, but we are the ones still at war with Him. Christ is the light that shines in the darkness, our Prince of Peace, and He invites us to make peace with Him that we may finally rest.

For it is written that Christ has made “peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” My friend, I invite you to make peace with God.

—Pastor Alex