It is the second week of Advent. The peace candle is lit up here on the stage, and it is beautiful. Glowing. Illuminating. Nothing about it looks destructive.
Now here is a match.
A match has a different job. You strike it and it bursts. It is meant to be explosive, meant to burn bright, meant to set something on fire. But hold it too long and you know exactly what happens. It burns you.
That is anger. Strong. Explosive. And if you hang onto it, it will burn the hand that is holding it. Anger is a match, not a candle.
Which is a strange thing to preach in the season of peace, except that peace is not what most of us feel at Christmas. Exams and last games and projects. Travel to see family — some you miss terribly, some you would rather not see at all. Gifts for everybody, and nothing is cheap.
And anxiety, left alone, turns into bitterness. Bitterness only has one destination. Anger.
So here is where we are going today. Christmas peace begins where anger ends, at the feet of Jesus.
He is after the heart, not the hand
Five times in this chapter Jesus says, you have heard that it was said... but I say to you. That is not a lower view of Scripture — he said not an iota of it will go unfulfilled. It is: you think you understand this, and I am going to show you what it was always getting at.
So he starts with murder and immediately goes to anger. Because where does murder come from? It starts in here. A seed gets planted, the bristling starts, the frustration goes unaddressed. Genesis 4 — sin crouching at the door, and a man who acts on it instead of dealing with it, and a brother lying dead.
You may not be a murderer. But when you ignored your mother, avoided your coworker, rolled your eyes, called somebody a name, dropped a harsh word — what was going on in your heart? You just murdered peace.
What is in the heart eventually shows up in the hand.
The word Jesus uses for fool is raka. It is not calling somebody silly. It means you do not deserve to exist. You are unworthy of life. You are less than me. Start believing that about another human being and you are pointed at a grave destination.
Go first
Then he says something you have to read twice. If you are at the altar and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift, go, be reconciled, and then come back and offer it.
I had to stop. Surely I am misreading this. If I did something wrong, fine, I apologize. But if somebody else has something against me and I have not done a thing to them — they are just bitter — I have to take the lead?
Yes. Jesus said what? That is the one.
Picture the Christmas Eve service. We are singing Silent Night. You look up and across the room is the person you have strife with. Taking this seriously looks like putting the candle down, walking over there, and making it right. Because Jesus is more concerned with your heart than with your singing. He does not want religion. He wants reconciliation.
And if you will not, anger becomes a prison. You will not get out until you have paid the last penny. Bitterness will not release you until you release it.
What it cost me, and what it gave back
My father offended me deeply once. He was a good father. But in that moment I believed he had wronged me, he never apologized, and I was bristling. Every time he opened his mouth I got angrier.
So I went to a man for counsel. I laid out my case. He said, you need to handle your sin.
What? Did you hear anything I just told you? Let me lay it out one more time.
He looked me in the face and said it again. You are angry. Handle your sin.
He was wrong, by the way. I was not angry. I was furious. But he was right about the rest. The hurt had become bitterness and the bitterness had become anger, and I was holding a match, and it was burning me, and it was putting distance between me and my own dad.
So I started praying for him. Try this prayer. Lord, I forgive this person as you forgave me. Then, if you are brave, go one further: Lord, would you bless them. That is a hard sentence to say about someone you are angry at. You may not mean it the first time, or the hundredth. Keep going and watch the gospel break the stronghold.
Then I got a call I was not expecting. Son, I have pancreatic cancer, and I am dying.
Near the end he looked at me and said, son, I love you and I am proud of you. It was not always that way between us. And I do not believe I would ever have heard those words — the ones I will treasure the rest of my life — if Christ had not taken my anger and handed me his peace.
Christmas Eve, 1914
The world is at war. Young men are freezing in trenches, mud on their boots, fear in their blood, rifles loaded, bayonets fixed, the whole universe shrunk down to kill or be killed.
Then out of the cold silence a German voice starts singing a hymn the British soldiers recognize. The British start singing too. Men climb out of the trenches, put down their rifles, shake hands, trade chocolate and tobacco. For one night the war stopped and peace touched the earth.
By morning the shooting was back.
The world cannot keep peace, because peace does not come from treaties or trenches. It comes from a new heart. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Jesus did not come to negotiate a ceasefire for one night. He came to make you new from the inside out, forever.
So put the match down. Three things you can actually do this week. Pause and pray first — five seconds can prevent five days of regret. Jesus, hold my anger so it does not hold me. Step away before you step in; walk, breathe, move. Release and forgive quickly, and do not carry what Christ will carry for you.
What are you still holding that is burning your hand?
