Peace is a Person
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, as the song goes. There are several things that most people seem to love about Christmas.
~ The SMELLS of Christmas - pine trees, peppermint, and potpourri.
~ The SOUNDS of Christmas - classic Christmas carols, Bing Crosby, and Maria Carey.
~ The SIGHTS of Christmas - lights in colors of red, green, and white, excited children, and crowded aisles at Walmart
~ The TASTES of Christmas - homemade candy and cookies, hot chocolate and honey-baked ham
~ The FEELINGS of Christmas - love and good cheer, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and closeness of family and friends in for the holidays.
The problem is we all want Christmas — full of hope, joy, love, and peace — but it rarely turns out like we planned. This season can feel far more disruptive and disappointing, full of despair with chaos and confusion thrown in for good measure. Bah humbug! I don’t know what your experience of Christmas/Advent is. It might be the most wonderful time of the year or filled with dread and angst.
This week, in the Advent calendar, we are focusing on the word/concept of PEACE. For many, peace is an elusive feeling. Peace is more than the absence of something; it is the presence of Someone. Advent is more than something promised to us; it is leaning into the Person who is with us. Because He came to bring Peace and to be Peace, through Him we can know peace and be at peace.
More than 2000 years ago in a small town called Bethlehem, about 5 miles south of Jerusalem, a couple from Nazareth came to Bethlehem to pay their taxes, with no place to rest but a cave where animals are kept, and their baby was born far from home and family and support and comfort. They called the baby’s name Jesus.c This is when and where and how Heaven invaded earth. The Word became flesh. By lineage, He was the son of David, but by divinity He is the Son of God. God with us! A season of expectation and anticipation. A time to look back but also to look forward. It is in times like these when so much of life seems disrupted, uncertain, and chaotic that peace can be hard to come by. But it was a world like this that Jesus stepped into.
As we revisit the birth narratives of Jesus found in Matthew and Luke’s gospel records, we are again confronted with the challenge of seeing and hearing and feeling familiar texts with fresh eyes and ears and with a new heart. We can certainly exegete the passages, but the issue is whether we will experience the meaning of what is found in the text.
Luke 2:8-20
In the midst of this messy situation comes this announcement that Peace was on earth. It had come because He had come. A declaration that through His birth peace was here. Because He came to bring Peace, to BE Peace, through Him we can know peace and be at peace. We can have the PEACE of God because we have PEACE with God. It is no accident that this angelic/heavenly message/declaration came to Shepherds because in many ways they represent all of us who know what it is to be alienated, broken, mournful, devastated, outcast. He favors the poor — the forgotten — the guilty. We all like sheep have gone astray, each to their own way, but God laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was the Lamb slain from the foundations of the earth. He who came in an obscure way as a baby, grew up in a carpenter’s home, gathered around Him 12 men, most of whom no one else would ever have chosen, and He poured Himself into them for 3+ years as a Rabbi. His teachings changed lives and riled the anger of the religious elite, and this One who lived a sinless life and died a sacrificial death, and three days later was raised triumphant over death, hell, and sin lives forever to give us PEACE. We all need a baptism of His Peace.
More than 330x in Scripture we read that word, peace. We need that! Peace in a world divided by wars and rumors of war, political polarization, social upheaval, relational friction, and personal pain.
Jesus said in John 16:33 — a promise I wish He had never made, at least as it relates to troubles: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Peace, as most understand it, is measured by circumstances, but I want to suggest that it is far more a condition of the heart. While we cannot control the circumstances of life, we can decide our response. Our perspective on life and our world changes when Jesus steps on the scene. Because peace is a PERSON!
As the people of God, we are called to usher in His Shalom. The Hebrew word, Shalom, was, and still is, a customary greeting among Jews that often is interpreted as health, wealth, and prosperity. It is best understood as complete wholeness or perfect harmony. It’s the Garden of Eden before the fall. Original blessing. The restoration of all things.
As Spirit-filled people, who model the Fruit of the Spirit, we are given peace to manifest in our day-to-day lives, a picture of the holiness that reflects God to the world around us, as we have the Prince of Peace abiding within.
God is going to set the world right, and He intends to use us as people of peace who are committed to making peace — actively involved in bringing that into reality as we move toward places of brokenness. Single moms who are trying to juggle how to make ends meet and keep a family together. A middle-aged man who lost his job due to downsizing and even with “Help wanted” signs up everywhere, cannot get a job because he is over-qualified for every job he applies for. The aging couple who find that their independence is being lost due to failing health and rising costs. The grieving heart that is wondering how to go on with the empty place at the table. Or that person who feels the loneliness of being surrounded by people but empty on the inside.
I want to say it again, peace is not the absence of chaos; it is the presence of Jesus. He is our Peace who has broken down every wall.
Will you open yourself to PEACE? To Receive PEACE — To Be PEACE — To Make PEACE?
Benediction: Isaiah 55:12
Prayer: May the LORD God be with us, as He always has been. May He go ever before us, not leaving us or forsaking us, but holding true to all His promises. May we be rooted in the House of the LORD and be made whole in His perfect peace. Amen.
Dr. Steven Ruby is serving as interim pastor at a church in Chickasha, Oklahoma, as well as being a long-time adjunct professor at NBC.
Published: 12/13/2024
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