“Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace.”
It’s amazing how trivial issues can spark intense conflict. A little boy and his sister were arguing about who was going to get the last brownie. Their dispute became increasingly heated and quickly escalated to screaming and sobbing. Their mother came in to diffuse the tension, and, sensing the moment was appropriate to teach her distraught children a deeper truth, she asked: “What would Jesus do?” After a moment, the older sibling answered, “That’s easy! Jesus would just break the brownie and make five thousand more!”
If seemingly trivial things, like brownies, can swiftly cause significant disruption to peace, how much more the international conflicts littered throughout human history. Since statistics began to be kept, the world has only been entirely at peace for 8 percent of the time! From 1500 B.C. more than 8,000 treaties of peace, meant to remain in force forever, were concluded. Their average duration was just two years.
On the one hand, peace is one of the most sought after things in life, but on the other, also one of the most elusive. Whether it’s over brownies, who had the ball first, who has right of way on the road, or whatever the reasons for one nation to invade another, it’s our ingrained human nature to only see and evaluate situations from our perspective, and we demand the outcomes we insist we deserve. Often it is said that vulnerable people are at risk of aggression, but it is also true that vulnerable people are perpetrators of aggression. Why do people bully others? Because deep down, they are insecure. And when our needs, desires, opportunities and interests are frustrated and threatened, we look to sinful ways of obtaining and protecting them—using aggressive behaviours to push others away to make ourselves strong and secure, controlling our self-interests. Whether it’s a schoolyard bully or the bullying behaviour of a political dictator, the baseline is the same—the selfish expectation to have what we want. And then—whether it is about the empty brownie jar in the kitchen, or the smouldering rubble of a missile strike—the result is hostility and disorder instead of peace.
We hear how this all began in human history in today’s reading from Genesis. Eve’s and Adam’s sinful desire to act selfishly and have something they had no right to have fractured the good ordering of human relationships that God established. When God asked Adam: “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Adam responds: “The woman you put here with me gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.” By blaming his own wife in order to justify and protect himself, Adam brought fragmentation to the family unit. And did you hear—Adam blames God too: “The woman you put here with me.” It’s Eve’s fault, but really it’s God’s fault. No Adam, it’s your fault. You disobeyed God’s word. You take responsibility for your actions. And when God says to Eve: “What is this you have done?” she too attempts to justify herself by shifting the blame: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Have we heard that before: ‘the devil made me do it!’ No Eve. The devil can’t make us do anything. He tempts us to go against God’s word, but that’s all. How we hear and respond to God’s word is our doing. You did it Eve; you take responsibility for your actions.
By their sin, the first people introduced something new into God’s creation—the opposite of peace: fear. “When the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” When I heard you, I was afraid, so I hid. That wasn’t what God intended from the beginning. Just goes to show that new ways aren’t always good ways.
In our natural state we are broken and our relationship with God and each other is broken. Despite all the well-intentioned messages and actions for world peace over the centuries, humanity doesn’t have the capacity to re-establish peace on earth. That’s why the good news at the end of today’s Genesis reading is such good news. God promised right back then he would re-establish order over evil, by sending a Saviour with the authority and power to stomp on the serpent’s head. God will send a Saviour from heaven to earth, that in him we might again have peace with God.
Throughout the sequence of Old Testament readings we hear God’s many promises about this. Through Jeremiah God tells his people he will raise up a righteous branch from which a King will come and reign wisely and justly—that is, not corruptly or with force. Through Zechariah God announces that this ruler will proclaim peace to the nations and bring a peaceful rule to the ends of the earth. Micah says that this ruler will stand and shepherd his flock, and he himself will be their peace.
Did you hear that: “He himself will be their peace.” Today’s scriptures tell us that peace is not something we can arrange, organize, or fashion. Peace is not ultimately a concept or ideal, not a thing…but a person—”He will be their peace.” The peace given from heaven is the Person of Christ himself, attested to by the angels at his birth: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.” (Luke 2:14).
Charles Spurgeon once said: “I looked at Christ, and the dove of peace flew into my heart; I looked at the dove of peace, and it flew away.”[1] In other words, only Jesus can give us true peace. If we look to peace as a concept; an ideal we can create, it will always be elusive. We can’t have world peace, or even peace between ourselves, unless we first have peace with God.
That is why God has come down to earth to make peace with us. This ruler, shepherd and king is true God from eternity, born of the virgin Mary, given the name ‘Jesus’—which means ‘God saves’. He has come to bring peace from heaven to earth reconciling sinners with their Maker. Born in the dark of night and in the midst of the mess of a stable, this Jesus is ‘Immanuel’: ‘God with us’—God with us in our dark and messy world—a world we messed up and made unclean; unholy. It is not by education or strategy, not by force or the aggression of a mighty military, but through a tiny, vulnerable baby that God has ushered in his divine reign of peace on earth. Through this Christ child—the Holy One—by his death and resurrection—God has won everlasting peace that the things of this world can neither give nor take away. God has done, and continues to do a new thing as his kingdom reigns on earth through the ministry of Jesus.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus comforts his disciples before his departure by ministering divine peace to them: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). On the evening of his resurrection when Jesus came to his disciples—huddled together, with the doors locked for fear of what might happen to them at the hands of the Jewish leaders—Jesus gave them what they needed most: peace from heaven in the midst of darkness and fear, by speaking his word: “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19).
And Jesus did not give peace to them only. He gave to his church his ministry of peace: the authority to forgive the sins of those who repent. Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:21-23). As Jesus’ ministers pronounce peace in his name as his representatives, it is the Lord Jesus himself who stands as our unseen Shepherd, proclaiming peace to those who long to hear it. When Adam heard God in the garden, he was afraid. When God’s people hear Jesus, we receive divine peace.
The prophecy in Zechariah says that God would take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem…because Jesus came riding on a donkey—the sign of an envoy of peace. Through Isaiah, God says the swords will be beaten into ploughshares. In small, poor, agricultural communities, the people had no military. Confronted with invading armies, the people mobilised their farmers to be soldiers, who beat their farming implements into weapons. With the coming King of Peace, Isaiah says this process will be reversed. No longer will the people’s implements be used for violence, piercing through flesh. Instead, they will be beaten into their original shape and used again for cutting into the earth; cultivating the ground, symbolic of a new beginning for his people. Conflict would be reversed, and the people would dwell in safety in the land, to plant and reap a harvest, bringing strength and prosperity for the community. In those prophecies, it was God’s action that brought about this new reality.
As we approach Christmas, the season of Advent is a perfect opportunity to consider what needs reshaping in our lives. For our hearts cannot receive the peace of Christ and remain unchanged. Again, it must be God who brings about the change. The word from Isaiah today leads us to reflect inwardly: what is in our hearts—swords or ploughshares? Do we live by power or peace in our attitudes and interactions with others? Do we go to work trying to control others and everything else around us, stepping over others for our own sense of wellbeing and security, falling into the trap of forcing our own will on others, manipulating situations and people for our self-gain?
Isaiah’s vision of God’s new world is that people from all nations will stream to the new Temple, Jesus, and will have their hearts reshaped to walk in God’s path of peace. They will not seek control, hurt, aggression and violence again. Instead, they will beat their swords into ploughshares. This is God’s vision too, which is why he sent his own Son Jesus to earth, for us. He is the holy Temple to whom people from all nations will come—even us—to the presence of God in Christ and be reshaped to be more and more like him—peace instead of power, self-control instead of the desire to control others, humility instead of pride. As John said of Jesus: “He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:30).
May that be our confession too. May we not place obstacles before him but eagerly seek to remove them. For as we wait for Jesus to come again soon and make all things new, he has already begun shaping our hearts in the shape of his own, as Paul said in his letter to the church at Philippi: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6). Until then, brothers and sisters, the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ † Jesus. (Philippians 4:7). Amen.
[1]G. Curtis Jones 1000 Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1986), 272.
Questions for reflection:
- In what ways are the conflicts between children in a playground and world leaders different? How are they the same?
- How do we see the fallout of Adam and Eve today—in family relationships, work relationships, social groups and between nations?
- Why do our hearts need reshaping to be like Jesus?
- “Often it is said that vulnerable people are at risk of aggression. But it is also true that vulnerable people are perpetrators of aggression.” Can you think of a time recently where you were involved in conflict? What was the issue? Were there underlying issues for you that you were seeking to control and protect?
- What do you make of Spurgeon’s comment: “I looked at Christ, and the dove of peace flew into my heart; I looked at the dove of peace, and it flew away.” How is this mindset crucial for the church? Is there someone you need to make peace with? What strategies might you have for this? How can going to Jesus in his word be a better strategy to bring you peace, and help you make peace with others?
