Scandalous Peace
Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash
What is peace? A day without work? A break from tending children? Is it an afternoon at the spa, or the theater, or the mountains? I often imagine peace as the absence of internal or external noise and chaos. If that is the case, then peace is reserved for the privileged: those who don’t suffer from lack of shelter or food, those with homes and stable support systems, people who can afford a break from the monotony of living.
If Jesus is who he says he is, then would we receive the truth about Peace. Jesus came to be our Peace- not the peace of a good life- but the peace of receiving life, of being entirely whole and integrated in our beings, and wholly united to God, to love.
In Isaiah 1-11 we hear the prophesy of a new ruler who will come to the people of Israel. He will be a fresh shoot, a new sucker penetrating the death of the cut-down-stump of God’s people. He will bring peace, and he will embody peace among God’s people. We see the fulfillment of this prophesy in Jesus: a tiny sapling emerging from the family tree of David, Joseph’s adopted son.
He is not some ethereal being wearing white and waving a magic wand. He comes into the middle of the mess- born a scandal to an unwed teenage girl, flees his country from an oppressive murderous ruler to become a refugee in a foreign land, and returns to his hometown claiming to be God embodied. And yet, we see Jesus live up to the prophesy in Isaiah 1:1-10. He does not judge with human eyes and ears, but with the righteousness of God. He is fit with the “Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.” Jesus flipped the religious world on its head. He did not fight for peace with words or weapons. He rather laid down his life becoming our perfect replacement, serving our sentence, and fulfilling the wrath of God to break down the dividing wall between God and man.
In Colossians 1:13 it says, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Jesus’s peacemaking is active.
So if we are Jesus’ apprentices, what does that mean for us as Peacemakers?
We have to know Jesus intimately as the Way the Truth and the Life. There is no other way to get to God. John 14:6
Embrace the scandal of grace. No amount of religion (trying to be good) can make you right in this world “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8
You, Christian, are salt and light to a dying world. Matthew 5:14-16. Live in such a way with your neighbors that they are not confused about who Jesus is. Seek peace actively by becoming one with one another. Carry one another’s burdens and do not withhold love.
Forgive. Forgiveness purges the poison we’ve swallowed through our personal attempts at vindication. In forgiveness we surrender to the power of God, knowing he holds all and will make all things right.
During this Advent would we embrace peace- the bloody peace that comes through the body of a woman then serves and dies as it rescues us from the domain of darkness we all experience. Look to Jesus, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature who upholds the universe. His law is love and his gospel is Peace.