Peace! Really?

            Jesus said to His confused and bewildered disciples, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  Love Him, believe in Him, live for Him, or not, we have to agree with the first part of His statement, "In this world you will have trouble." We've had two thousand years to prove Him wrong, but all history has done is reinforce the reality of a troubled and troubling world, where persons as persons face trouble of a thousand kinds. 

            Also true is the fact that many people and countries and movements and governments and ideologies have chosen not to come to the One who has "overcome the world."  We'll leave their reasons to another day.  Today, however, we live in a world so filled with conflicting troubles that it is virtually impossible to imagine a world where peace is the order of the day.  Add to this the fact that just about every religion and faith-movement in the world describes themselves as people of peace. Yet, there is no peace.

            In Advent we followers of Jesus confess our belief that God has come into the world on a mission of peace.  At the heart of that mission is the self-giving heart of God who is providing for the restoration and redemption of all creation.  This provision comes to us in person of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the One of whom it was said,       

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6, NASB)

            It is intriguing that God's entrance into human history as one of us rests in the life of a baby, Immanuel.  The location was a manger in a small farming town in the Middle East.  The day of His birth was like the day of the birth of a baby anywhere in the world—joy, celebration, music, laughter, hope. Maybe that's one of the reasons we have to celebrate Jesus' birth.  Sometimes we can't be still.  We've just got to sing and rejoice.  In fact, once in while we just need to worship as we listen to angels sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased" (Luke 2:14, HASB).   

            But babies don't stay babies.  They grow.  So St. Luke says, "Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Luke 2:52, NASB).  Jesus' destiny wasn't Bethlehem but the redemption and restoration of a world, all of it.  After all He was the "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).

As the Wonderful Counselor, the supernatural Counselor, none can rank with Him.   At Montrose church some of us do a lot of counseling, but none of us can work wonders, especially wonders comparable to the supernatural Counselor, Jesus.  Sometimes we recommend professional counselors to people but even they can't work the wonders of Jesus.

As the Mighty God Jesus doesn't only counsel us with His eternal and truthful Word, He has the power to pull off what He speaks into our lives and what most needs to be done.  

As the Eternal Father Jesus brings to us the heart of God.  We see the soft side of God, if you would.  We see God embracing us and holding us to His heart and covering us with His grace and drawing us into His very life.   In a rude and crude world where a lot of fathers are absent, the fact that God is a Father may not speak to you.  It may prompt hurtful memories that leave you empty, and maybe angry.  God is not an absentee father.  He doesn't make promises He doesn't keep.  If you ever wonder about what God is really like, take a long, long look at Jesus.  See Him hanging on a cross of His own volition because He loved you so much that He would take a bullet for you

Then it is we see that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.  Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful" (John 14:27, NASB).  The Bible says, "having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1. NASB).  Peace is on God's mind.  Peace is in God's heart.  Peace is in God's plan.  The Wonderful Counselor, who is the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father, comes to us as the Prince of peace. In Jesus we get all that it means for God to be God. 

In my faith journey I have come to believe that of all the things Jesus' cross means, one of them is that He took the evil of man's inhumanity to man upon His own life.  He took the hatred, the anger, the hostility, the blame, the rage, and even the death that these attitudes and actions bring.  As a follower of this crucified Savior I have no ground upon which to stand except the ground sanctified by the death and resurrection of the Prince of Peace. 

All the ground is level at the foot of the cross and every one of us stands on that ground.  Every enemy who would destroy us stands beneath the cross of Jesus.  Every ideology that seeks our demise stands beneath the cross of Jesus.  We stand beneath the cross and as we experience the blood-stained earth beneath our feet, smell the aroma of sweat, blood and tears, feel the atmosphere of rage and anger, and then hear unbelievable words that stun us into silence, "Father, forgive them" we know we stand in the presence of absolute humility.  We stand on holy ground, speechless, bewildered, stunned. Our standing turns to kneeling, our kneeling turns to submission, and our submission turns to mission.

When we hear His voice, we understand our mission.  We are here to share with a world the unbelievable love of an incredible God.  We are here to be His Presence in the world, allowing Him to live through us, so that all He is might infiltrate our troubled world.  We are here to be "Peacemakers," the kind of whom Jesus said, "Blessed are they…" (Matthew. 5:9). 

It is unthinkable that we should be part of the problem.  Ours is not to draw lines and erect barriers.  Ours is to take hold of the hand of Jesus and live out the meaning of a God who "emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race" (Charles Welsey, "And Can It Be," 1738)

            It is a high and noble calling to be a Peacemaker, but when your Savior is the Prince of peace, it is a calling worth pursuing. 

            God help us.  It is a calling worth pursuing.