Advent Reflections: Peace

A couple of years ago we looked at the four traditional themes of Advent: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell ('The Four Last Things'). This year we're going to look at another set of Advent themes: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. As the theme of this year's Advent course is Hope (and it was the theme of my November magazine article!), we'll look at the other three. This week it's Peace.

The song that the host of angels sang in the presence of the shepherds is almost inseparable from Christmas. Even in the secular celebrations “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests” (Luke 2:14) rings out, often shortened to “Peace on Earth” on Christmas cards and decorations. The coming of Jesus is the coming of the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

We often think about 'peace' as being the absence of war and conflict, but the Hebrew word 'shalom', which we translate as peace has a much deeper meaning than that. In Jesus' day, and still today in Middle Eastern cultures, 'Peace be with you' is a greeting and a blessing. It expresses not just a desire for the absence of strife but a positive desire for the wholeness and well-being of the person you greet. In this sense an engine 'at peace' is not one that is not going but one that is working properly. So 'peace' describes having contentment, completeness, wholeness, well-being and harmony. To say that Jesus is the Prince of Peace is to say that Jesus is the ultimate, and ultimately the only source of contentment and wholeness.

This is a very controversial thing to say. It might possibly be acceptable to say that Jesus is the 'Prince of Peace' because he was a wise teacher who taught people to love each other, but even that might be too exclusive for the non-believing world. However, we only have to look at Jesus' life to see that Jesus didn't necessarily bring peace through his life. He himself said “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Jesus was always a divisive figure: for a while he was popular but in the end he was hated and was so threatening that the only way to deal with him was to kill him.

The message of the angels tells us how peace can be gained: peace will come to those on whom God's favour rests, or as the King James version of the Bible puts it “on earth peace, good will toward men.” It is not, as commonly said, 'peace to people of good will', i.e. if we all get along there will be peace, instead peace has something to do with how God relates to us. St Paul wrote “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1), echoing Isaiah's prophecy “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). The peace we really need is the restoration of our relationship with God that has been broken through our sin. Jesus' death was the punishment we deserved so that by faith in him we can be forgiven; God's favour will rest on us; God shows good will towards us. It was not through his life and teaching that Jesus brought peace but through his death.

Advent provides a time for us to think about our sins that separate us from God and to repent of them, so that we too can have that peace which Jesus came into the world to bring us.