The Advent season is designed to mirror the experience of the people of Israel living in exile in Babylon. It reflects their longings, their hope, their desire for peace, the joy they anticipated, and their trust in the steadfast, faithful love of God.
The theme of this second Sunday of the Advent season is peace.
Scripture speaks of four different expressions of peace, each rooted in the life and ministry of Jesus. These four expressions of peace are interrelated, i.e., one leads to next.
Foundational to the other three expressions is peace with God.
The story of the Garden in Genesis 3 reflects our universal human condition. We live with an awareness that we live in disobedience to God, trusting our own wisdom over God’s, following our own way rather than God’s. That awareness gives birth to a sense of guilt and shame, leading us to avoid God. A common religious teaching is our sin separates us from God. In reality, our awareness of wrongdoing, our sense of guilt and shame about that wrongdoing, and our self-condemnation are what separate us from God. Like the man and the woman in the Garden, we hide from God.
In Jesus, God addressed and resolved the alienation inherent to our human condition. The power of sin and death that rules our lives was broken in Jesus’s death and resurrection. In addition, Jesus restored our relationship with God. In keeping with God’s steadfast, faithful love, God claimed us in Christ Jesus as beloved children.
In his life, teachings, and ministry, Jesus revealed to us the nature of God’s steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6—7). God’s faithful love means God does not abandon us or give up on us, even when we sin. His steadfast love means God’s love for us never waivers, even when we go our own way in rejection of what God has taught. In Jesus’s life and ministry, we see that God’s love is expressed in grace and forgiveness. The way God deals with our sin is to forgive it. In spite of our sin, God loves us unconditionally, accepts us unconditionally (i.e., just as we are), and forgives us unconditionally. Relating to us out of that steadfast, faithful love, God claims us in Christ Jesus as beloved children.
The apostle Paul’s word for this reality is “justified.” Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand (Romans 12:1—2). In Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have been brought back into right relationship with God—i.e., justified. As a result, we “stand” in God’s grace as beloved children. It is our new reality. It is our identity.
God’s grace and forgiveness invite us to claim our identity as beloved children. They call us to trust God’s steadfast, faithful love, resting in God’s grace and forgiveness.
This peace with God sets up the second expression of peace found in scripture—inner peace. Inner peace is peace deep within. Jesus referred to this peace as my peace (John 14:27). Paul spoke of it as the peace of God which surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Both Jesus and Paul indicated this peace was a kind of peace the world cannot give: not as the world gives (John 14:27); which surpasses all understanding, i.e., cannot be explained (Philippians 4:7). This peace is not something we can manufacture. Paul identified it is one of the nine traits found in the fruit of the Spirit. It is a gift of the Spirit, something the Spirit produces in our lives.
Again, our human condition is one filled with anxiety and fear. This reality is reflected in what both Jesus and Paul said about peace. In his teaching in John 14, Jesus said do not let your hearts be troubled. Paul began his teaching about God’s peace with the exhortation do not worry about anything (Philippians 4:6). Both exhortations reflect the reality that our hearts are often troubled as our minds are filled with worry. In the original language, both exhortations carry the idea of “stop”—stop letting your hearts be troubled, stop being anxious. While anxiety and worry are a normal part of our human condition, we do not have to live there. We can move beyond anxiety into the peace both promised—the peace of Christ, the peace of God. In prayer, we face and name our anxiety and fear to God. In doing so, we put ourselves in a position for the Spirit to move us beyond our anxiety and lead us into God’s peace.
Paul said God’s peace would guard your hearts and minds. Living out of God’s peace rather than out of our anxiety changes how we think. It shapes the choices we make. It also impacts the way we view and relate to others.
Inner peace is a key factor in the next kind of peace we find in scripture—peace in our relationships with others.
What is in our hearts gets lived out in our relationships. The inner angst with which we live—unrecognized, unaddressed, unresolved pain that we run from, that we push down out of our conscious awareness—gets projected onto others in the form of criticism and judgment. The presence of this inner angst is evident in our lack of inner peace, in our sense of guilt and shame. Projecting our unaddressed pain onto others is why we view others as a threat, why we see them as an enemy, why we view them as the problem that needs to be fixed or eliminated.
The writer of the book of Ephesians spoke of how Christ put an end to the broken relationships with which we live. Speaking of the alienation between Jews and Gentiles, the author wrote he (Christ) is our peace; in his flesh he has . . . broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it (Ephesians 2:14—16). How we view another determines how we treat them. In Christ, we learn to see one another as beloved children of God. We learn to view and value, accept and embrace the other as one whom God loves. This shift in how we view the other changes the way we treat them.
Peace in relation to others—even those we would think of as an enemy—is possible because of Christ. Living in peace with others is the way we contribute to the fourth expression of peace we find in scripture—the peace proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets: the peace of the Messianic kingdom.
The prophet Isaiah described the peace of the Messianic kingdom as a peace that is more than peace between nations. It is a peace that permeates all of creation. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6). This dimension of peace is possible because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the seas (Isaiah 11:9). The key to this dimension of peace is learning and living the ways of God—what Jesus called the kingdom of God. In the kingdom, power is not used over, down against others the way power is used in the world (Mark 10:42—45). It is not used to attack, control, or destroy the other. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain (Isaiah 11:9).
The books of Isaiah and Micah both record a vision of when all the nations of the earth would come to Jerusalem to learn the ways of God—that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths (Isaiah 2:3b). As a result of learning and living the ways of God, they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (vs. 4). Such is the promise of the peace of the Messianic kingdom.
Today’s text from Luke 1:68—79 is a traditional reading for this 2nd Sunday of Advent because it speaks of peace, specifically the way of peace. The text is the song attributed to Zechariah after the birth of his son born late in life—the one we know as John the Baptist.
The song divides in two sections both sections make reference to peace.
Vs. 68—69 speak of a Messiah who would be a savior, one who would deliver the nation from their enemies—salvation from our enemies and from the power of all those who hate us (verse 74). This messianic king would create a nation in which the Hebrew people could worship God and follow God’s ways in peace, without fear—so that we could serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness in God’s eyes, for as long as we live (verse 74—75).
This first section of Zechariah’s song reflects how we commonly think about peace. We view the problem as the other, those who make life difficult, in other words, those we view as enemies and “other.” In broken relationships, we are prone to think “If they would just . . . if they weren’t so . . . .” We seldom think about our contribution to the relationship. (Every relationship is reciprocal. Both parties contribute to the situation.)
Verses 78—79 speak of John’s work of preparing for the messiah. This section uses the traditional metaphors of light and darkness to speak of the messiah’s work: the dawn from heaven will break upon us, to give light to those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide us on the path of peace (Luke 1:78—79). The dawn from heaven is a metaphor for the Messiah. He would give light, guiding us on the path of peace. The Messiah would teach the way of life that leads to peace.
This second section of the song teaches us the real reason we do not know peace. The greatest barrier to peace is not external—the other. It is not those we view as our enemies. Rather, the greatest barrier is internal. It is the darkness in which we live—our ignorance of God’s ways, our failure to live them. Our lack of peace is because we do not know or follow ways of God.
Zechariah’s song proclaims that the Messiah—Jesus—came to guide us on the path of peace. He came to teach us the ways of God that lead to genuine peace: peace with God, deep inner peace, peace in relationship with others, the peace of the messianic kingdom. His song reminds us that peace is not possible apart from the ways of the Kingdom that Jesus taught.
This Advent season reminds us that Jesus guides us on the path that leads to peace. May we, as the people of God and the followers of Jesus—through the Spirit’s power—follow the path that leads to peace, claiming God’s grace and forgiveness for our guilt and shame so that we rest in God’s love as beloved children; opening ourselves to the work of the Spirit who displaces our inner anxiety with the peace of God, the peace of Christ; learning to view and value, accept and embrace one another as beloved children of God rather than seeing them as a threat, as an enemy; working to bring the kingdom into reality on earth so that we can experience the peace on earth the angels proclaimed when they announced Jesus’s birth.
This Advent season, may we walk the ways of God that Jesus taught—the way of peace.
