We are called to spread the peace of God.

About the time that Christmas actually comes, we have our stomach more than full of the sweet Christmas love that we have had poured over us via all kinds of advertising. The superficial Christmas songs in the shopping streets and malls give the impression that everything finally is peace and freedom, and that pretty much everyone is kindly inclined.

We all know better, and still, every year, they again dunk us under into the atmosphere that is so painfully unreal. For in between the blocks of advertising, we get to hear in the news about all that presents itself in evil, violence, wickedness, indifference and, you name it, on a world-wide basis.

In front of the imposing building of the United Nations in New York, there is an image of a blacksmith who modifies a sword into a scythe. The image is derived from the Old Testament; it is a part of the prophecy in which a new time is announced (see Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3). The enmity between people and nations has come to an end; the nations seek and find their home in Jerusalem where the Lord lives and they ask for his wholesome commandments, in order to live according to them. People will sit under their own grapevine and fig tree. The word “peace” is not included there, but this describes what peace includes.

Whoever looks around himself in this world today, sees very little of it—more likely, the opposite. Things are not looking good for peace in society and between peoples, and a movement out of the nations to Jerusalem, to the temple, to Christ, can not be seen at all. In our section of the world, the God of the Bible is being discarded. And yet, there is a longing for peace, for wholeness, goodness, togetherness. Why is that still always alive? Because it is our origin, and because the Lord does not let us find peace for our hearts and peace in the world until we have sought and found it in him, the one from whom we have declared ourselves free. But when will we come to that insight, and when will that peace become reality?

Shalom⤒🔗

We all know the Hebrew word for peace: shalom. Since the previous century, this has also been used in the Netherlands. Whoever speaks the Hebrew word, registers a protest against an internalized fulfillment of the Christian faith, whereby you think and say that you know the peace with God, but at the same time, do not stretch out a hand to the people beside you and even live in enmity with them. The biblical word shalom is indeed comprehensive, certainly in the Old Testament. There is no peace possible with God with the exclusion of your neighbour, but still less, peace between people, with the exclusion of God.

We often encounter the word “shalom” in the beginning of the Old Testament, where people meet each other. It is the content of their greeting: “Peace!” That was not something to be taken for granted, without real content, as is apparent in the blessing that the priests were allowed to lay on the people (Numbers 6:24-27). The opening is “The LORD bless you and keep you.” That is: he causes you to share in the good that comes from him alone, and he protects you against all evil. “The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you,” follows. He does not remove his eyes from you; he does not let you wander in the dark, but actually shows grace to sinners. It continues and ends: “The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” Peace is thus not only the absence of violence, but much more: that the Lord blesses you, causes you to live, and shelters you in his presence.

The priest, Zechariah, could not express the blessing, because, when it came down to it, he did not trust the Word of the Lord. But when his tongue is loosened and he sings his song of praise, the words of the blessing resound through it: “whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). The “sunrise (that) shall visit us from on high” is the Lord who bends his face over us. And “peace” is described here as brought by God himself on a way that comes forth out of it and leads to it.

Then we are already in the New Testament. In between are the prophetic writings of the Old Testament.  As we read through them, it becomes steadily more clear that a new world must come for that peace, and first of all, a new man. But how shall that happen?

Peace on Earth←⤒🔗

The answer to that question is Christ. When he was born, the song of praise of the angels ended with “and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). No, it is not the case that peace on earth now dawns because God suddenly would be pleased with man, thus finding joy in people as they are. It is different: the peace that descended is inextricably bound to the child that is born, Jesus. Peace is not a new state of affairs, but it is the deepest content and the purpose of God’s coming in Christ, in order to take away the root of all internal unrest, and of all hate and envy between people. Fortunately, that peace is also not for “people of good will” and thus dependent on that good will. No, it is for those who acknowledge and confess that they, if it comes right down to it, are futureless in their turning away from God, and can only marvel and rejoice over this, that God in Christ has sought them. The peace is for “those with whom he is pleased,” that is those who have given up all pretensions and illusions about themselves, and who only hope in the Lord and live out of his gracious election.

Also, that peace does then not come as a gradual process, in which we as humans peacefully grow towards another mentality. Mary already, and immediately, has to hear that Jesus will evoke opposition and that for her also, a sword will pierce her soul. Israel will not acknowledge the things that make for her peace (Luke 19:42), and will deny Christ. The state of people and of the world will not become good through the way of gradualness; Christ will have to suffer and die, in order to make peace with the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:20). God will not condone our seeking the semblance of peace in another manner. That is behind it when Christ says in Matthew 10: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” But indeed, our peace is in Christ’s cross! That is the peace that brings reconciliation for our sins and removes them. When Jesus has risen from the dead, he says to his disciples, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19). In this chapter, it is said three times, for emphasis. And they and we may answer (Romans 5:1): “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the greeting, as we can read it in many letters of the New Testament, grace and peace go hand in hand. Peace with God: that means that you are saved in Christ. It also belongs to God’s peace that he “will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20). We are not that far yet, but “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will [already] guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). Peace is not just a beautiful thought; it is the reality of God’s kingdom in which he keeps his own.

“He is Our Peace”←⤒🔗

Christ has—as we read in Ephesians 2—in his suffering and death, broken the wall of enmity between Israel and the other peoples, and he has, in himself, recreated those two into a new person. Thus, he made peace, and that peace remains irrevocably connected to him. “He is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). This can not be said more briefly or more powerfully. Yet, we see also around us that the enmity between Israel and the peoples is still life-size and rages destructively. The twentieth century has displayed how deep the evil lies in the human soul, and how an unimaginable hatred towards the Jewish people can come to an astonishing and horrific eruption.

In this regard, how is it in the church? Does she also carry responsibility for the fact that new walls are being erected, walls of ghettos within European cities, and around concentration camps? We do not have to answer that question, so long as we do acknowledge and confess that the enmity against Israel is also, all too often, present in Christian hearts. How is that possible? Do we truly live in and out of the peace of Christ?

Blessed are the Peacemakers←⤒🔗

We are called to “pursue what makes for peace” (Romans 14:19). In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ calls the “peacemakers” blessed, and says that they “shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). That name “sons” also includes that their devotion to peace between people comes from God. The New Testament then also calls him the “God of peace” in various places (see, for example: Romans 15:33; 16:20; Hebrews 13:20).

How do you create peace? In James 3:18, we hear that “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” “Righteousness” is laid in the earth, while praying that God will give fruit. Thus God also did it himself in Christ. He did not redeem this world with force. And also today, he does not go to work with force. Seeding can only be done in peace. In the verse before this, we read about “the wisdom from above,” that is the wisdom that has its origin and mystery in being born through the Word of truth (James 1:18). That makes you another, a new person: “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17). When you are such a person, you will not be found in society among those who vent on social media, trying to prove they are right with threats and force, making their own opinions absolute. We notice how the coarsening and hardening also penetrate the church. In congregations and in church gatherings it sometimes becomes hard heads and hearts against hard heads and hearts. That is not “pure,” and certainly not “peaceable” either.

As a small section of God’s world-wide church, we have every reason to pray to God today, that he will reclaim our life, us as church, in Christ. And that prayer is only then upright, and only carries a promise in itself, when he encounters us as people who ourselves also actually “make peace.”