Advent Week Two: Peace

Chances are, within the last nine months, you have said, or you know somebody who has said, something to the effect of “Well, that’s 2020 for you.” Every one of us can immediately interpret that sentiment. With a sigh, that simple sentence acknowledges the absurd, chaotic mess that has flooded over this year, seeping into every area of life. We express that phrase in an attempt to keep ourselves afloat in all the craziness, like laughing to stop yourself from crying, but we still feel like Murphy’s Law (“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”) has become the rule of life.

God did not initially create the world to be this way. Shalom characterized the original garden paradise; peace, wholeness, order, and flourishing permeated every crevice of existence. But the sin of Adam and Eve broke that harmony, sowing chaos, discord, and death in the human heart and throughout the entire cosmos. We now live at odds with the natural world, with each other, and, most tragically, with God. Something inside us, however, cries out that it does not have to be this way. Something longs for that original state of perfect peace.

Although we have tried to establish peace through politics, education, vague spirituality, and more, only Jesus Christ will do. On our behalf, the eternal Son of God stepped into our sinful chaos and allowed it to consume him to the point of death on a cross. But his blood, given in loving self-sacrifice, purifies us of our sin, reconciling us with God and with one another. He broke the destructive cycle of sin and death by absorbing it into himself (1 Peter 2:24) and offers those that come to him wholeness and life — a peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7), endures all trials (John 16:33), and breaks down every wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:13-17). Let us pray for his peace to heal our hearts and our world.