We Long For: Peace on Earth

"Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease."

These precious lines of the classic Christmas hymn, “O Holy Night,” were prophetic in a way. The song was written in 1847, and it was sixteen long years later² that the Emancipation Proclamation would ring out across America, leading to the bloodiest conflict in American history: the Civil War.

And slavery is where our Advent journey finds us this week. But not in the American South in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Rather, we are transported to Egypt and 1500 BCE where we discover another advent reference in the Vulgate.

Christians typically reflect on Advent on the Sundays before Christmas. However, since this blog does not intend to compete with your weekly Christian fellowship at your own local church—but rather seeks to supplement it—I’ve decided to post these reflections on Tuesdays, with a final one on Wednesday, December 25.

Week 1: Hope – Genesis 1
Week 2: Peace – Exodus 3
Week 3: Joy – Psalm 130
Week 4: Love – Matthew 1
Christmas Day: Christ – Titus 2

In the final chapters of Genesis, Joseph rescued his brothers from starvation and moved the whole family to Egypt. But a king rose up who didn’t know Joseph and subjected the children of Israel to slavery. He ordered the slaughter of the boy babies, but he allowed the baby girls to live (Exodus 1). Moses, however, made it through the extermination and grew up in Pharaoh’s household. He killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave, and then fled from Egypt (Exodus 2). But God met him in the wilderness and explained,

“The Israelites’ cry for help has come to (venit ad) Me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

Exodus 3:9–10, HCSB

We are taught theologically that God is omniscient (knows everything) and it can unfortunately result in treating prayer as superfluous, since “God already knows what I’m going to say.”

But what if God doesn’t act in our lives because we aren’t praying in faith and hope? What if God doesn’t work mightily in the world anymore—in visible ways—because we don’t pray like we should?

Abraham talked God down from 50 righteous people to 10 in order to spare Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction for their wickedness (Genesis 18). What if Abraham had gone lower, instead of being so self-conscious about “arguing” with God? Five people? One person? A careful reading of the Bible leaves one with the impression that God only wipes people out as a last ditch effort.

The Israelite’s prayers came to God, and God showed up for them. This is similar to what happened before Jesus showed up on the scene. Amos 8:11 describes a famine of hearing God’s Word. This famine lasted from Malachi’s day—for about 400 years—until John the Baptizer came on the scene, who prepared the way for Jesus Christ. Interestingly, it was also about 400 years between Joseph and Moses. The parallels here are important. Look at Zechariah’s (John the Baptizer’s father) announcement:

“He has dealt mercifully with our fathers
and remembered His holy covenant—
the oath that He swore to our father Abraham.”

Luke 1:72–73a, HCSB

Compare that with Exodus 2:24–25.

So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and He took notice.

The purpose of Advent is to prepare our hearts for God’s work. As I mentioned last time, God works with us. But one aspect of that is crying out to him. Our cry must advent to him or he will continue to tarry. When was the last time you truly vented to God? But the other side of our crying out to him is living in a way that is consistent with our crying out.

We can’t pray for Church unity as Jesus described in John 17 if we insist on blasting anyone who disagrees with us a heretic headed to hell. We can’t pray for peace on earth if we’re secretly (or not so secretly) supporting genocidal countries with our social media accounts or private conversations. We can’t pray for Jesus to return if we’re not pursuing the best for all people.

It’s the last one I want to land on for a moment. If Jesus returning means that all those who don’t know him end up in hell, then how hateful is it for you to fail to pursue the best for all people while praying for Jesus to return?

Luke 2:14 says,

“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace,
Good will toward men.”

KJV

This text is often popularly translated today in a more exclusive way (I hope to write a more accessible version of the linked article later this week). But the classic understanding (per the KJV) might be the better way to understand it. This verse says that as a result of Jesus’ birth, God would be glorified and earth would be filled with peace. Jesus’ birth is a sign of God’s good will toward men. This verse should force us to pause.

What went wrong? Two thousand years later and wars are still happening everywhere? People are still being oppressed? Christians are still ostracizing and mistreating people for any number of reasons? What does this say about God’s good will toward men?

What it says is that Christianity is a sham. It says the Bible is full of lies. It says you should steer clear of anyone claiming the name of Christ.

Where is peace on earth?

The wolf will live with the lamb,
and the leopard will lie down with the goat.
The calf, the young lion, and the fatling will be together,
and a child will lead them.
The cow and the bear will graze,
their young ones will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit,
and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den.
None will harm or destroy another
on My entire holy mountain,
for the land will be as full
of the knowledge of the Lord
as the sea is filled with water.

Isaiah 11:6–9, HCSB

Contrary to popular opinion, this text is not primarily describing some future state in which animals—predators and prey—live together in peace. Rather it is a portrait of the opposite of what Paul describes in Galatians 5:15,

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another.

It is utterly inappropriate for Christians to live like this. Because it results in my paragraph above appearing to be true.

But that paragraph isn’t true, right?

Your answer will depend on your presuppositions. If you’re inclined to dismiss Christianity, then you’ll say that it is true. If you’re inclined to accept Christianity, then that paragraph sparked a fight or flight reaction in you. If you’re somewhere in between, let me speak to you today.

Jesus himself was peace. When he came to earth, peace was on earth. He was proof of God’s good will toward men.

As we move through this Advent season, we’ll look at what we did to peace. It’s how humanity has always reacted to the idea of peace—why we still struggle with the idea 2,000 years later.

But as believers, we are called to represent Jesus to the world. Because Jesus was peace, then we should be promoting peace as well. If Jesus broke chains, then we should break chains too. If Jesus sat with tax collectors and sinners—then we should go out of our ways to spend times with those the religious people today would tell us to shun.

Will it result in misunderstanding? Probably. Jesus was called a drunkard for his love of sinners. Ultimately he was killed for his prioritization of these sorts of people.

We must cry out to God for the restoration of our world. But we must take steps to live in a way that doesn’t contradict our prayers.

Peace from God for Christians should result in peace from Christians

• to nonbelievers
• to people of different ethnicities and races
• to the LGBTQ community
• to illegal immigrants

None of these are the enemy; they all need to know God’s peace. Advent exists to remind us of this responsibility.

Jesus tarries in his return because coming back this instant would be the opposite of peace for millions of people,³ including many we know and love. Praying for Jesus to return, while failing to work for their eternal peace is a betrayal of the meaning of Advent.

We’ll come back next week for a look at more that the Advent season should cause us to long for, but as you go throughout this week, a few questions to consider:

• What do I think about my Christian responsibility to promote peace in this world?
• What can I do to promote peace in my circle of influence?
• How have I failed in the past to promote peace, and how can I repent of that failure?

In this with you.

Thanks for reading.

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Notes and References

1. Placide Cappeau, “O Holy Night,” on Hymnary.org (1847), stanza 3. ↩︎
2. It was only one year later (1848) that slavery was abolished in France, the lyricist’s homeland. ↩︎
3. If you think about the plagues on Egypt in connection with my opening in Exodus, and wonder why I can call for peace to all when God decimated Egypt, I want to encourage you to read the next few Advent posts, where we will talk more about the Exodus, God, and Redemption. ↩︎

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