Peace – an Advent word

The term Peace stron­gly cha­rac­te­ri­ses the Advent and Christ­mas sea­son. But what do we under­stand by Peace? A gui­de to the brin­ger of peace Jesus Christ, for a peaceful start into the new year

I dedi­ca­te this ser­mon for the 2nd Advent to a tru­ly Christ­mas­sy con­cept! It is not cal­led Gift; also not Cand­le or Fon­due Chi­noi­sebut sim­ply Peace! It was a night when an angel announ­ced the birth of the Saviour to the she­p­herds in the field. Sud­den­ly the night was as bright as day and they were sur­roun­ded by the hea­ven­ly hosts who prai­sed God and said:

«Glo­ry to God in the hig­hest hea­ven and peace on earth for all peo­p­le in whom God is plea­sed»(Luke 2:14 NLB). What a mes­sa­ge: God is still plea­sed with his peo­p­le. He is not giving up on them yet! The peace of God, the sal­va­ti­on, has come to earth to us humans!

The pro­phet Isai­ah spo­ke about this brin­ger of peace on behalf of God more than 700 years befo­re the event: «For the peo­p­le who live in dark­ness see a bright light. And over the peo­p­le in a land overs­ha­dowed by death shi­nes a bright light. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. On his should­ers rests domi­ni­on. He is cal­led: Won­derful Coun­sell­or, Strong God, Ever­las­ting Father, Prin­ce of Peace. His reign is gre­at and peace in his king­dom will be end­less» (Isai­ah 9:1, 5–6a NLB).

It was a dark time back then, when Isai­ah was still a pro­phet. The two king­doms of Judah and Isra­el were brea­king apart. The peo­p­le were taken into exi­le. At the time of Jesus» birth, it was just as dark in this world. Jesus was not born into a land of milk and honey, on the con­tra­ry. Com­ple­te cha­os among the rulers, ego­i­stic kings, bru­tal rulers with much blood on their hands. And is it not just as dark in this world today? Whe­re is the­re still a coun­try in this world that is not overs­ha­dowed by death, Coro­na deaths (world­wi­de the­re are well over 5 mil­li­on regis­tered Covid deaths); refu­gees who drown on the flight across the sea up to the many war deaths?

«For the peo­p­le who live in dark­ness see a bright light.…» We may know the brin­ger of peace, Jesus – the light of the world! Peace from God includes first of all recon­ci­lia­ti­on with God. Jesus Christ ope­ned the door back to God for us humans through his death on the cross. Through his grace and mer­cy our lives can be made who­le! This is a very spe­cial gift from God that he still offers us humans today! Wit­hout this peace from God, man is wit­hout peace. In this regard, the pro­phet Isai­ah does not min­ce his words: «But the wicked, saith the LORD, have no peace»(Isai­ah 48:22 LUT).

In the secu­lar sphe­re, the word peace is known almost exclu­si­ve­ly for the sett­ling of a dis­pu­te. One hangs up the hat­chet for a short or lon­ger time. The­re are a bunch of com­pound words with Peace! Peace agree­ment, peace efforts, peace move­ment, Nobel Peace Pri­ze, peace breach, peace rese­arch, peace talk, peace con­fe­rence, peace plan, peace judge, pea­ce­ma­ker, peace dove, peace force, peace nego­tia­ti­ons, up to the peace pipe that is smo­ked! Unfort­u­na­te­ly, all the­se efforts are often not crow­ned with success.

eirè­ne The Greek term for peace in the New Tes­ta­ment leans hea­vi­ly on the Hebrew term for peace. shalom in the Old Tes­ta­ment. shalom has a stron­ger mate­ri­al mea­ning, whe­re­as peace in the New Tes­ta­ment is stron­gly spi­ri­tu­al and ori­en­ted towards what Jesus Christ has done and con­ti­nues to do for us humans. The peace of God has a deep­ly exis­ten­ti­al mea­ning. It is a spe­cial gift of God and a fruit of the Holy Spi­rit who dwells in belie­vers. It gives sere­ni­ty, secu­ri­ty and pro­tec­tion. Peace means what car­ri­es us through in moments of dark­ness, when the path leads through a dark val­ley or even: When sud­den­ly the shadow of death falls on us. The peace of God is like a pro­tec­ti­ve cloak from ano­ther world. A super­na­tu­ral sup­port when the waves rise high. I can be calm becau­se God is clo­se to me.

In our ser­vices we pray again and again for our per­se­cu­ted brot­hers and sis­ters. When we read reports about what they have to go through and suf­fer, it is almost unbe­ara­ble. Ter­ri­ble con­di­ti­ons in pri­sons. Forced labour to the point of no return… hun­ger, cold, tor­tu­re. How do our brot­hers and sis­ters in faith mana­ge to hold on to God under such cir­cum­s­tances, to keep the faith? not to throw them over the edge? I have only one expl­ana­ti­on: becau­se they expe­ri­ence the peace that God gives them as Paul wri­tes in Phil­ip­pians: «You will expe­ri­ence God’s peace, which is grea­ter than our human mind can ever com­pre­hend. His peace will keep your hearts and minds in faith in Jesus Christ.»(Phil­ip­pians 4:7 NLB). God’s peace is so gre­at that it sur­pas­ses our human understanding.

I won­der what the good Lord thinks when he looks down on us humans at pre­sent. Omic­ron – A new virus vari­ant is spre­a­ding again! What mea­su­res will be pre­scri­bed? Are you also glad that you are not a Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor? At the moment it is again very important that we pray a lot and talk to God (Aben­tüür Gebät on Tues­day). What do you think, dear God, about all the things that are not going well in this world? What do you have in mind for us people?

I don’t know whe­ther the pro­phet Jere­mi­ah once asked like that. In any case, he once got a remar­kab­le ans­wer from God. «For I know the thoughts that I have toward you, saith the LORD; thoughts of peace, and not of grief; that I may give you a future and a hope.»(Jere­mi­ah 29:11 LUT). The ans­wer from God was an ope­ner then and is still a ray of light for our dark­ness today! God lets us look into his heart and reve­als his thoughts. Are we not pri­vi­le­ged to live with such pro­mi­ses? No mat­ter how dark it still gets in this world, we have a bril­li­ant hope! We have a future!

It hap­pen­ed on Mon­day 15 Novem­ber. Back from a tre­at­ment in the can­to­nal hos­pi­tal in Aar­au, I said to Ros­ma­rie: «You, I feel sick!» I had aching lim­bs, a rai­sed tem­pe­ra­tu­re and was dog-tired! My first thought was imme­dia­te­ly: Covid! Quick test at home: nega­ti­ve! After all, we are vac­ci­na­ted. The test docu­ments said that if the result was nega­ti­ve and the sym­ptoms were still the­re, we should go to the fami­ly doc­tor and have a PCR test done. No soo­ner said than done. On Tues­day evening I got the result from the fami­ly doc­tor: Posi­ti­ve! I don’t belie­ve it! That meant 10 days of house arrest! We live in a nice flat, but if you are not allo­wed to lea­ve it for 10 days, it loses a cer­tain charm! Sin­ce 24 Novem­ber at 23.59 I am a free man again! The ser­mon topic was alre­a­dy fixed at that time. I had the impres­si­on that God was test­ing me right away to see if it would work with his peace! Who does not expe­ri­ence such moments: Ros­ma­rie remain­ed healt­hy all the time, but then the oph­thal­mo­lo­gist told her that she had to have cata­ract sur­gery on her eyes.

Sud­den­ly you lose a loved one; or you are lying in a hos­pi­tal bed out­side the ope­ra­ting theat­re. You mess up an exam. You have a finan­cial shorta­ge. An unex­pec­ted dis­mis­sal. We are all chal­len­ged with tur­bu­lent times from time to time.

But the brin­ger of peace is here! God’s peace fills his child­ren and crea­tes sere­ni­ty and con­fi­dence in our hearts! Who then is to radia­te sere­ni­ty and con­fi­dence if not us?

Recent­ly someone in the house group told us the fol­lo­wing remar­kab­le tes­tim­o­ny. A com­pa­ny mana­ger noti­ced that a cus­to­mer, when­ever he was the­re, radia­ted con­tent­ment and calm­ness. One day, the com­pa­ny mana­ger approa­ches him: «They are always so balan­ced and con­tent when they meet us and radia­te joy and ver­ve! Whe­re does this posi­ti­ve atti­tu­de come from? How do you do it?» The customer’s ans­wer was: «I thank God every mor­ning for the new day; I thank him that I could get up healt­hy and that he accom­pa­nies me through this day.«The boss of the com­pa­ny looks at him and then says: «I’m going to try that out and do it like you!»

Isn’t that what we all want: to be impres­si­ve examp­les that make peo­p­le want to imi­ta­te us! We are the­se examp­les becau­se Jesus lives in us and we are instru­ments in the hand of our Mas­ter Jesus Christ!

Now that Fran­cis of Assi­si has dril­led his pray­er into us for a year, God has a peace tool­box in the see­tal chi­le that is some­thing to behold! You make God’s love come ali­ve whe­re­ver and when­ever spi­teful­ness spreads. You gene­rous­ly for­gi­ve all tho­se who offend you, wit­hout put­ting them down first! With all your strength you avo­id get­ting invol­ved in a quar­rel, but try to unite! When someone is strugg­ling with doubts, you fight with them for a strong faith. You do not search fran­ti­cal­ly for who or what could com­fort you, but rather ask yours­elf who might app­re­cia­te your com­fort right now!

Do you some­ti­mes get tight with this pray­er too? «I can’t do it and I just can’t do it, I’m over­whel­med!» Won­derful, that is good! We must not for­get the first sen­tence of the praye­rer: Make me an instru­ment of your peace! A tool is never inde­pen­dent, or has a screw­dri­ver alre­a­dy beco­me acti­ve com­ple­te­ly inde­pendent­ly in your home? The God of peace takes you in his hand and makes you his tool! When Jesus spo­ke to his disci­ples about his going back to the Father, he com­for­ted them with the words: «I lea­ve you a gift – my peace. And the peace I give is not like the peace the world gives. The­r­e­fo­re, do not worry and do not be afraid»(John 14:27 NLB).

This gift of Jesus dwel­ling in us, if we are God’s child­ren, is the big­gest and best Christ­mas gift we can ima­gi­ne, even in view of a total­ly unknown year ahead.

Amen

Possible questions for the small groups

Read tog­e­ther about Jesus» ser­mon in Nazareth

Luke 4:16–30

1. Try to descri­be the peace of God as well as possible?
2. John 14:27 men­ti­ons the peace that the world gives? Descri­be it too. Also read Jere­mi­ah 12:1.
3. How have you expe­ri­en­ced God’s peace in dif­fi­cult or dark situa­tions? Tell each other.
4. Jesus is the brin­ger of peace. Is Matthew 10:34 a con­tra­dic­tion? Look for an explanation.
5. Have any of you expe­ri­en­ced this year how Jesus has made you an instru­ment of his peace.
6. How does the peace of God remain acti­ve in you and not grow mould?
7. What would you miss if God’s peace were unknown to you?