Peace on earth?

We keep waiting for it. For this broken world, peace lingers somewhere out of reach. We try to wrap words around it and there are these attempts to be politically correct and we keep finding out you can’t create peace… We attempt to find it but it alludes our grasp and we watch the next tragedy unfold on the evening news. We seek it out but with sin we steal the very peace we seek from our own selves.

There is only one hope for peace. Speak the name with me?

Jesus.

Yes, Jesus. Why do we forget, Jesus is Himself is our peace? What we are all wrapped up in is sin and sin is the ultimate lack of peace. Our Savior comes and spins us right out of our sticky mess.

You cannot force peace. We cannot keep it or make it save God in us.

We are not the ones who created the fruit of peace. And the best we can become are peacemakers. That will not always make you popular, but it is the way to live true. We are not a “sweep it under the rug” type people not the Christ follower. We are a truth telling people trying to illuminate the Way as best we can all shroud in human weakness.

The kind of peace Christ died to create, we need. He came to create peace between groups of people who would not otherwise associate with one another, who certainly couldn’t understand the perspectives of each other. He came so that Jew and Gentile could be one in Christ and become this beautiful Body we call the Church. He came to break down walls of hostility, and I think He could do it again.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. Ephesians 2:13-15

This season we are in is called Advent. We are anticipating Christ and all that He is. And the honest among us readily confess we need His peace. We need the balm of His blood covering our sin-ridden souls. We need His Spirit leading us to repentance. We need His light illuminating the dark fearful pieces of our hearts. We need His love to warm our souls. We need the God Man to break down the dividing wall of hostility in our hearts, in our homes, in our churches, and in our land. We need His peace. Wait for it.