Peace
Last week, I walked us through the major Old Testament promises and covenants with an eye towards hope. I told you that God’s message has always been hope for his people and that the entire Bible is a cohesive story of God’s love and faithfulness, despite his people’s rebellion. He made us to dwell with us and offers us hope that our end will be with him.
The second week of Advent is about peace. Like last week, I will use 5 Biblical covenants and reference a promise in Genesis 3:15 to demonstrate that hope, peace, joy, and love are not new ideas that dawn with the coming of Christ – they have been our story all along. I keep coming back to the continuity of these themes and the Biblical story because I’ve known far too many Christians who have never heard this, much less believe it. When we isolate Biblical episodes and divorce the Old from the New Testament, we profoundly misunderstand God’s character and harmfully misinterpret his word.
We’ll start in the same place as last time, with a question. Why do we need peace? It might seem like a silly question, but everyone seems to be seeking it and few are actually telling us why. Psychology Today reports that 73% of American adults are anxious about politics and 67% are anxious about the economy and climate change. You don’t need the statistics though – you see this in your own community if you have not experienced it in your own life.
The article referenced above also mentions that the pace of modern life and our instant access to news and information contribute to our collective sense of overwhelm. Our circumstances in the 21st century might be unique, but the challenges are not. From ancient times, God has been encouraging his people not to be afraid, even when their circumstances told them otherwise (Is. 41:10, Ps. 23:4, Dt. 31:6, Phil 4:6-7, Is. 43:2). This fear of the unknown and uneasiness created by bad news is a common human experience. We crave peace because everything around us seems unsteady.
Something that I want to clear up before we go any further is that peace is not merely the absence of conflict. It’s not just an empty calendar or a completed to-do list, though those can’t hurt. Too many of us have relationships that are free of conflict, but are about as warm as my deep freezer. Just because we’re not fighting does not mean that we are at peace with one another. Think about it this way: during times of war, we often hear politicians and humanitarians alike discussing a ceasefire. This is not peace. This is an absence of active conflict. The Biblical idea of peace is that everything is as it should be. A ceasefire is a step in the right direction, but it is a far cry from putting the countries, people, and relationships back together.
Given that, I don’t think that I’m too far out of bounds to assert that none of us have really experienced peace for none of us are really as we should be. If I am not as I should be, why would I expect others and the world around me to be as they should be? We crave peace because we were made for it, yet we’ve never had it.
At the beginning of all things, God made a garden that was filled with everything humans needed to thrive and flourish. He himself dwelt with them in this perfect, peaceful garden. But when humans rebelled against God, not only did they lose peace with God, they also lost peace with all of creation and each other.
We crave peace because we were made for it, yet we’ve never had it.
As we take another look at the major Biblical covenants, I want you to pay attention to how the garden peace that God means to restore to humanity is more clearly revealed the closer we get to Christ and the New covenant.
In the covenant that God makes with Noah and his family after the flood that destroyed the world, we find peace when the rain stops. God relents and the waters recede. But this is more of a ceasefire than anything else. God takes it further. We find peace when he promises that, even though humanity is hopelessly wicked, he will never destroy the earth like this again. We find peace in this unconditional covenant because God himself will uphold it, no matter the cost to himself. Further, there is a reinstitution of the creation mandate to fill and steward the earth – another chance for humans to experience peace. (Genesis 9:1-17)
In the Abrahamic covenant, God effectively promises to restore to Abraham’s descendants everything that humanity lost when we rebelled against him in the garden: a relationship with God, land (read: home), and God’s presence. Further, these blessings will not be just for Abraham’s family, but for everyone on the earth – all the nations of the world. (Genesis 17:1-8)
In the Mosaic covenant, we start to see what a community of people who are living at peace could look like. Many of us get scared or bored when reading the seemingly endless lists of laws in Exodus and Deuteronomy, but they are worth your time if you’re wanting a glimpse of peace in this world. They set up the community to live at peace with one another in an imperfect world by encouraging justice and support for the poor, marginalized, and vulnerable. There are provisions for accidental harms and laws about proper restitution. A form of peace can be made through the sacrificial system, but it still falls short. The sacrifices serve to clarify how God is going to make the peace that he promises in the Noahic covenant. They clarify the cost of the promises of the Abrahamic covenant. Yet, this covenant is conditional. God does promise to give ancient Israel a home in the promised land, but they won’t keep it if they don’t follow his laws. He promises to dwell with them, but not if they worship other gods. He promises to be their God so that they can be his people, but not if they can’t treat each other with dignity. Does this mean that his promises in the Abrahamic covenant are null and void? Far from it. The Mosaic covenant not only clearly demonstrates the seriousness of our fractured state, but it also shows us that we are unable to fix it ourselves. This covenant is conditional and it is broken. God is beginning to reveal to his people that they must be saved by him alone – this is the heart of the covenant with Abraham that will come to fruition in Jesus.
The Davidic covenant clarifies that the bringer of peace will be a kingly figure, descended from David’s royal line. Through the conditional elements of this covenant, we learn that the coming king will rule justly because peace requires justice. Think about how awful it feels to “keep the peace” (read: lack of conflict), at the price of injustice. As I mentioned above, there are provisions in God’s covenant with the nation of Israel (Mosaic) to restore peace through sacrifice and restitution. Keeping the peace at the price of injustice is not true peace and it’s not how the coming king will rule. God promises Solomon that, if he keeps the covenant, he will give him rest from war, an essential element to peace. However, if the king is ruling unjustly (read: breaking the covenant), then there will be war because the people already lack peace. War becomes a symptom and a sign of the lack of peace within the kingdom when the King doesn’t keep the covenant. As we look to Jesus, he brings us ultimate peace and rest from the fractures that plague and war both within and without us.
Finally, St. Paul tells us that Jesus made “peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Col 1:20). Jesus the King did not come to keep the peace or declare a ceasefire – he made peace. His heel was struck by the serpent in death, he took the hit from God’s bow pointing into the sky, he was brutalized and murdered like the animals in Abraham’s covenant, his blood flowed freely and alarmingly like the blood of the sacrifices mediated by Moses, and he rules with righteousness and justice as the true Davidic King. He made peace. And it was costly.
Last week, I told you that hope has always been our story, but it is always born of suffering. Peace, too, has always been our story, but because of our rebellion and fractured state of our hearts, it, too, comes with the cost of suffering and pain.
Through suffering and pain, hope and peace are born. As Advent reminds us to watch and wait for the coming of King Jesus, may we remember the cost of all that he brings.