The Light Of Peace Series

Down deep inside, don’t we all long to have this sense of peace? Deep inside every one of us is a longing, a God-given longing that there would be a greater sense of shalom within ourselves, within our families, within our nation, and between nations.

Isaiah felt the same way. Isaiah was an Old Testament prophet and he had the same longings. The year was 700 B.C. The Jews had been fighting for forty years. First, they fought with the Assyrians, then the Egyptians, then the Assyrians again, then the Egyptians again. An entire generation had grown up knowing war, with a spear in one hand and a sword in the other. From the time a kid was three years old, all they were doing was playing war games.

Sound familiar? All your life you have been taught to shoot and kill. Can you imagine forty years of that kind of life? Isaiah was tired of it. He was tired of four decades of killing. He was tired of kids being trained to kill. He was tired of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters fighting with each other. Isaiah longed for peace; he longed for peace as much as a parched, dry, thirsty man longs for water, or a starving man longs for bread. Isaiah longed for peace because he had experienced so much war.

Isaiah longed for peace perhaps because he had read the book of Genesis, and he knew that God created us to be peaceful with each other. Isaiah knew that we were made in the image of God, and therefore we are made to be peaceful with each other. When God created Adam and Eve and humankind, it was not God’s intention for us to hurt each other. It was not God’s intention for human beings to fight with each other. It was not God’s intentions for mothers and fathers, and husbands and wives, and blacks and whites, and Arabs and Israelis, and Russians and Americans, Muslims and Christians, to be at war with each other. We are made in the image of God. We are like God. We are made for peace. Therefore, down in our hearts, every time we fight with our spouse, or our children, or even ourselves, we don’t like it. You and I have been made by God to be peaceful people. We always feel so much better about life when we are at peace with ourselves, family, and each other.

Peace with ourselves and with one another starts with peace with God. Here is where the candle of peace begins to lighten our darkness. Though we are made in the image of God, sin has stained that image. Each of us, because of sin, has a problem with God. Our sin has separated us from God. Sin created a barrier between us and God. The Bible says that we deserve punishment for our sin. Before we can have peace with God, something must be done about sin.

Guess what? Something has been done! God sent the Prince of Peace to deal with the situation. He sent the Prince of Peace to fix the problem. He sent the Prince of Peace to give us peace with God.

Many of the great masters of art have offered portrayals of the nativity; in some it was popular to portray the cross in the background of the nativity scene, sometimes through a window in the stable, sometimes in the crossbeams of the cave, you see the sign of where this child’s life will take him. The child that is born the Prince of Peace will know the suffering and pain of a harsh and cruel world. Yet he comes, nonetheless, and on his shoulders rest the hope of the world. God gives us himself in Jesus Christ so that every one of us may know that we are not alone in this life but that God is with us, Emmanuel. A little light in our darkness.