THE DAY THEY DECLARED PEACE

BY STEVE DUNN

Today is the beginning of the season called Advent.  Note, I did not say the Christmas season.  Although much of our culture tends to blur the whole of late November and December into a single event called Christmas (unless they are calling it the "Happy Holiday"), the four weeks before Christmas are called Advent.  Advent basically means "arrival" or "coming."  It is a time to prepare for the event that we celebrate at Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ.  That day, more than two millennium ago, was the launch point for God's plan to end the war between sinful humanity and a righteous God.  That event was the point where God declared the peace and would establish it forever thirty-three years ago with Jesus' work on the Cross.

Peace is one of the most elusive of dreams pursued by humanity.  Presidents and potentates have pursued it by diplomacy, still others have tried to establish at the end of a sword.  Periodically people began to preach to one another, "let's be at peace" (or in this day, they pay text or tweet). But all human efforts, no matter how well-meaning or passion, ultimately flounder on the rocks of human selfishness and sinfulness.

In John 14:27 we read this promise of Jesus.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

And Paul would later explain ""... and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Ephesians 2:14)

It is that peace we prepare for in the season of Advent.

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

This post originally appeared in this blog in 2011.

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