Advent Sunday 4: Peace, the Shepherd's Candle: Why Peace?

 First, because that is what the angel announced to the shepherds:

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace^(L) to those on whom his favor rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (NIV)

In short, the Messiah is here, glory to God and on earth peace. That is the blessing; that is the future. A blessing like that from God is not a wish, it is a prophecy. 

But why peace? Because men are at war with themselves and God. I heard a recommendation for the book A World Undone: The Story of the Great War (from David French). I got it as a birthday present to myself. Of course, it is over 700 pages and I'm only up 66, but I also recommend it. WWI has always mystified me:  what were they fighting over and who was really fighting whom (except England fighting Germany which was weird since the English king was German). No wonder I was mystified: it was a mess. Serbians Slavs, Austrians, Germans, Russians, French, British, Italians, all with spaghetti-like alliances because of family connections and centuries long (or shorter) animosities due to Napoleon, or the Reformation, or this or that, or just ethnic and religious group hatred (especially in terms of the Balkans). And in the 1990s, the Balkans were still fighting.  

Their fighting makes no sense from a 2021 U.S. South point of view. Sometimes there was a dispute over a piece of land, and sometimes over ..... some historical incident (I think). Or just power.  But they were willing to go to war and kill and maim and destroy and expend millions in resources over whatever it was--even though they had been doing it for centuries already. 

I have to say I don't know why the Europeans think themselves so superior in this regard. But that's a different point; it does serve to support that an American today finds fault with other nations, the core of war and therefore lack of peace. 

Biblical peace is so much more than lack of active war. It is about reconciliation with God, at whom we are most deeply at war. As Christians, the basic war is over, but we keep forgetting that it was won. We were the losers, in one sense, but we were really the winners to the extent our only identification is with Christ, above ethnicity, or race (whatever that means), or nationality, or politics. There should be no antagonisms between us.

Note on images: These are from a Google images search. "Peace" mostly gives one peace symbol variations, secular or Hindu-ish images of peace or meditation; lots of doves (to satisfy the Christians); hands of different ethnic groups; and signs about International Peace Day and such.