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“For he himself is our peace.”
Everlasting Peace Ephesians 2:14
Written by F. Elaine Olsen Peace. Everyone wants it, yet so few of us possess any lasting measure of it. Why? Because we are a people who have inaccurately assessed the means for acquiring it. We level our quest for peace within the boundaries of the temporal without acknowledging that true and lasting peace can only be found with our “pressing in” toward the eternal. Peace isn’t a product for sale. Peace isn’t a feelgood philosophy. Peace isn’t a place of escape. Peace isn’t the absence of conflict. Peace is a person, the very person of Jesus Christ. Accordingly, we cannot purchase peace’s portion, even though our market-driven society begs to differ. We can spend a lifetime and a fortune on coddling preferences that paint a momentary calm, but for peace to truly govern a life’s journey, peace requires an investment beyond the bank account. Lasting peace requires a relationship. For any pilgrimage to walk in peace, it must walk with peace. Scripture identifies peace, not only by its characteristics, but more profoundly by giving peace a name--Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:14). Holding him in our hearts moves peace within reach. The more we know Jesus, the more we know peace. Knowing Jesus is the sole requirement for our lives to walk in peace—the sole requirement of our hearts if we truly want to walk this Christmas season with any measure of it as we go. Thus, we must seek him. Anticipate him. Notice him. Cradle him. Celebrate him. Release him. Know him. Not just remember him. We’ve perfected our remembering. We spend a lot of time during Christmas planning our remembrances of Jesus. We cram our schedule with well-intentioned “stuff” designed to foster our contemplation of him and his Bethlehem arrival. Christmas carols, pageants and programs, movies, family gatherings, cards, parties, live nativities, Advent readings and candles—all manner of avenues utilized to foster our remembrance of Jesus. All good things in their ideology, but, sometimes, © Exemplify Magazine!
the very things that take away from the one thing that is required of us if God’s peace is to walk its portion in our hearts. Knowing Jesus. How much quicker would peace arrive in our lives if we spent more time walking with Jesus this Christmas rather than planning our remembrances of him? Programs and activities aren’t the prescription for our finding peace. Pursuing the Author of peace is the remedy. What might that look like for you in this season? What could you surrender in these next few days in order to more fully know your Jesus? I’m not suggesting that you eliminate your planned remembrances of the Christ Child; many of them will be the avenues that God uses to bring you into a fuller understanding of his Son. What I am suggesting, though, is that we might need to rearrange our thinking in regards to our finding God’s peace if we want to arrive at December 25th with our sanity and our hearts in tact. I love Christmas. I love the preparations and the anticipation of the season. I’m as busy as you are, and for the most part, I relish the busyness. But there is one thing I cannot abide—one thing that fosters my desire to throw all preparations and planning to the curb. I can speak about it with some authority because I have lived it time and again. That one thing? Getting to Christmas morning and greatly anticipating its finish—craving its end because the weeks leading up to the “event” have taken their toll on my nerves and have robbed me of my moments at the manger with my Jesus—my Peace. This is the tragedy of a season’s good intentions. To come to the end of it all and to be glad for its conclusion. This isn’t the way that God intends for us to celebrate the gift of his Son. God intends for better. For our Christmas desires to lead us to the manger so that divine fellowship can be tasted between his tabernacled presence and our great need to know that he is alive and actively living amongst his people.
Manger remembrances that lead us to focus on what once “was” rather than on what continually “is” serves little purpose as it pertains to our lasting peace. To package the baby Jesus within an isolated time-frame is to diminish a Christmas’ worth. Christmas wasn’t just then. Christmas is now. Is tomorrow. Is next month. Is next year. Christmas doesn’t walk with a time-table burdened by human constraints; neither does Jesus. Neither does his peace. Wherever Jesus goes, peace goes with him. Accordingly, if it’s peace we’re after, wouldn’t it be better to chase him directly rather than chasing after all manner of detours to get to him? The shortest route between two points is a straight line. The shortest route between our desire for peace and God’s offer therein, is a straight-forward run to his heart. His manger. His cross. His tomb. His Easter. The other “stuff” we scatter into our pursuit is just filler and often become the distractions that keep us from experiencing the lasting peace of Jesus. Lasting peace requires a relationship. That relationship began at Bethlehem’s manger some 2000 years ago when an infant boy interrupted the silent night with his cries of invitation to the world to come and enter into a relationship with him. To take notice of him, to seek him, anticipate him, find him, cradle him, celebrate him, release him. To know him. He cries still … for you and for me. Don’t just remember your Jesus this Christmas. Know your Jesus more fully through your own moments of silent and intentional pause before his throne. Light a candle in his honor and find God’s peace for the journey. It’s as simple as that. It’s as real as that. It’s God’s Christmas gift to each one of us as we are faithful to come and unwrap the majesty of Bethlehem’s everlasting peace. I’ll meet you at the manger.
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