Dear Faith Family,
On Sunday, we lit the second purple candle on our Advent Wreath, the "Candle of Peace." Moments before, Sloane told the story of Gabriel's visit to Mary and Mary's response to her world being turned upside down. For most of us, such news would lead us to unease, not peace! No wonder Gabrial had to speak peace to her through the revelation that she had "found favor with God" (Lk. 1:30).
The same revelation was spoken to us repeatedly through the season's symbols, the stories we shared, the scriptures we read, and the songs we sang. Each element of the Advent gathering helped us keep awake for the arrival of the "Prince of Peace" (Is. 2:9).
This Advent season, we are looking at the themes of Advent, which represent the gift of Christ's once arrival, His ever-arriving, and His final arrival to come. One of those themes is the gift of Peace.
Peace is a gift we all long for in some measure, even if we practically understand peace to be a negative, an absence of struggle and anxiety. Yet, because we seek an absence, our conception of peace often causes us to avoid the spaces and relationships that cry out most for peace, those places where we do or might experience struggle and anxiousness. I am sure you can name a few of those spaces...and people!
Yet, as we were reminded on Sunday, the biblical vision of peace is not an absence but a presence. We are bound by peace. Peace is a reality we find ourselves living within.
I, therefore (see 3:14-21 for the wonder behind the 'therefore'!), a prison for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of your calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
(Ephesians 4:1-3)
Specifically, peace is a right relationship with God and others because of God's favor, as the angels sang that first Noel (and to which Angel gave witness on Sunday!)
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men...among those whom he is pleased!
(Luke 2:14)
The peace we long for, then, is not something we find but a place in which we find ourselves that shapes how we live within the unsettled experiences of life. And the wonderous gift of God with us is that amid the places and among the people where we experience struggle and anxiety, we are within peace, bound by the Prince of Peace in the favor of God. For we have one who continues to speak,
"Peace be within you!" For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good."
(Psalm 122:8-9)
May the peace of Christ rule in your hearts today and throughout this Advent season.
Love you, faith family! God bless.