President Trump announced plans yesterday afternoon for a new fleet of warships, to be known as the “Golden Fleet.” In an address from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, he said the new battleships would be “one hundred times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” Renderings behind the president displayed the new “Trump class,” including a ship named the USS Defiant.
In other news, the US military says it struck a vessel allegedly carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific last night, killing one person. The US Coast Guard is in “active pursuit” of a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, part of an accelerating effort to block ships from moving the country’s crude oil. From a knife attack in Taiwan and a mass shooting in South Africa to possible new Iran strikes and US and Chinese satellites “dogfighting” in orbit, today’s news is filled with conflict, as always.
Prior to the First World War, the writer Hamilton Wright Mabie said of Christmas, “Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!” Over the century that followed, however, not everyone has been in on the “conspiracy.” Since his pronouncement, we have seen two world wars, conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, the Cold War, the Gulf War, the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, and ongoing conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
Peace is often defined as the absence of conflict. However, there’s a pathway to peace that transcends our conflicts and transforms our days. It is indeed a “conspiracy of love” that begins at Christmas but is not complete until it includes every human heart. Including yours.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace”
When Jesus was born, the angels announced, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). Seven centuries earlier, the prophet had promised: “Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . and his name shall be called . . . Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Isaiah added, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (v. 7).
If Jesus is indeed the “Prince of Peace,” why didn’t his coming at Christmas bring the absence of conflict for which we yearn today?
You might say that his birth occurred two millennia ago and thus holds no relevance to the conflicts of our day, but Jesus assured us that he is “with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). As we have noted in recent days, he now lives in us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16) and thus is as present in our world as when he inhabited his physical body.
Even more, by inhabiting Christians, he has multiplied his presence around the world through the billions of people who follow him. In this sense, he told us that we will do “greater works” than he did (John 14:12) by virtue of our globe-spanning presence as his “body” (1 Corinthians 12:27).
“Appointed for the fall and rising of many”
And yet, following Jesus does not guarantee the absence of conflict. The opposite is actually often true.
Simeon warned Mary shortly after Jesus’ birth, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34–35). I cannot imagine that this brought an absence of conflict to her heart that day. Or on the day she saw the prophecy fulfilled as she stood helplessly while her beloved firstborn was nailed to a cross (John 19:25–27).
Jesus warned us, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). His word therefore advises, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13) and adds, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). As imprisoned believers in Iran and China can attest today, “all” means all.
And conflicts such as “divisions” and “quarreling” in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:10–11) have plagued the church across its history as well.
So I’ll ask again, how did Mary’s Son bring peace at his birth and today?
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord”
The Old Testament word translated “peace” is shalom, which means to be right with God, others, and ourselves. The New Testament word is eirene, which similarly means harmony and order.
Here’s the catch: to be in true and lasting harmony with ourselves and others, we must be in harmony with God. Peace is a “fruit” of his Spirit (Galatians 5:22), a gift he alone can give.
This is what Jesus was born at Christmas to bring: a path by which our sins can be forgiven and where we can be restored to intimacy with our Father. If we reject this pathway, the conflicts that result are not his fault but ours. We can blame the Prince of Peace for all the wars that have come after he came, but this is like blaming our disease on the doctor whose prescription we ignored.
The key is to respond to the Christ of Christmas as did his mother: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). When we do—and only then—his transforming peace will be ours.
“God Emmanuel is with you”
Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston suggests (his emphases):
As we anticipate Christmas this year, if you are asking, maybe desperately, whether God is with you, I suggest you rephrase the question. The question is not whether God is with you, but how God is with you. Because God Emmanuel is with you, and with the rest of us, whether we here, or those near, or those far away, all around the world. Whether the landscape of your soul is brightly illuminated just now, or whether you are temporarily blinded by more light than you can bear, or whether the darkness simply seems to loom large, God is with you. . . .
In Advent, are we waiting on God? Or is God waiting on us? The answer is “yes.”
How are both true for you today?
Quote for the day:
“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” —C. S. Lewis
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