Meditations on the Meaning of Christmasনমুনা

Defining Peace

Read: John 14:27

I love the word peace because, by God’s grace, I am increasingly defining peace through the lens of Scripture. In our world peace is most often associated with an absence of conflict, or a kind of false relational harmony that is not built upon any substantive morality. It can also mean freedom from emotional disturbance.

The vast majority of humans crave peace. God has put eternity in our hearts and we are trying to reconcile the lack of peace we often feel in this world with the vastness, the awesome beauty, and the power of creation. How is it we can’t find peace? 

We are also struggling against what the Bible calls our flesh. Our flesh is our desire to rule over ourselves and others. It doesn’t go well, does it? We seek control and power and yet we see how the more control and power we or others have the more we fail to wield it in a way that brings peace. 

The title we see in Isaiah, Prince of Peace, is elaborated for us in this verse in John. Jesus came to dwell with us to reconcile humanity to God and pay a price only a perfect human could pay, to bring us peace with God the Father.

In this verse Jesus is talking to his disciples near the end of his ministry on earth. When he says “Peace I leave with you,” he is using a word that would be akin to farewell, shalom. But he is not saying goodbye, he is revealing another layer of how he is the Prince of Peace.

He is leaving his peace with them through his death and resurrection on the cross, and then promising to send the Holy Spirit to guide and direct them in life and to act as a deposit, a guarantee of their salvation and of their restored relationship with God the Father.

Jesus is providing the path to peace with God, that by faith when we believe in Jesus, we receive the grace of eternal peace with our Creator. But we also receive it here on earth. Peace on earth even today is in Jesus Christ. It is a personal peace with God that gets lived out corporately when we, as the church, choose God’s ways. We as Christians receive peace through the Holy Spirit and then pass the peace we have been given to others by sharing and living out the gospel in this world.

Reflect

• What is a biblical definition of peace compared to a worldly one?
• Meditate on the peace that you have been given. Are you receiving it daily? Are you praying for more? (Luke 11:13)
• Pray that God will give you opportunity and boldness to share the gospel of peace that you have been given!