Disturbing the Peace

Born this day in the city of David a tough-minded Peacemaker.

Somehow in this world of fear and war, of hate and revenge, the story of the Prince of Peace seems incongruous. What we need is not lowly Jesus, meek and mild, but a Prince of Power and Might. We need what the stricken apostles sought as they stood by the resurrected Jesus on the Mount of Olives. We say, “Will you at this time destroy the wicked powers that dominate the world and terrify us? Will you, right now, usher in the kingdom of perfect peace and righteousness we long for?”

But now as then, our Lord puts us off by declaring that it is not for us to know the time of his return. “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come” (Matt. 24:6). And so, with hope deferred but not destroyed, we realize that a sovereign God has not decreed a deliverance from the threats of war and destruction and grief and pain and death. That peaceable kingdom will come, but only with Christ’s return at the end of the age. He sends us back into the fearsome cauldron of human struggles. And as loyal and obedient followers of the Prince of Peace, we do not dare withdraw from the front line of the battle.

Strangely, he brings us his peace only when, with it, he also brings us assurance that we shall find no peace in this world. Our Lord came to his own, and his own did not receive him, but rather crucified him. Likewise, this Lamb of God sends his followers back into the world as salt and light. And because the world loves darkness, it rejects the light. When today’s Christian goes about his Master’s business, he must, with saints of former times, be prepared to endure the world’s resentment so vividly and chillingly described in that Christian Hall of Fame, Hebrews 11. On peace in such circumstances Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything … present your petitions to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:6–7).

Neither does the world find to its taste the salt that would preserve it. And so it rejects the Christian’s efforts to function as the salt by which moral decay could be prevented.

If Christians should find their boundary lines falling in pleasant places, they will be deeply grateful to God for such surprising mercies. But also they will have to ask themselves whether they have not so succumbed to the world about them that they are no longer swimming Christianly against the current. Perhaps they encounter no resistance because they are merely flowing with the stream.

Even in personal relationships rising from daily contact with others, the Prince of Peace brought a strange toughness to his gospel of peace. Take the Samaritan woman. If I meet a woman who has divorced five husbands and is living unmarried with the sixth, I do not immediately remind her of her marital difficulties. Perhaps a squeaky, tight legalist would prove such a boor; but not I. I might gossip behind her back. But face to face, I would smile coolly and keep my lips tight shut, because I would not love her enough to risk the label “impolite” or “boorish,” or to suffer the embarrassment of a confrontation—however gently it might be brought about. And do I call public figures and powerful leaders hypocrites and crooks? Yes—in the privacy of my own home and the secure fellowship of trusted friends. But not in public. For, you see, I love them less than I love my own freedom from annoyance or harm. They might bring suit, hauling me into public court!

Once I stood three feet from a President of the United States, a man known for his love of power. But did I offer a word of counsel? Not I! I didn’t love him that much. The foolhardiness of the prophet Nathan who stood before King David demands greater love than I can muster.

Our Lord even took a whip and violently drove the moneychangers from the temple because they had no moral or legal right to be there. The real Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and during his short earthly life lived as a man of peace. But it was a tough-minded peace that always sought true peace—with God, with an enlightened conscience, with all men and women of good will. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9). Jesus shows at the temple that this involves vigorous action backed by firm resolve. The Prince of Peace was no wimp.

All too often, we Christians seek “peace”—the sticky unloving kind that has as its goal only our own freedom from discomfort or danger. Our Lord is the Prince of Peace, who always seeks the true peace even at the cost of disturbing the peace. And today he asks the same of all who aspire to be his followers.

KENNETH S. KANTZER

We all have ideas about the sights, sounds, and smells of the ideal Christmas. Strangely, many of the elements of my utopian Christmas are captured best in a beer commercial:

Strong, graceful horses stride elegantly along as they pull a carriage over clean, new-fallen snow. Only the peaceful tinkling of their bells breaks the silence at twilight. Beautifully lit evergreens hail the arrival at an isolated, fairy-tale town, far from war and crime.

My imagination extends the scene. The carriage brings gifts—not those that sparkle, but crude ones that incarnate love’s simplicity. Expectant people gather.

And there I am among them. With exuberance we breathe the brisk, pine-scented air. The night chill cannot match our spirits’ warmth. There can be no doubt we are alive.

Here and now it does not matter who among us is strong or weak, beautiful or common. We meet as people—God’s people—celebrating life, joyfully worshiping its Author. Entering a well-lit home we share eggnog and cookies. We join hands and sing. My heart leaps up again and again. I cannot contain my good will.

How sharp the contrast between my idealized Christmas scene and the real scenes of 1985. A man and his wife decide a dying marriage is not worth saving. A homeless and defeated outcast wanders aimlessly down a city street. A child is kidnaped, a woman is raped. An elderly man dies alone in a cold nursing home bed, far from my peaceful little town.

Sometimes I resent these unenviable scenes of life. They do not deserve to belong to a world that gives us horse-drawn carriages and clean snow. They especially seem out of place at Christmas.

A plane crash is always a tragedy. But if it happens at Christmastime it tears our hearts. To assault another person is wrong anytime. But at Christmas it is absolutely perverse. It is like spitting in God’s face.

How like a novel is Christmas: reality—both the good and the bad—is heightened. On most days of the year we wake up and go about our business unaware of how we feel. Not at Christmastime. At Christmas, it is impossible to feel neutral. We either get caught up in the excitement and affectionate warmth, or are overcome by the sadness of not being a part of it all.

A five-year-old child is awake and giggling at 6 A.M. All the joy she is capable of understanding lies wrapped and waiting under the Christmas tree. A young woman receives an engagement ring. An elderly couple eagerly anticipates the long-awaited Christmas reunion with their five children and flocks of grandchildren.

But right next door to someone’s happiness, an unemployed father cannot see joy in his five-year-old’s face. A young, widowed mother must face the awful task of putting gifts under the tree alone. An elderly couple page through a tattered photo album, haunted by the ghost of Christmases past. How ironic that the event that brought peace and joy to the earth is also the harbinger of such paralyzing emotional pain.

We can blot sadness and tragedy from our minds if we choose. But they will not go away, even at Christmas. They are part of the undeniable reality of our world.

We run an obstacle course, weaving in and out of conflict, climbing over tragedy and pain, striving for happiness. Sometimes questions go unanswered and dreams go unfulfilled. Bad things happen to good people. It is hard to make sense of it all.

As I consider again my ideal Christmas scene, I realize I am still a child. The selfishness of childhood has merely reached a different level. My ideal Christmas includes clean snow, warmth, singing, peace, and joy. It has no room for snow splashed with the blood of human suffering. It crowds out nakedness, loneliness, and fear.

How wrong it is to see the unhappy scenes as intrusions, even at Christmas. Instead, they should help us understand what Christmas means. God did not come to a perfect world; he came to one that suffers.

Can we understand the true meaning of Christmas without understanding this suffering? Can we fully experience God’s gift to us without being compelled to give to others?

This is our world, the world we have been given, the world we have made. In it there is happiness and sorrow, deception and truth. But the greatest truth is that God came to earth. That truth is ours to cling to, and to share.

It is the truth that, ex nihilo, creates hope for a troubled marriage or a hungry child. It dries the tears of loneliness, negates the sting of death. It gives the youthful widow strength to place those gifts under the tree and to live on.

Christmas does not deny sorrow its place in the world. But the message of Christmas is that joy is bigger than despair, that peace will outlast turmoil, that love has crushed all the evil, hatred, and pain the world at its worst can muster.

RANDALL L. FRAME

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