International Peace Day

 

21 September is International Peace Day (first marked in 1981). And yet most of us, especially those of us who call ourselves followers of the Prince of Peace ignore peace.

Peace seems to have been demoted to a nice idea at the edge of Christian faith when it really should be front and centre.

I know it's early for a Christmas reference, but I will quote from Over The Rhine’s Christmas album Blood Oranges In The Snow. They sang:

“I hope that we can still believe
The Christ child holds a gift for us
Are we able to receive
Peace on earth this Christmas”

It is not a new line. I have heard this line most of my life. In fact, I cannot remember a time in my childhood when I didn’t hear it at Christmas time. I heard it for years before I understood that it was talking about was a new kind of reality. 

But this year, peace seems further away. Politicians, and their followers, in many countries seem intent on creating conflict rather than building peace. 

“Peace, Mike, Peace” is what my soul is repeating. 

• It is not about justice or vengeance.
• It is not about proving who was right or wrong. 
• It is not about us and them and us winning. 

The point of this mission that God had in coming to earth was peace. That peace was not just for my soul. It was about peace on earth. Anyone following this Jesus whose birth is heralded in this angel’s song should be all about peace.

This is not an out-of-the-blue declaration of a God reaching for some Plan B or C. The Old Testament was all about this peace; shalom is how the Jewish people said it. Shalom was God’s intention in the law given, for the King to achieve and for the prophets to critique the lack of. 

Jeremiah 29:7 declares “Also, seek the peace and prosperity [the shalom - flourishing] of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

All of us who claim to follow the baby born when the angels sang need to find that priority of peace. As God’s people, we need to seek shalom. We are called to be God’s holy nation, a people set apart, different, in all the right ways, from the other nations. We need to not blend into the world’s automatic response to seek to be proven right, in control and avenging all who would come against us. We need to be about that ministry of reconciliation that God told us we would be about just as we are connected to God himself through that same ministry of his peacemaking.

As we seem intent on sectarian divisions and graceless soundbites and tweets as we ever have, we need, on International Peace Day, to see afresh this Gospel priority and commit to it with renewed courage, hope and all grace that is rooted in the announcement of the baby born. 

Peace. Shalom. 

Let's not just talk about it. Let's live it!