Week Two - Peace

The promise of a child that would be called ‘Prince of Peace’ was first given to people trapped in a cycle of warfare and oppression. One nation after another attacked the inhabitants of Jerusalem, destroying their crops and stealing their children. With violence never far away, it must have been a miserable existence. And yet into this world of cruelty and brutal power, God promises peace.

“He will be called…Prince of Peace…”

Isaiah 9:2-7

But for hundreds of years after Isaiah’s prophecy, God’s people continued to face oppression, deportation, slavery, and violence. Even after they returned to the land around Jerusalem, invaders were always at the doorstep. Jesus was born under Roman occupation, with a power-hungry puppet-king willing to kill the babies in an entire town just to avoid a threat to his dynasty. His followers thought he might be God’s promised prince who would bring peace, but when he himself was killed in his early 30s, their hopes were left in tatters. But instead of one more defeat at the hands of violence, Jesus’s death was the final blow of peace against the warfare that had plagued humanity since Cain first killed Abel so many thousands of years ago.

He rose from the dead in victory, and now sits on his throne of peace.

Though wars continue to rage, they are no longer the default state of human existence, and we expect Jesus to return and put an end to all war. As we wait, the church lives as a sign pointing toward that peace and as a place where people can get a glimpse of the peace Jesus will bring at his return. We work to demonstrate that peace as we walk in forgiveness with each other, and as we extend that forgiveness to the watching world.