Adevnt: Peace

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3

“Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.

Psalm 122: 7-9

Long standing tradition designates this second Sunday of Advent as peace Sunday. Last week I invited a look at how the world is shrouded in spiritual and moral darkness. Yet there remains a sense among many that life offers more. Let’s look now at peace.

For this year’s meditation on this Sunday I want to consider and perhaps allegorize the Psalm verses above. What is peace within our walls? Why does it say that it is for the sake of others that we offer the peace “Peace be within you”? Then what action does verse 9 call us to?

There is an overwhelming call to community here. The house of the Lord is the church. As there was a longing for deliverance before the first Advent which was Jesus incarnation, earthly ministry and sacrifice of propitiation before God; so we await with similar longing for His glorious return, His second and crowning advent as King.

“Peace within your walls”: a friend once said of someone he found particularly testy that he was learning to extend grace realizing that the other lived within their head constantly while he was only called to interact from time to time. Within our walls, between our ears so to speak, the plea is for cultivating God’s everlasting presence, his peace. Here is a call to develop a calm within despite the turmoil or conflict without.

“Security within your towers”: a call to community actions against threatening forces. Martin Luther says it well:

“And though this world with devils filled Should threaten to undo us We will not fear, for God hath willed his will to triumph through us“ Please note the call to action in the last phrase. Now having learned, girded up, equipped, armed (whatever action verb you might choose) ourselves verse 8 calls us to action helping others realize the same ‘peace be within you’

“For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good! The call is clear. Our internal peace is realized through seeking the good of others: social justice, yes; a call to personal sanctification, yes; instruction in righteousness, yes; and a realization that this is for the sake of the faith community, the kingdom of God.

The church simply will not thrive or survive if turned in on itself. It is the instrument God chose through Christ to display the already but not yet nature of the kingdom.

Peace comes through mission

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves _________ more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:34-39

At the same time Jesus offers true peace, He assigns mission, with struggle. “I will not render to God that which costs me nothing.” King David

For meditation, a family and personally cherished hymn ‘It is well worth my soul’

Verse 2 Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control: that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and has shed his own blood for my soul.

https://youtu.be/eJI2e9byaFU?si=Z7Z676YTdTMPKhqT. All verses, Keith and Kristen Getty

https://youtu.be/5S5zTNOBUuA?si=C1esCW6NP4FwwH-Z The back story, told by Sean of the south

Lake Louise, Alberta Canada.

A peaceful beauty, for the longest time undiscovered.

without the hard work of others we would not enjoy.

What effort can we expend for the peace of others?