Are you missing a peace?

“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men. From heaven’s all gracious king! The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing” (Sears).  Solemn stillness. What would that be like? I wonder as that  Christmas carol plays quietly in the background of our un-solemn pre-dinner chaos. Our week of peace seems to be lacking a key ingredient and my brain is struggling hard with the disconnect.

We lit the peace candle on the Advent wreath at church this week allowing hope and peace to shine their flames into the darkness of a rainy Sunday morning. My oldest and his friends were the candle lighters up on the stage; reading the prayers and bringing the light. And I am a little amazed at them, these kids who grew up running roughshod through the holy halls of this church are now holding microphones and standing calmly on stages with fire? I marvel at the passing of time. All these years of waiting for peace to come.

I watch the purple and pink candles, their flames flickering in anticipation of what lies ahead; marking this ritual of waiting.  We sing the carols and once again our hearts are full of expectation. Every year we do this. And every year I think, this will be the year it happens. Peace on earth. Goodwill to men.  This is the year it will all be well.

But then it isn’t.

The year has spun itself around and here we stand again in a world where peace is hard to come by. War, poverty, and natural disasters still dominate our news cycles. The whole world feels upended by division and even the pieces of my own life seem at odds with each other.

Peace feels like a silly wish made perched over dancing birthday candles. It feels impossible. 

And I wonder if that’s how it felt during all those 400 hundred years of waiting? That’s how much time elapsed between the final prophetic words of the Old Testament and the singing angels of the New Testament. 400 years where the solemn stillness that covered the earth was the silence of God. 400 years of people lighting candles, watching the sunrise, raising kids, growing crops, cooking food and talking with neighbors. But all without a word from their Creator.

I am certain that they began to doubt it was possible. “I will be their God and they will be my people …  I will put a new covenant in their hearts and no longer will they teach their neighbor … Know the Lord. For they will all know me.”  Those prophetic words of Jeremiah’s must have become nothing more than dead letters on a page. Because they must’ve been certain that God was never coming for them. Never. 

We don’t have many records of what it was like then. But we know. We know what it’s like to lose hope; to lose our peace of mind because God seems silent and unavailable. We know what it’s like to stand in a broken world and long for home, to lift up prayers that go unanswered, to watch others suffer, to ask the question; how long Lord? How long until you make it all right? How long until there truly is peace on earth? How long do we go on searching for you?

“The secret to abundant life [is] to believe that God is where you doubt he can be.” Ann Voskamp writes that in her book The Greatest Gift. I scribble it down and stick it to my desk. Because its truth catches me by surprise. And I realize I’m such a forgetter. 

I forget that God doesn’t need me to create the perfect peace-filled moment for him to draw near. I forget that this season isn’t about how I feel or how much I do.

And I forget that this story of Jesus didn’t start with the star in the sky and the angels singing over a peaceful field of shepherds. It started in a garden with a huge mistake.

And it didn’t stop during the 400 years of silence. The words God had spoken through the prophets didn’t stop being true. “How can I give you up Ephriam? How can I hand you over Israel? My heart is changed within me. For I am God and not man; the Holy One among you. They will follow the Lord.” He’s always been coming for us. We may lose our hope, our minds, our peace, and our way. But we can never lose him. Because Jesus never loses sight of us.  

Where do you least expect to see him? In your messed up relationships? Your out of control kids? Your high stress job? Your finances?  Where do you think Jesus cannot go? Where do you think he cannot bring peace? 

Hear him speak these words into that place..“Peace. My peace I leave with you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).

 It’s the thing I struggle with the most. Peace doesn’t always mean the absence of strife. It doesn’t mean I present all of my perfect circumstances to God for approval. Jesus was pretty clear about this. “In this world, you will have trouble, “ he said. Yeah. We know about trouble. “But take heart, he continued, “I have overcome the world.” 

The 400 years of silence was broken with the coming of the Prince of Peace into a world that knew no peace.

So maybe that’s it? Peace is knowing that he comes for us even when we can’t see him. Peace is lighting candles in the darkness and trusting that it matters.  It’s being convinced that even in the middle of all that is wrong, peace on earth and goodwill toward men is still possible. 

And it’s believing what the great theologian C.S. Lewis said is true, “God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.” 

He is indeed the missing “peace” we have been looking for all along. May you feel his prescence with you today.

Amen.