We serve the one who is
called the Prince of Peace. We are
called to be peacemakers and hence those of us who would faithfully follow
Christ should seek to know more about the peace if we are to be true to God in
our Christian walk. God’s peace is
something that happens to individuals. It is a personal matter, a gift to us
from God that we in turn can share with others.
Isaiah foretells in
Isaiah 2:2-4 that there will, one day, be peace. This was an unreasonable hope
for the people of Israel, located geographically on the highways between Africa
and Asia and Europe, the pathway used by countless aggressor armies over the
centuries. There was only one way that Israel could have peace, and that was
that all the nations in the known world would come under the same ruler. By the time of Jesus, the world had come
under one ruler, but it wasn’t under the rule of the Gracious God, but under
the ruthless Romans. This was peace only as the absence of open warfare, but
peace was absent in the resentment against the Roman rule, seen in frequent
rebellions in Israel and elsewhere from desperate zealots trying to throw off
the oppression from the invaders.
There must be more to
the peace ushered in by the Messiah than simply the end of conflict and the
political unification of all peoples. Isaiah captures three fundamental
requirements for peace in this passage. The
first is in the imagery of the highest mountain. This may be unfamiliar to us,
but Isaiah’s listeners would have understood that mountains represented good,
and the highest mountain was the closest to heaven that they could reach. Peace
then comes from God, out of the abundance of God’s goodness. The second requirement is learning from God.
Peace is not a natural state for humanity; it must be learned, and it can only
be learned from God. We have several ways to learn: reading the Bible,
meditating on God’s Word, praying and conversing with God, and spending time
with other people. We must let go of our nature and learn God’s nature to find
peace.
The third requirement
is obedience to God. We must choose to accept God’s dominion over our lives,
and, as Isaiah writes, accept God’s judgment and arbitration to lead us. The
contrast is evident in the text that follows. Our way is the sword, but God’s
way is the plowshare. Our way strikes out at others, but God’s way meets our
needs.
One day, we will see
world-wide peace, but we don’t have to wait that long. The coming of the
Messiah provides for us individually the promise of peace built on a
restoration of our relationship with God. This year, then, let us devote
ourselves to living in peace by dedicating ourselves to obedience to God,
learning from God, and seeking after God’s goodness.
Kasta Dip
