The Amazing New Testament: Prince of Peace
I’m writing a book on Isaiah 9:6… the prophet’s offering a theologically nuanced name for King Ahaz’s son, soon to be born, including “Prince of Peace.” Centuries later, a baby boy cried out in the night moments after being delivered. Shepherds, tending to business out in the fields, were dumbstruck when an angel, and then a great choir of the heavenly host, swooped down and around them, singing “Peace on earth.” Many of our Christmas carols resonate with themes of peace.
When we sing of Jesus and peace during Advent and Christmas, our minds drift toward what is peace-ful. Perhaps with others gathered around the tree, or raising candles at our Christmas Eve service. “All is calm… Sleep in heavenly peace.” Such a lovely, fond wish, this yearning for peace, and discovering the beauty of moments of peace.
And yet Jesus, as an infant, or once he was fully grown, did not bring much peace. Within days, a paranoid King Herod ruthlessly murdered all but one of the baby boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem. Pontius Pilate quelled armed revolts, and nailed Jesus to the cross to be sure he didn’t start one. Jesus ushered in a kind of peace, the dawning of the kingdom in our hearts, and among his followers; and most importantly, Jesus showed us the way to peace. Maybe we can say he established a toehold, perhaps like the Allies making it ashore on D-Day, but with so much more of the war still ahead.
There are crazy, hoodwinked Christians who imagine Jesus as muscular, toting an automatic weapon with a cocky look on his face. This false Jesus is an idol, falling for the age-old lie that power is the only solution to our woes. Jesus was meek, lowly, humble, and notably unarmed. When a disciple unsheathed a weapon, Jesus rebuked him: “Put away your sword; he who lives by the sword will die by the sword.” After all, God’s will is for swords to be melted down and recast into plows for farming (Isaiah 2:4).
In his first sermon, Jesus blessed the peacemakers. Not those who wish for peace, or think peace is a nice idea. Peace-makers! An echo of Psalm 34:12, “Seek peace, and pursue it.” Jesus embraced those others shunned. Jesus did not fight back when hounded, harassed, arrested, flogged, or crucified. Non-violent resistance: history’s first.
On his last night with his closest friends, Jesus pledged to them “Peace I leave you” – adding, for those who still clung to the ever-evaporating hope he would lead a revolt against the Romans and usher in their peace with them in power, “not as the world gives” (John 14:27). After Good Friday, the trembling disciples hid behind locked doors. Jesus came to them and gifted them with penetrating words, “Peace be with you.” And then he repeated it, suspecting it was hard for them to take it in, to believe it, to trust in such words. He clearly didn’t mean “Have a serene evening, rest and relax.” He spoke shalom to them, so they might realize and begin to embody that “flourishing wholeness of creation into the purposes of God.” They would have to muster considerable courage to live into Jesus’ shalom. Indeed, in short order, Jesus’ followers were ridiculed and even martyred for fulfilling that prayer we dig: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” Hard, risky work, Jesus’ shalom.
The apostle Paul, after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, put away his armed persecution of Christians and became one of them, reiterated Jesus’ way to peace: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:17). Sounds impossible… but God’s Spirit works the impossible in Jesus’ people: “The fruit of the Spirit is… peace” (Galatians 5:22). Indeed, the living Christ is with us: “He himself is our peace… He has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).
Jesus’ way to peace is love. Vulnerability. Truth-telling. Humility. Listening. Forgiveness – even of the enemy. Including and blessing everyone, not just the haves. Being a neighbor – like that dreaded Samaritan. Letting the children come – and matter. Creating or simply joining a very new family. When Jesus healed the woman impoverished by her physicians, and so desperate as to push through the crowd just to brush the hem of his garment, he called her “Daughter” (Mark 5:34). Before he learned her name, her first name was now his “daughter.”
Footnote on Prince of Peace: if Jesus was King, could he have had a son – a Prince to the King? Did Jesus have children? Apparently he never married or had children. Mind you, The DaVinci Code hatched the fiction that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had kids – whose descendants became French royalty! That would be a genetic marvel: Semitic Middle-Easterners the foreparents of white Indo-Europeans? The Bible doesn’t mention a wife or kids – but if we discovered Jesus did marry and have children, nothing we believe about him theologically would be threatened. We do know he’s the Prince of Peace, his heavenly Father his and our King, and we have been adopted into his family, a family with a resolute determination to be his peace-makers.