A Peace That Disturbs

If you have heard me preach at all during Advent you will know that I have been saying Advent should be a verb and not a noun. Advent should be something we do – adventing if you will. And I will have shared with you the fact that my adventing has been trying to gain some peace during a frantic time. I have shared the irony of the fact that as we prepare for the arrival of The Prince of Peace we all get so stressed and bad tempered and it has been my resolve not to. I share an office with Canon Michael at the Cathedral and he will testify that on occasions I have managed this and on others I have not! But I have been seeking and trying to carve out some peace amidst the preparations, work, shopping, cooking and parties.

So it was somewhat of a shock when I received a Christmas greeting from someone which said they hoped that the peace of Christ disturbed me this Christmas.  Disturbed me!? I have been trying to achieve the complete opposite. I have been looking for calm, a sense of stillness and space. It struck me that maybe I have been looking for the wrong thing.

So what exactly does it mean to welcome the Prince of Peace into our world? What do the services, hymns and stories we hear each year actually announce the arrival of? What does Jesus being called the Prince of Peace actually mean? Well maybe we can get a glimpse by looking at the experiences of the people who were physically there when this Prince arrived

Did Jesus bring peace to this loving couple? Mary made pregnant in the run up to their wedding; giving rise to the possibility that both would be disgraced and Mary may have become an outcast as an unmarried mother? Pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Pull the other one! Then forced to travel in the last days of a pregnancy, subject to dreams and visions, visitations of angels, dirty shepherds and strange foreign men with bizarre gifts. Forced to give birth amongst animals in a town bursting at the seams with travellers and Roman civil servants carrying out a census. And of course those of us who are parents will know that there is very little peace in those first hours and days! “Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes!” as the popular carol goes – unlikely! There is little peace in this couples life as it is turned upside down, inside out and will continue to be as this strange unique child grows and starts his mission. Life will never be the same.

What about those first visitors? Shepherds tending their flock at night in the hills around Bethlehem. With all the additional visitors to Bethlehem I suspect that these hills may well have been a much more peaceful place to be then in the town itself. A few of them, a warm fire possibly, tranquil sheep feeding and then suddenly an angel with astonishing news, immediately followed by more angels, a heavenly host in fact singing and destroying the peace. Even when the angels had departed the peace did not return as the shepherds were compelled to go and worship the Christ child – the Prince of Peace. And in a stable – a grubby dirty, smelly place - a building familiar to them but not one where they would expect to see a promised Prince of Peace. Having experienced such wonders I doubt the lives of these simple men was ever the same again.

Then there was the wise men, the kings or the magi. Men of great learning who studied writings and watched the skies. A peaceful, academic existence, men of some standing and wealth who saw something in the sky which tied in with something they knew from their studies and was significant enough to cause them to travel great distances with the most extraordinary gifts for this child. Only to find him not in a palace but in a stable, a building which, unlike the shepherds, was probably quite alien to them. But they arrived and they paid homage to this newly born Prince of Peace. Yet more visions warn them to travel a different way home. Peaceful lives of academia and astrology shattered with the revelation of the almighty God intervening in the world.

And then there is another king, Herod, secure in his world of wealth and power but rocked by the news of a new King of the Jews. A rival for this throne, a threat to his life of comfort and privilege. He reacts with fear, cunning and then ultimately disproportionate brutality as he kills anyone who might possibly be that king and thus a threat to him. Peaceful lives of a king and the lives of hundreds of family members shattered as a great massacre of innocent children is carried out. Lives which will never be the same again. Very little sign of peace there.

So it seems that the peace which I have been adventing for is maybe not what I had imagined it to be. It seems to be a peace which is shocking, which comes upon us in many different ways and at many different times. A peace which is at once both a source of incredible hope and comfort but also a source of outrage and challenge. We should expect nothing else from the paradox of a God who takes human form and lays aside all power to live among us. A God who in weakness demonstrates ultimate strength. A God who steps into creation and lifts us up to be with the Divine.

But this is a world which needs a prince of peace. Peace in places of terror, fear and conflict. Peace amongst world leaders obsessed with power and posturing. Peace amongst different faiths and indeed peace within Christian churches at war with each other. Peace between those who have plenty and more and those who have nothing. An active peace which brings about change, does not settle for injustice in order to keep peace, will not tolerate oppression for the sake of calm but brings about real peace, real equality, real dignity and real human worth. It is not an easy thing – we have seen from the story of that first Christmas that it never was.

Maybe we need to learn from the reactions of the people in that story because they were certainly not passive. The obedience and sacrifice of Mary and Joseph, the joy and excitement of the shepherds, the reverence and gift giving of the wise men. The recognition by all of the challenge this baby Prince of Peace brings and the realisation that life is never going to be the same again. Maybe that is what all the waiting in advent is actually for. For a prince of peace who will call us to action, who will remind us that we are called into a positive relationship with God and we can only truly achieve that when we are in a positive  relationship with one another. So let’s use this special season of Christmas to start again, to build peace amongst the communities of which we are all part.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.