Bad News/Good News: In a World of Hatred, Jesus is Our Peace

This has been a year of tremendous hatred and violence and division.

ISIS beheaded American and British captives and posted videos of these acts of violence on the internet for all to see. Visceral, personal violence.

The Taliban attacked a school in Pakistan and killed over a hundred people, most of them young students.

In South Sudan, over 20,000 people were killed in a door-to-door massacre last December. One million people were displaced into refugee camps, most of them women and children. Many of the children are unaccompanied minors, separated from their parents.

The civil war in Syria continues.

In Ukraine, an airliner was shot out of the sky.

And then there were the deaths of many black men and teens at the hands of police officers this year, and a rising sense in the white community that we have gone generations without really listening to the experience of our black brothers and sisters. There was also palpable resistance from much of the white community, however, to hearing this hard truth.

It’s easy to look at the world today and feel completely hopeless. Peace seems an elusive dream. All of the diplomacy, all of the United Nations meetings, all of the attempts to bring peace in our broken world have fallen through.

James writes this:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?–James 4:1 NIV

The self-seeking found in our human hearts stirs us up against one another. The problem starts in the human heart. If there is no hope for the human heart, there is no hope for peace in our world.

Into this environment comes this good Gospel word.

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.–Isaiah 9:6

Here is a Leader who will not abuse His power, who will make wise decisions, who can be trusted, who loves us, who will bring us peace. A time of peace is coming and enmity between people will one day be ended. This will not be completed until God makes the heavens and the earth again, fresh and new, healed and whole. But while we await that time, the Gospel has real world implications for us. Paul writes of the divisions between Gentiles and Jews that Christ’s death has broken down the enmity between them and made reconciliation possible:

 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.–Ephesians 2:13

The Gospel means, at its very core, that I was far from God but have been brought near by what Jesus did for me. I have been given incredible grace and new life. Because of this, I dare not maintain enmity against my brothers and sisters. Rather, I am called to welcome them into the reconciliation that has been given to me. I dare not hoard it for myself.

Paul goes on to write:

For he himself is our peace…–Ephesians 2:14

Peace can never be brought about through merely human means. It requires the almost-impossible task of transforming the human heart to orient us away from our own belly button and toward our neighbor. In Jesus, we see our mutual offenses which we have committed against each other being borne in His body. He takes them away so that we may come to a fresh start with each other. He makes peace between peoples possible. His forgiveness of us makes our forgiveness of each other possible.

One day, we will praise God together with all nations and peoples. National boundaries, racial boundaries, tribal boundaries…all of these divisions will dissolve. We will be united as creatures before the Creator. But through Jesus’ work on our self-seeking hearts on a daily basis, we can begin to experience a taste of that now.

Here is one great example of how reconciliation begins to come about. A beautiful conversation was held by the Kainos Movement this past week. A conversation on race in America. Evangelical leaders, not monolithic in their thoughts about race, but passionate to experience the reconciliation that the Gospel calls us to, gathered. The conversation was moderated by Ed Stetzer and included leaders such as John Piper, Thabiti Anyabwile, Matt Chandler, and Bryan Loritts, among others. Their gracious attitudes toward each other, even when they differed, their humility, their passion in talking about the hard work of reconciliation, their commitment to do whatever it takes: all of this heartened me and demonstrated anew how powerful, world-changing, and grounded the Gospel truly is. You should take the time to watch this conversation. God is doing a work of reconciliation in the hearts of fellow Christians, and it is beautiful to see.

We have been reconciled to God through the work of Jesus on the cross; will we live that out by doing the hard work of reconciliation with each other? God has given Himself: our Peace. Will we fully enjoy the benefits of living this peace? Or will we languish in the bad news of division and violence?

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