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An Altogether Peace

that only comes from Christ

Dawn Duryea

Dec 1, 2025

 

Today is the first day of Advent. The word advent means coming and so in this church season of Advent we await the COMING of the Christ child. I like to say that we live in the time between the two advents – the FIRST ADVENT happened over 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born and walked the earth for a short time and the SECOND ADVENT will be when he comes again to rule the earth. We are perpetually waiting for Christ to come again, we live in a state of perpetual advent. We live in the time of “almost.” In his first advent, Jesus came to establish the Kingdom but it is only “almost” established in our time and won’t be “altogether” established until Christ comes again. In this same way, Jesus promises peace to his disciples but though the seed of peace is planted in their hearts, this peace won’t spread over all the earth until Christ comes again.

 

This sometimes makes it hard for us to celebrate Christmas fully because we all experience this lack of peace acutely in our lives. We are intensely aware of the gap between what IS and what SHOULD BE. The vision of peace presented in Isaiah today – a time of no war, no fighting between nations is an extremely ATTRACTIVE vision but we have a hard time believing in it. It seems such a long way off – this time of peace. When we compare it to our current reality it seems like an impossibility.

Whenever I think of peace my thoughts leap immediately to my family celebration of Thanksgiving. I find it amazing that so many people can come together and live in close quarters together for several days without discord. This year there were 16 in the house, but there could be as many as 25 if all the people were there. My Dad’s house is not big and before they built on an addition there was only one bathroom! Even today there are only three bedrooms in this house so people are sleeping on couches and cots in almost every room including the enclosed porch.

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After so many years the cooking and cleaning have developed into a well oiled machine with many hands making light work. Some people like to sit and talk and some people like to watch football and there are always games to play and a puzzle to assemble. Sometimes there is musical entertainment or a display of circus arts. This week of Thanksgiving in Missouri has become a time of rest and reconnection for me and my siblings who are spread out through Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Indiana, Michigan and Kansas.

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Generally all of us are all in good spirits and things are going well in our lives and that could account for our sweet accord. But just a short conversation reveals beneath the surface a measure of unsettledness within. Some are experiencing family strife or job uncertainty and some are struggling with health or aging issues, each one suffers in their own unique way and yet this discontent within does not disrupt the overall peace of the group.

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We find a similar tension in the Bible. An overarching narrative of creation and redemption, the story of God’s relationship to humanity, is not disturbed by the inner strife of the stories. I have heard a lot of people complain that the Bible often contradicts itself. And this is TRUE – taken out of context, you could probably find a verse in the Bible to support just about any position. Historically the Bible has been used to support the unimaginable horrors of slavery and genocide – that tradition continues even today. But the Biblical editors thought it important to preserve ALL of these ancient writings and made very few attempts to reconcile them into one cohesive whole. So, the sacred words we read today hold sacred tension.

One of the more recognizable examples of this inner tension of the Bible can be found in the very beginning – in the story of Creation. You may have noticed that there are actually TWO creation stories. The first chapter of Genesis lays out the 7 days of creation day by day and the second chapter contains the story of the Garden of Eden. A cursory reading of these accounts may not raise any red flags of dissonance and indeed many attempts have been made to synthesize these two narratives into one, but a closer reading brings up many questions.

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For example, Genesis 1 begins with a formless empty earth where God’s spirit hovers over the deep waters (1:3) but in Genesis 2 we read about how the land is barren and this land provides the dust from which God creates the first human (2:7). Indeed land isn’t created in the first account until day 3 (1:10) – so even from the outset the images of creation vary greatly. In the first account the humans are created “male and female” (1:27) but in the second account ONE human (adam) (2:7) is created and later separated into two (2:22). In Chapter 1 humans are created in the image of God to RULE over the earth (1:26), but in Chapter 2 we are created from the dust of the ground to SERVE and tend to creation (2:15).

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I’ve named but a few of the discrepancies in these accounts just to show that our scriptures contain MANY VOICES and these voices are not always in agreement. In the pursuit of peace we often think that we all must be in agreement, that all must be of the same mind, sometimes our version of peace is very uniform and does not allow for differences between people. But I think God’s peace looks very different from our own.

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We can start to examine what God’s peace might look like by acknowledging that our division from one another began so long ago in the Garden when God separated the human being into male and female. Why did God make the one into two? And later in Genesis chapter 11 when we read about the tower of Babel we might ask why did God then separate us further by giving us different languages so that communication became more difficult? Separation upon separation. What is the purpose of this separation and then dissemination throughout the earth? It seems that God wishes to disrupt the uniformity of humanity. Maybe if we separate and spread to cover the entirety of the earth we will then have different experiences we can bring back when we once again reunite.

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The peace that God will bring to earth on that day is a peace of WHOLENESS, a peace of COMPLETENESS, a peace of FULLNESS. Beginning with each heart God will CALM the anxieties which disrupt and STILL those voices that disturb, God will make whole that which is broken. Because the peace of God is reflected in each face and comes to live in each heart of the multitudes, God will gather together all who are scattered. The peace God envisions for earth is not exclusive, but inclusive. While we STRUGGLE to live with those whose ideas differ from ours, God calls all people into UNIVERSAL peace. This vision of peace comes from the Hebrew notion of shalom. Shalom is not just the absence of war or strife, shalom stated POSITIVELY is the presence of serenity. Shalom cannot be dictated by authority, instead it lives in MUTUAL AGREEMENT. It is not top down, but bottom up – just like the Kingdom of God.

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This is the peace that Jesus possessed, and he gives it to us so that we can join together and work to bring this peace to the whole world. Shalom depicts wholeness with God and others, being comfortable with our interconnectedness. This peace is intertwined almost inseparably from love of neighbor. Everything Jesus proclaims about the Kingdom of God glows in hues used to paint lovely pictures, a picture with only blue doesn’t paint much of a portrait but throw some green, red and orange and the beauty begins to emerge. The same with these advent values of peace, hope, love and joy – these things do not exist in standalone tubes waiting for us to take a little of this one and a little of that one – all are spread throughout the world in broad strokes by God and mix together to form a vision beyond our view – a vision that can only come from the Most High.

And this vision comes into being one person at a time as each comes to know Jesus in an intimate way. As they say,

If you have No Jesus, you have No Peace

But if you Know Jesus you will Know Peace.

 

Peace was the last gift of Jesus to his disciples, knowing that it would be up to them to spread this peace to the world, one interaction at a time. Every time we introduce a person to Jesus we pass on this vision of peace that we have received from God. As we incorporate Jesus into our lives and live out his teachings, we become his body and spread his peace to the earth.

What I want to say to you today is that God’s peace is made up of unpeaceful parts. Each person holds disquiet in their hearts yet can be part of this body we call the church and be a part of the work of establishing God’s kingdom on earth. Even when we disagree on things, even when we don’t speak the same language, even when we don’t share ANYTHING in common, we can be UNITED in this work. In fact, the church is called to be a model of unity among diversity.

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Paul urges us to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Toward this end, in his letter to the Ephesians he names seven helpful practices. In the interest of spreading peace to all the earth I urge you to consider this list and identify where you might need more practice:

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1. Speak truth

2. Watch your anger

3. Don’t steal

4. Practice empathy

5. Watch your language

6. Guard your heart from evil

7. Be kind compassionate and forgiving.

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There’s a Japanese art form called kintsugi. This is where the artist takes what is broken and makes it beautiful by putting it back together with gold-laced glue. This practice goes beyond mere repair – highlighting and honoring that which is broken and at the same time making it whole again.

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Imagine Jesus flowing into your life and reuniting what once was broken. Jesus healing the broken parts of your personality – lending his strength to your weak points. Jesus repairing your broken relationships, his words a salve which help rebuild that which was once fractured. Imagine the healing presence of Jesus flowing into all the cracks of the world.

This could be your prayer practice. This visualization exercise may be helpful when you can’t find any words. I often use visualization to imagine God’s love as light falling on all those who need healing.

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We practice and prepare while we wait. We practice this “almost” peace on the surface although our minds are unsettled, we PRACTICE even through our broken relationships and heartache and we KEEP practicing even while experiencing a lack of peace in our own hearts. We will PRACTICE until Christ comes and completes the work he begun. Christ, as the golden glue that holds all the broken pieces together, comes and reunites humanity into one, one with each other and one with God. Through Christ our brokenness will become whole and finally God’s “altogether” perfect peace will descend upon the earth.

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Prayer

Eternal yet human God, we don’t always understand the contradictions you represent, nor do we yet understand your purposes on earth. But we eagerly await your Kingdom and we anticipate the peace you will bring to our lives. Lead us in the ways we can help to establish your Kingdom and inaugurate this unending era of peace. Help us to understand our role in your plans, give us the strength to follow your lead. We will continue to practice peace while we wait for the shalom which only Christ can bring.

AMEN

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