"Emmanuel: Glimpses of God Incarnate," December 24

Christmas Eve

Isaiah 9:2-7

“The Prince of Peace”

THIS REMARKABLE PASSAGE (which echoes with refrains of Handel’s “Messiah” whenever I read it) heralds a coming king. We typically associate kings with power, possessions, and prestige. Kings extend their power with armies, economic might, and colonization. But the king that Isaiah announces displays different characteristics. This king ends oppression while burning army boots and garments stained by the blood of battle. This king announces the end of the vicious cycles of violence that is typical of kings and their reigns by showing us a different kind of power: the power of peace.

Jesus is born into a world that celebrates the ravages of power: a Pax Romana that keeps the peace through well-armed soldiers. Is our world that different? In the United States, even in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, it can be easy for many of us to insulate ourselves from violence. We simply shut the door and pretend it doesn’t exist. But turning our heads from violence doesn’t mean that its power is not still pervasive. When we celebrate the birth of the Savior, the God who is born into our world, we recognize that perhaps our world isn’t that much different from the Mediterranean world of the first century.

The king in Isaiah, however, makes another way possible: his authority grows in proportion to peace, a peace that is not simply the absence of conflict, but which actively seeks justice and righteousness. This peace grows out of God’s eternal promises to God’s people, which makes us agents of peace in our own time, anticipating the endless peace of God’s reign. Isaiah’s vision heralds the coming of the Prince of Peace. No wonder that Handel’s refrain ends on that phrase. Advent, above all, is a season of peace, inviting us to become peacemakers in all facets of our lives: in our homes, neighborhoods, nation, and world. This year, how will you celebrate the arrival of the One who establishes peace?

– Dr. David H. Jensen, Academic Dean and Professor in the Clarence N. and Betty B. Frierson Distinguished Chair of Reformed Theology