On Advent Sundays this year we are addressing four classic Advent themes: hope, peace, joy and love. Last week we considered the Christian hope, our hope for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were reassured afresh that Christ’s triumph on the Cross and His Resurrection and Ascension provide us with complete confidence in the living out of our own new life in Christ.
This week, we turn to the theme of Peace. As we look at the World around us during this Advent, we see so many places where there is no peace, both within and between the nations. We pray, determinedly, for earthly peace.
Peace between humankind and God, is the special theme for us as Christians. We need to talk about this; nobody else will! How can fallen people ever be able to face our Creator God, marred as we are by human sin and our separation from God, who made us and loves us beyond measure? As we head through Advent, closer and closer to Christmas, we draw nearer to the time when we revel in the truth of the Incarnation - God coming to us, to mend the broken relationship and to make for us a pathway back to Him. It’s incredible and fantastic news – and so many people do not even know it happened and have no idea that they too need to accept the gift of salvation, won and offered by the Saviour, born as a human at Bethlehem so long ago.
It is this Saviour of whom the Apostle Paul wrote, to the Christians at Colossae (Colossians 1:18-20): “And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
Shalom
Godfrey
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.