Christmas: I Wish You Shalom

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14 ESV)

Christmas day is approaching and the end of the year and it occurs to me to indulge in sentimentality and send out some special wishes to those I love. If you are reading this you are one of them. Apologies to Pastor Doug I’m going to piggy-tail a little on his Christmas message and wish all of you shalom, which means peace, but more than you might think. This message is, of course, for the Christmas season, but also for all seasons. You may or may not know that Christians love to argue about things, and whether to celebrate Christmas at all is one of those questions that can cause controversy. So I was asked once if I thought we should celebrate Christmas, and my answer was “Yes. Every day.”

The above passage from the familiar story of the birth of Jesus tells of the appearance of the angels to shepherds near the town of Bethlehem. It tells of their announcement of the miraculous birth and a proclamation of peace. In one way we are familiar with the meaning; the birth of the Messiah was the beginning of the work that would reconcile man and God. It meant mankind’s warfare with God was at an end (Is. 40:2). So we can see this proclamation of peace as an ending of hostilities, and that is something we understand about the word peace.

But there is another sense of the word that we might not be so familiar with. These angels were not singing simply about the absence of conflict. The word used here is the same used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in Isaiah 9:6 where Jesus is prophesied to be “Prince of Peace.” This peace is expressed in Hebrew by the word shalom, The word is used as part of the blessing God gave to Moses to sanctify the people: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26 ESV) The word is defined in a number of places as “total well-being.” I think in our modern understanding we could translate it as “contentment” or “bliss” or, perhaps more meaningful to some, “serenity.” These words approach the significance of shalom but do not fully convey its meaning.

In the shared Judeo-Christian heritage shalom is necessary because of the rebellion of Adam and Eve. God created the world in a condition of completeness. The relationship between God and his people was without barrier; God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God provided for every need and lived in perfect communion with his creatures. It is way beyond the scope of what I want to write here, but suffice it to say Adam and Eve made a conscious choice to separate themselves from God by desiring to be apart from him in will. That decision created the brokenness in man that according to Christians could not be healed until God himself healed it. I think anyone who is honest with him or herself, whether Christian or not, knows what brokenness looks like.

The world is a confusing and fearful place, with temptations and stumbling blocks at every turn. Our brothers and sisters around the world and in our midst suffer from injustice, poverty, sickness, and violence. Even those of us who avoid the worst of what can happen in the world find that our materialistic “good life” leaves us empty and unsatisfied, constantly yearning for more. We don’t comprehend the concept of shalom because we don’t experience it in our daily lives, nor do we see it when we look around. That’s what makes Jesus’ birth so significant.

The birth of Jesus brings shalom. So when we think of what the word shalom means we are thinking about a state of being where we are totally and completely at peace with God. In such a state we experience no fear, no want, no pain, no sickness, no death. All of our cares are forgotten, and we live in a community of overflowing love and fellowship with each other and with God. My favorite description of this is in Revelation:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4 ESV)

Most of us think of Revelation as a picture of something that is supposed to happen in the future. From God’s point of view Revelation points to a labor that has already been accomplished. It is the completion of the work of reconciliation that was begun on Christmas in Bethlehem when Jesus came to live with us. Emmanuel : God with us. And this is not for the future; it is for now.

I know that some to whom I am writing now are not Christians. I am not going to presume to comment on how God manifests himself to anyone’s soul. And I guess my writing here is a little cerebral and I probably haven’t done a great job of expressing the magnitude of the shalom that Christmas represents. But I want you to try to imagine it, and I want you to know that that is what I wish for you on Christmas and every other day, now and forever. And I want to thank you for making the shalom of God real for me in so many ways. May you have a merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

Keith Cox

Advent: Waiting in the Dark

Isaiah announces God's surprising plan of grace and glory for his rebellious people and, indeed, for the world.

 

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

                and cry to her

that her warfare is ended,

                that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the LORD's hand

                double for all her sins.

 

A voice cries:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;

                make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

                and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

                and the rough places a plain.

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,

                and all flesh shall see it together,

                for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:1-5 ESV)

 

There is an interesting discussion of why Christmas is celebrated on December 25 at this link http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2000/dec08.html. What I find interesting  in this article is that Church leaders of the third century chose the date to coopt pagan celebrations. There were a number of pagan festivals around that date in the Roman world, and the feeling was that celebrating the birth of the savior would overcome the allure of idolatry. I think those leaders might revisit their decision if they could see what is happening today, because essentially the opposite seems to have happened.

But from my point of view it seems appropriate. Starting in November (Halloween is apparently the kickoff for the “holidays”; retailers are putting up “Christmas” decorations before the pumpkins and candy are even off the shelves) we as a people embark upon a spree of over-indulgence. Retail sales figures for the day after Thanksgiving are national news, signifying, I think, where our values as a society lie. The “Holiday” season is accompanied by aggressive driving, bad tempers, discourtesy, reports of fist fights and worse over scarce but coveted merchandise, people robbing each other in broad daylight, riots and stampedes in retail establishments. And all of this in pursuit of “the joy of Christmas.” I can’t imagine the ancient pagan festivals could have been any more raucous or obscene.

Probably the date itself doesn’t matter. Because of course the Advent season is really all about this human tendency to completely miss God’s point. When Isaiah wrote the prophecy above there was no Christmas and the entire nation of Israel was in a sort of Advent season. What that meant for them was that God had miraculously saved them from bondage and had constituted them as a people to be set apart as a light to the nations. They had been rescued from the tyranny of Pharaoh to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham that he would bring them to the Promised Land and to bless all nations through them (Gen. 12:1-3). But Isaiah made a living giving them the unpleasant news that they had blown it.

For the Israelites, the Promised Land was to be theirs but not for their own benefit. God’s blessing of Israel and the abundance they were to experience was to be a sign of their devotion to God and his ways; concrete evidence of God’s faithfulness and a beacon of hope to a world lost in selfishness and sin. The covenant God made with the exiles from Egypt promised great rewards for obedience, but at the same time warned of grave consequences for abandoning their faithfulness. By the time of Isaiah the people of Israel had all but forgotten the covenant. Ignoring God’s warning to remain apart from the surrounding pagan cultures,they had fallen for the temptations of idolatry. Far from being a beacon of hope for the pagans surrounding them, the Israelites had become indistinguishable from them.

In the theological history of God’s people, the consequence of Israel’s idolatry would be the destruction of Israel, Jerusalem, and the temple, and a new exile in Babylon. In the above passage Isaiah is assuring the people that their great calamity would be followed by a restoration and rededication. Was Isaiah referring to the historical return from exile or was he referring to something else? For centuries the Christian Church has believed it was both.

The exiles really did return from Babylon in 538 BC, but the comfort Isaiah promised did not materialize. In the following centuries God’s people would suffer conquest, loss of independence, and persecution. Many gave in to pressures to abandon their faithfulness to the one true God in favor of once again relying on foreign customs and idols. Even those who redoubled their efforts to remain true to the covenant came to rely for salvation on adherence to the law rather than on God’s grace. Ultimately the Jews would suffer the complete loss of their national identity and a new dispersion into exile. If you were a Jew living in first-century Palestine you would have good reason to be skeptical of Isaiah’s prophecy of comfort.

But that was not the end. The same prophecy is recalled by all four of the Gospel writers in reference to John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness, "Get ready! God's coming!" God was going to rescue His people again, this time not from an earthly exile but for a final freedom from bondage to sin and death. The words of the ancient prophet found a new resonance; the people once again had reason to hope. This is what the Advent season signifies, our need for and assurance of rescue. And then, the miraculous moment. God came to earth. The long awaited deliverance was at hand. Christ was born, and accomplished the reconciliation that men could not.

This is the event that has been celebrated on December 25 since the third century. This is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises to His people. The truth of God’s deliverance was of such magnitude that the early Church leaders felt sure that commemorating the fact of Jesus’ birth would overshadow and ultimately banish the pagan practices. And yet here we are in the third millennium since God came in the flesh and I think the world doesn’t look that much different. The rebellious hearts of humankind have made a mockery of Christmas. We celebrate His birth by banishing His name and obscenely dancing around a golden calf.

As for the wayward Israelites, however, for Christians this is not the end. The travesty of “Xmas” and “the Holidays” makes the expectation of Advent that much more important. What better time to hopefully await Christ’s birth than in a season when our need for salvation is most obvious? As Christians seeking to retain the meaning of Christmas ours may be, like John’s, voices crying in a wilderness of self-centered materialism. But if I rightly understand Jesus’ commission, our task is not to cut ourselves off from the world, not to condemn or moralize, but to make disciples of all nations by being salt and light. Our light must shine like Israel’s light was to shine, so that our identification with Christ draws all people to Him. Let us use the time of Advent not only to celebrate once again our own expectation of deliverance but to let the light of God’s love shine so brightly through us that it shouts to the world, like Isaiah’s messenger, “Behold your God!” (Is. 40:9)