Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Eve - Late
Craig Shirley
Waging Peace
In 1899, on the eve of the 20th century, diplomats from the leading governments of the world gathered together in The Hague for what was called the First International Peace Conference. It was held, not to conclude a war or to settle conflicts, but to focus on building a world of lasting peace. It dealt with issues of disarmament, international law, and dispute settlement. A second conference was held there in 1907. The third one was canceled. WWI had begun and, somehow, it got in the way of discussions about world peace. The century that followed was the bloodiest in history. During the 20th c., over 93 million people were killed in wars around the world. In May of 1999, a hundred years later, the world got around to holding that third peace conference in The Hague. Over 10,000 people met for a week in the Netherlands to discuss again, issues of disarmament, international law, and the settlement of disputes. The hope was to strive to make the 21st c. an era of world peace. But, if we have learned anything at all about peace since that first conference, it is that peace is hard to come by.
The sad irony is that even the villains of the 20th c. wanted peace. They just insisted on peace in their own terms. Stalin, Hitler, the Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein, and Slobodon Milosovic all wanted peace – precisely on their terms. They were terms that the rest of the world could not accept. No one wants war, really. Everybody wants peace. We just want it on our terms. Hammering out our terms of peace often takes the tools of war. Whether we wage war or we wage peace, it is the same. People are displaced, people hunger, people suffer, people die, and, at best, tentative settlements are won.
Our nation suffers a horrendous assault from terrorists, and what do we do? We mobilize the troops, we send ships to sea, rockets through the air towards Afghanistan, and we invade Iraq. Why? All of this is done for peace. If we can just eliminate enough of the bad people, just destroy enough of the terrorist’s camps – whether they be Al Qaeda or the Taliban, then we shall have peace.
Back in the days of Viet Nam, an army officer, who had just participated in the torching of a village, was quoted as saying, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Now, decades later, we have to destroy, and bomb, and make war in order to make peace. In fairness to us, what else is there for us to do? We have few other means of making peace on our terms.
Peace – but on our terms. That is what all people want. Even President Obama recognizes this strange irony. As he accepted the Nobel Peace prize in Oslo, he found it necessary to explain the surge in troops that he had just OK’ed for Afghanistan. We must wage war in order to wage peace. It has always been that way. We want peace, but we want it on our own terms.
The human way of peace: it always involves tremendous cost, but it is the only way we know. “The habit of war is hard to break,” says one writer. Even Desmond Tutu, during the dark days of apartheid, said “Why not war? Indeed, we have no choice.”
It is no surprise, then, that people were impatient with Jesus. He had charisma. He knew how to speak. He knew how to hold an audience and sway a crowd. Put a sword in his hand, and you would have a real leader. People would follow him anywhere. He could have been a national hero. But, he did not take up a sword.
He took up a cross, and for those who wanted peace on their terms, Jesus was a stunning disappointment because Jesus’ message came on his terms, moreover they came on God’s terms, not ours. And it begins, not with international conferences held once or twice ever hundred years. It begins with individual faith. It begins with the faith that people have in Jesus. It begins with Christ whose only weapon was his word and whose battle was with evil itself. It begins with Christmas, with the Prince of Peace being born in a manger.
For those who haven’t heard, Christ won that battle. We have faith not in an insurrection but in a resurrection. We feel like we have come a long way since the night Christ was born. But in truth, we haven’t. On the night when the wondrous birth took place in that little village in Judea, the things that loomed large in the minds of most people were things that made noise for a short while on the earth. There was the decree of Caesar Augustus, which crowded roads and towns with travelers; there was the fear of Herod at hearing another king had been born, one he feared would be a threat to his throne; there were other matters of more localized interest which were topics of earnest discussion. All this that seemed so important at the time was of no consequence to anyone a few years later. But that God, on that night, quietly reached down from heaven and entered in the fate of humankind… that changed the history of the world and is still the ground of the only hope of peace for our souls.
As we go our way through history and life, the noise, the tumult of events in the material world around us beat on our ears and bid for our attention…It is right that we concern ourselves with them and play our part in them. But the Christmas story which begins the story of Christ should remind us to take a broader look, to see the world as God would have it, to understand heavenly peace.
In the ancient world, we are told, a Roman general would often purposely take his time parading his army up to and around the city he intended to besiege. Time, after all, was on his side; the longer it took to assemble them, the bigger (and so more frightening) his forces would appear.
The multitude of heaven’s army, however, appeared “suddenly”. There was no need to frighten the shepherds any further or impress them with god’s greatness; a single angel, accompanied by “the glory of the Lord,” had already accomplished that without even intending to.
And although they are referred to in military terms as a “host,” it become immediately apparent that this army has not come to fight at all, but has a different assignment; the praise of God – a kind of “cheering section,”, if you will.
An ancient general would not have dared to be so reckless. When he set about besieging a city, everyone was made up to look like a fighting man: cooks and quartermasters, grooms and garbage men – all were given spears to carry or helmets to wear. Every psychological trick was used to gain the advantage.
So what kind of battle is this? And what kind of God is in command, that He can “waste” a whole army, by letting them stand by and merely cheer? And in their place He sends into the battle….a Baby! A Baby with awesome credentials, to be sure – a Savior, who is Christ the Lord – but still, one single human being to do battle with all of the forces of sin and evil and even death itself. And to do so confident of the outcome, even before the battle has been joined. That’s what makes it so remarkable that when God comes to address his self-disclosing Word to us, that Word becomes a child. A child announced by singing, not by thunder or cannons. A child born by lamplight in the late night silence, rather than a Word which shakes the mountains. The Word of God comes to us as a child who can be received and cannot hurt us; a Word which does not make us afraid. By rights, we should be prepared for God’s anger, God’s wrath, and believe that God has a right to be wrathful. What is amazing is that when God comes among us, whatever righteous indignation there may be, God comes not in violence, but defenseless against our further hurt, that we may receive rather than fear God.
“Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me,” sings the old sentimental song. But, in a very real way, that is the message of peace on the Christmas Eve. Peace in the world at war begins in the hearts, minds and souls of people. We shall never have world peace until God gives us peace. That might well be the Peace that passes all understanding. It is a peace that is beyond our striving, making, and understanding. Our striving, making, and understanding is often the source of conflict and war, not peace. It is a promise of the gospel that Christ is able to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves” namely, to make peace. Peace in the world, peace with the church, peace within our own hearts begins here, in the quiet, yet confident conviction that if God is for us then none can be against us. And there is no better sign that God is for us than that he sent his son into this world to both experience it, but also to save it.
Upon his receiving the Nobel Peace prize in 1984, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said. “Let us work to be peacemakers, those given a wonderful share in our Lord’s ministry of reconciliation….God calls us to be fellow workers with him so that we can extend his kingdom of shalom, of justice, of goodness, of compassion, of caring, of sharing, of laughter, joy and reconciliation, as that the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
Amen
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