In this festive season, we sing of peace on earth, but it can be hard to tune out the background thrum of anxiety. Jolly music everywhere tells us, ‘Let your heart be light’, ‘May your days be merry and bright’, ‘Peace on earth, can it be?’ – only sometimes adding the honest subtext of ‘If only in my dreams’. As the contents of our diary and shopping baskets multiply (not to mention the headlines of discord), it’s easy to feel somewhat empty as we near the finishing line of Christmas Day.

Is peace something to chase too, squeezing in an additional Advent practice or playlist as we battle the crowds?

Peacemaker, perfectionist or dreamer? 

I’ve always tied my identity to peace. It’s something my mum prayed over me before I was born. When I was younger, I cried out for it – often from in between two warring siblings. My glass-half-full personality meant that I could spin any catastrophe into an adventure. I could create a peaceful haven anywhere simply by bringing a book. I could let go of worries because my laissez-faire attitude told me that worrying wouldn’t change anything anyway.

The Enneagram personality test classifies me as ‘the Peacemaker’ (type 9), but I have a strong ‘wing’ tendency toward ‘the Perfectionist’ (type 1), which apparently makes me ‘the Dreamer’. As adulthood gradually loaded me up with responsibilities, peace seemed to fall away. I sought out habits to try to find my way back, but they weighed heavily on me too.

Our desire for the Bible’s promise of ‘perfect peace’ (Isaiah 26:3) can easily become an idol in itself, which ironically leaves us fighting anxiety. Peace becomes a dream destination rather than a lived-in gift.

So, the question remains: ‘Peace on earth, can it be?’

Completely peaceful

The Bible’s word for ‘perfect peace’ is shalom. It means more than the absence of conflict, a silent night, or that, ‘From now on, our troubles will be out of sight’. Shalom means wholeness – nothing broken, nothing missing (check out Bible Project’s video).

In Israel, people say ‘shalom’ when they meet and leave someone, as a shorthand for wishing them well in every area of life. It encompasses ‘welfare, well-being, safety, prosperity’ and, in ancient Israelite culture, these ideas would have been inextricably linked to relational harmony (see Biblehub’s definition).  

Of course, the only person to live a completely full, whole, well-on-every-level-with-everyone kind of life was Jesus. But I’m not sure ‘peaceful’ is a word I’d use to describe Jesus’ time on earth. It certainly didn’t look like a tranquil Christmas-card scene!

Peace wasn’t an idyllic destination for Jesus. He gave up the complete peacefulness of heaven and entered the chaos and conflict of living alongside us. In fact, ‘He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain’ (Isaiah 53:3). Is that the peacefulness I’m striving for?

For Jesus, peace was a relationship or an orientation of the heart. Regardless of his circumstances, he was whole in his oneness with God.

Peacefully complete

Jesus is The Peacemaker. Isaiah 53 goes on to reveal that ‘the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.’ Ephesians 2:14 goes even further: ‘He himself is our peace.’ Jesus had to go through hell (separation from God) in order to become our shalom.

Life may not feel too tranquil just now – we may feel at odds with ourselves, others or our world – but, through Jesus, our broken relationship with God is restored. We are made whole in his love.

Ann Voskamp puts its so well in her book, WayMaker (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2021):

‘Everything is all right not when we have seized the dream, fought off all suffering, attained our own promised land; everything is all right when we still and rest in the shalom of wholeness and oneness, attachment, with God who is our everything.’

Peacemakers

When a million Christmassy things call for our attention, we can pause and use them (or set them aside) as a means of re-orienting our hearts to the Prince of Peace, as reminders of his gift: wholeness in God’s love. The only thing that really matters is not broken or missing. And, as we dwell on this free gift of wholeness in Christ, his Spirit transforms us, from distracted anxiousness to wholeheartedness.

Yet, even in our divided-heartedness, we get to join Jesus in being peacemakers, who share this shalom with others. Simply by remaining attached to Jesus we become ‘his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way’ (Ephesians 1:23). Now that’s a Christmas mystery to dwell on!

We can listen to those alongside us, empathising in our shared experience of not feeling super peaceful about all the festive paraphernalia filling our minds and time. We can drop into conversation the ancient, deeply appealing word ‘shalom’ and why we might need a Prince of Peace to gift it to us. We can share our experience of him making us complete by restoring our broken relationship with God. This Christmas season we may not be completely peaceful, but we are peacefully complete.