“The
Prince of Peace”
(Last in a series of Four)
Isaiah 9:6-7; Luke 2:8-14
Introduction
For four weeks now, we’ve been exploring the four names of Christ
found in Isaiah 9. We discovered that Christ is a miracle-working counselor to whom we
can run, and always encounter a God who meets us with open arms of
grace. We explored how Christ is the Mighty God who is always willing to
turn your bruised-reed life into a work of art, and to fan your
smoldering-wick faith, hope, and love back into full flame.
We’ve celebrated how Christ as “Eternal Father” brings us into
an intimate Father/Child relationship with God, forever.
This morning, we are going to briefly explore what it means that Christ
is also called “Prince of Peace.”
Exposition
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to all people on whom God’s favor rest!”
This is the gospel in one sentence. God’s glory,
God’s peace, and God’s favor resting once again upon the
wayward human race! This one-sentence gospel proclamation of
“God’s peace to all people” connects this angelic
declaration to our prophetic passage from Isaiah wherein Christ is
called the “Prince of Peace.” Indeed as we examine
this word “peace” more closely, we discover the entire
gospel in one word. The word “peace” in
Christ’s title “Prince of Peace” is the Hebrew word
“Shalom.”
Shalom is still a common greeting and farewell shared among those of
Jewish heritage. This salutation has been shared among the Jewish
people throughout their thousands of years of history. It began
when Joseph was first reunited with his brothers and he declared to
them in their fear, “Shalom to you from God.” In the
book of Judges, God is given the name by Gideon, of
“Jehovah-Shalom.” The sacred city of Jews, Muslim,
and Christians, and the eternal city of Christ as king is called
“Jeru-shalom.”
Now most of us Gentile types reduce the meaning of this word Shalom to
our ideas of peace, whether peace among people or inner peace.
But shalom is a word so packed full of meaning and importance that even
the best scholars, theologians, and Hebrew lexicons struggle to come up
with English words to capture its full significance.
In this one word “Shalom,” is captured all that God desires
and plans for all creation. It is God’s heart desire,
God’s perfect and full will, and therefore God’s decreed
plan that all the human race, that all the animal world, that all the
beings ever created, that all the universe dwell in perfect, full, and
eternal Shalom.
Now Shalom does involve the blessings of rest, harmony, and peace in
relationships and between nations. But Shalom also includes the
blessings of individual, national, and universal “completeness,
wholeness, health, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquility, perfection,
fullness, and material prosperity.”
Throughout the New Testament, written of course by Jewish authors,
almost every epistle, every letter, begins with a Christianized version
of this Jewish greeting of Shalom in declaring, “Grace and peace
be yours in Christ.” When the authors and original Jewish
Christians heard this greeting, they would have connected it with
God’s hoped-for blessings of Shalom.
When the Shepherds heard this proclamation by the angels that
God’s peace, God’s shalom, and God’s favor,
God’s grace, now rests upon all because of this child born in
Bethlehem, they would have understood this good news to be the
fulfillment of all the longings of the Jewish people for God to usher
in the promised day of Shalom.
Christ the newborn king, Christ the Wonderful Counselor, Christ the
Mighty God and Eternal Father, also came to planet earth to become the
Prince of Shalom. Through Christ’s life, death, and
Resurrection the longed-for divine promise of universal Shalom was
finally ushered in. Now because we live in the
already-but-not-yet kingdom of God, this promised Shalom is only
partially experienced now by God’s people. Today, in
Christ, you and I can experience substantial shalom, not yet the
fullness of Shalom.
We live now in a taste of Shalom as we ache for the day of universal
shalom when Christ the infant Savior returns as Christ the Resurrected
King. We long for the same Day of Shalom as longed for by the
Jewish people for centuries, that they still long for whenever they
bless each other with “shalom.” We proclaim the good
news of the gospel of Shalom, as we ourselves cry out for eternal
kingdom of Shalom between God and the human race, shalom between all
created beings. Our passage from Is 9 declares this promise about
the Prince of Peace, that “….of the increase of his Shalom
there will be no end.”
This is the day of universal peace, health, and prosperity for all
God’s people in God’s eternal kingdom as we read about in
Isaiah 65:17-25. Listen to this beautiful glimpse in the kingdom
of God that we will one day inherit. Listen, imagine, and embrace
God’s shalom:
New Heavens and a New Earth
17
"Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The
former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will
create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and
take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be
heard in it no more. 20 "Never again will there be in it an infant who
lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he
who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to
reach a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell
in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 No
longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and
others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my
people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.
23 They will not toil in vain or bear
children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the
LORD, they and their descendants with them. 24 Before they call I
will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. 25 The wolf and
the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor
destroy on all my holy mountain," says the Lord.”
What a beautiful picture of Shalom. What a compelling glimpse of
our destiny. This is the universal Shalom that will become
reality when Christ returns as reigns forever as the “Prince of
Shalom.”
But friends, we don’t have to wait until the second coming of
Christ to experience God’s Shalom! Right now in Christ, we
can experience a significant, sustaining degree of Shalom. We can
experience substantial wholeness, contentment, physical, relational,
emotional healing, wellness, harmony, reconciliation, inner peace, and
even some material prosperity. All these blessings are included
in the Shalom offered to us right now because Christ came to us as
Savior.
You can enter into a significant taste of this Shalom right now, today,
if you seek Christ with all your heart to encounter Christ as your
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace!
In Isaiah 53:5, we read this about Christ:
“But
he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our
iniquities; the punishment that brought us Shalom was upon him, and by
his wounds we are healed.”
So where do you need to experience the Shalom of Christ right now?
Let us worship now this Prince of Peace as we hear our choir. Let
us worship along with them in our hearts Jesus Christ, the King of
Kings…