Re:Verse passage – Psalm 85:1-3, 8-13 (day four)
It’s tempting to think we have to escape in order to find peace. We go on vacations, have personal retreats, or even tip-toe off to a quiet room away from holiday house guests in order to “find some peace.” To be sure, finding time away from the hustle of life is essential. I am constantly looking for little pockets of peace in my day, my week, and over the course of the year.
But the peace that Christ offers us isn’t something we have to escape in order to find. The Israelites in this psalm receive God’s promise of peace in the middle of their dire circumstances. This prophetic psalm is fulfilled when Christ takes on human form, entering straight into a dark world full of chaos, offering peace unlike what anyone had ever experienced. And when Jesus comes again in glory, he will break into the middle of our bleak, disordered world with lovingkindness, truth, righteousness, and peace in their fullest forms, once and for all.
Because Christ humbly took on human form and lived among us, the peace we reflect on at Advent is not far off on a mountaintop or on a remote beach somewhere. It’s in our midst now, constantly available to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.