BETWEEN this and last Christmas lies what the world has called her Peace-court, her Peace conference. A great gathering, but whose peace banner had scarcely been rolled up, when war began at the Cape. So the human heart forms illusions for itself, so it is time and again bitterly disappointed, and yet with ineradicable homesickness, even after most bitter disappointments, it keeps on crying for peace.
Undoubtedly, conflict exalts, struggle steels, it must even be confessed, that all exaltation of nations almost invariably has sprung from bitter strife. Would not the Dutch national greatness have been unthinkable without the bloody struggle with the insolence of Spain? But do not forget, this only holds good for our real, our actual conditions.
Now that sin holds sway, now that sin poisons every relation of life, now that from sin arises every time again ambition and tyranny, and in sinful passion one nation wills to consume the other, struggle of life and death for him who would remain free, or would become free, is unavoidable.
But in its holiest ideal our human heart does not reckon after that standard of reality, not after the measuring line of these facts.
Our heart does not evoke its ideals from this blood drenched earth, but entices it from its inner life, from its holier internal address, from creation’s inspiration from above. Even when in its wanderings the heart lost its God, it still adorns itself with no other diamond than that which in the hour of creation it received in its human diadem from its God.
Thirst after peace, homesickness after peace, passion for peace, is, above and beyond the life of earth, a reaching back to the better fatherland, a pining for the heavenly, a panting with ardent desire for what prevails around God’s throne, and not here upon earth.
Do not make light of this, laugh not at this.
For though self-delusion may go ever so far on the part of a world, that keeps on fostering sin, and will no more hear of God, and which yet continues to cry for peace, it is still the orginal nobility of our race, that shows itself in that cry.
It betrays our heavenly origin, it pleads for a nobler descent than man himself will confess.
It is human symphony with what in Ephrata God’s angels sang of: Peace on earth.
Only the peoples and the princes of the peoples should not make themselves believe, that they can appoint peace on earth. Statesmen and diplomats should not assume the attitude, as though their ingenuity could ever restore peace on earth.
This the outcome shows once more.
Weeks and months the wise men of the nations and the counsellors of princes were gathered in our royal residence. In wise prudence and in cunning craftiness they were excelled by none. But while they multiplied words about peace, they pondered on what best way they could checkmate one the other.
And if ever mountains had to bring forth, that a mouse might be born, it was here.
They had so little thought of disarming, that during the peace conference itself they pondered upon reinforcement of their might. They accepted arbitration, only not for those differences from which murderous wars used to arise. And before their work was ended, war was again abroad.
That peoples and princes do not bring us this glory, but that the Bishop of Rome could have guaranteed that peace to us, is, with the book of history open before us, an assertion no less absurd.
Yea, more still, even what others have said, that not the Pope, but Jesus Christ brings peace, is rather loudly contradicted by Scripture and history.
“I came not to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34), remains in the face of all such unhealthy idealism the utterance that nothing can put aside.
No, peace between the peoples, that glory of the nations, comes not before Jesus returns. Then the lamb shall lie down with the leopard. Not before. Until then remains the word: “I will put enmity”. And until then the judgment shall stand, that the sin of the world avenges itself in the shedding of human blood.
Not of peace on earth among the nations, but of peace on earth in the human heart have the angels of God sung in chorus, of peace with heaven above, of peace with God.
In the world around us, in life outside of us, in the commotion of the nations, the question, that is here at stake, is not to be settled.
In the branches it shall continue to storm, the peace, which Bethlehem brought, is only known in the root.
Sin was no contention of Adam with Eve, but a contention of both with their God. Truly, strife between man and man followed from this. Not long, before Cain sheds Abel’s blood. But it had not its rise between men. It did not begin with a fight of man against man. Peace on earth is broken by revolt against heaven, by taking up of strife against the Almighty.
That was, that is sin. And in this strife taken up against God, lay the source, therein lies the root of all enmity, of all strife, of all commotion between individuals first, and then among peoples and nations.
No war ever broke out, but sprang from covetousness, from ambition, from injured feelings of pride, from despotism and lust to override. It was always sin in the heart of princes, sin in the heart of statesmen, sin in people’s public opinion, which caused wars to break out. He who was small would be great, he who was great would become greater. So there was no regard for right, nor was the given word honored. And in recklessness and from the passion of revenge the sword was grasped, and literally more than the wild animal they thirsted for battle.
Then little drops of sin in individual families, flowed together and formed a broad stream of national sin, and that national sin flamed up in wild war.
And therefore so long as the sin of the individual person strengthens itself, and in the families becomes habitual sin, and those habitual sins of the families accumulate and become national guilt, the torch of war shall every time again be carried abroad among the nations. And only, when Jesus returns, and all sin shall be brought to nought, in that destruction of sin shall the last strife be strangled.
And yet it remains fact, what in Ephrata’s fields was proclaimed: with Bethlehem “peace on earth” is come.
In the Cross of Golgotha Jesus is become “our peace”.
“We therefore being justified by faith, have peace with God!” (Rom. 5:1.)
Every word that you take from the Gospel with respect to this shows that here an altogether different peace is mentioned, a peace not among the nations, a peace not among the rulers of this earth, but a peace in the hiddenness of the human heart, a peace with heaven above, a peace with God.
Here it goes back to the root. Back to that kernel of life in our heart, from whence sin sprang, and in which alone sin can be destroyed. Back to the secret relationships which determine the right between our heart and our God.
Thus was the strife begun, begun with the struggle against the right of our God, and therefore reconciliation with God had first to be achieved, before mention could be made of peace for our human heart.
And now, it is true, the world has no knowledge of this, the world has no eye for it, that she has no peace within does not concern her, after peace with God she does not thirst. On the contrary, in arrogance, in her rebellion against God, in her violation of His right, she continues her revolt.
What she deems desirable is war’s peace among the nations.
But such are not those that are known of the Lord.
Though the heart weeps at the inhuman cruelty of war among the nations, they know something yet more dreadful, something that inwardly troubles their soul, namely: the gnawing unrest of conscience, the absence of peace with the Holy One, the inner conflict of their heart with the right of their God.
And that fire, the fire of the inner conflict, is extinguished by Bethlehem, upon it is sprinkled the blood of the holy Lamb of God.
So theirs is become a peace, which surpasses all the peace of the world. Peace through the blood of the Cross. Blessed reconciliation in the Only-Begotten One. Permission again to cry out from the regenerated childheart the Abba, dear Father!
They have found peace again, peace with their God.
Only such is not the case with all, who at Christmas join in the angel song of peace on earth.
All too many are like the pipes of the organ, which emit tones, but without inner perception.
And here is the shadow-side of our church life.
To sing along without knowledge of the matter.
To join in jubilation without understanding of the secret of salvation. To say with others that in Jesus it has become peace on earth, but with the old unpeace for God in the heart.
And this every Christmas-tide, as it comes again, must modify. Every time again in the Church of God, members must arise who, from singing at Christmas-tide outwardly along with others, pass over to the inward knowledge and understanding of that peace.
Do not forget, that either from the Church influence goes out upon the world, or the world with its influence takes possession of the Church. So, standing in the midst of the world, the Church must ever strike a deeper key-note, or involuntarily the Church is enticed by the world to externalize the holy and the best that has been entrusted to us.
“Peace on earth!” The world will sing it with all sorts of variations. And if your life is not deepened, in the end you will sing it after her in repulsive superficiality.
And therefore, you, Church of Christ, you suffer loss, when peace through the blood of the Cross is not enjoyed every time again by greater numbers in your midst in the inner chamber of the soul.
Keep in mind, that Peace on earth was sung to you by angels, and the angels of God could not take it superficially. The world of God’s angels never has any concern other than with the hiddenness of your heart.
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