This article is part of our Advent series “The Dawning of the King.” We have also created a PDF with hymns and daily Scripture readings to use as a guide, whether individually or with your family or small group.
To us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . and his name shall be called . . . Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
The human heart longs for a joy it cannot locate, a rest it cannot find, a blessing it cannot grasp. It starves for happiness uninterrupted, contentment undisturbed, life undiluted and unending. Man yearns for a deep, all-pervading peace — what the Hebrews called shalom.
Man thinks he glimpses the shadow of peace in creation. He seems to see it drape over fall leaves in mid-autumn. He almost hears it in the gentle babble of a half-hidden brook or the clean sound of a child’s laughter. It is there — somewhere out there in the stillness of a morning sunrise or the soft glow of moonlight. These moments don’t announce their own profundity, yet something pure and unproduced flashes into a hurried, fomented life. It stirs longing for such peace within.
But then it breaks.
The afternoon arrives; the enchantment drifts away; the child screams; the commotion reenters with a vengeance. You know they were merely channels of serenity, but for a moment your soul stopped to savor a distant something. Time slowed; the spirit exhaled. Was it all an illusion? Can souls ever enjoy such rest and keep it?
Shalom Forfeited
Man was created to enjoy peace. What went wrong? We shattered the peace we long for. The faraway felicity man was made craving, the ungraspable gladness he can’t but desire, the state of perfect and perpetual peace he knows not yet — shalom — broke when he sinned against his God. Far was the fall. Adam and Eve traded a paradise of peace for a piece of forbidden paradise.
The stream, the child’s laughter, the moonlight, and the colored leaves whisper of what he is no longer: innocent. We catch a glimpse of a pureness, a stillness, a guiltless beauty sinners cannot possess or maintain. Creation lets slip a secret of ancient tranquility, but soon it closes the veil; she will not befriend those who betray her Creator. He agrees: “‘There is no peace,’ says the Lord, ‘for the wicked’” (Isaiah 48:22).
Shalom Sent
But God promised a Son would be given whose name would be called Prince of Peace. “Glory to God in the highest,” the angels sang at Christ’s birth, “and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14).
What peace does he bring? Not the cheap fictions of the secular therapist, but the peace we desperately need: peace with God. God gives us a Son of Peace after we had given him reason for war. Charles Wesley tells the tidings:
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”
Angels do not sing that God provided a timely vacation in the dead of winter. They do not celebrate a romantic season provoking man’s better nature. The angels sing of reconciliation between God and sinners in the coming and dying and rising of a Son. “Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
How startlingly was this Son given — given over to our death, our sin, our wrath. The Christmas child makes “peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). He was crushed to bring shalom; his wounds heal ours.
And he secures more than a truce between opposing forces. His treaty invites us to feast at his table. All who receive his given Son by faith receive more than non-battle; they receive blessing. Imagine it: Rest from your strivings to earn his favor. Rest from fears; rest from guilt; rest from pain and death and sin. Christmas is no warm sentiment sipped by the fire; it’s news of a Son given to save you from the unquenchable flame.
Shalom Enthroned
Finally, a Prince of Peace is given. The very reason he can bring permanent peace is because he has permanent dominion.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called . . . Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. (Isaiah 9:6–7)
The Prince of Peace — a promise to his people and a warning to his foes. His rule shall be established and his people secure, but not because he is the Prince of Pacifism. The wolf shall lie down with the lamb, the leopard with the young goat, the calf with the lion — after he lays down his enemies in the grave. His perfect armistice follows his final Armageddon. In other words, his peace is experienced as a gentle rule following total conquest. Heaven will be populated in one country, hell in another. Forever.
Shalom Embraced
Reader, is this Prince of Peace your Lord? His terms are “good news of happiness” (Isaiah 52:7). Will you not accept them? His heart is willing.
Let them lay hold of my protection,
let them make peace with me,
let them make peace with me. (Isaiah 27:5)
Call upon him, and he will be your peace, your prize, your sun and moon, your desire and delight, your present and future. In his kingdom is perfect happiness, a country where sin and guilt and death are unwelcome. Come to God through Jesus Christ, and “you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace” (Isaiah 55:12). He himself will lead you into a peaceful habitation, a secure dwelling, and a quiet resting place (Isaiah 32:18).
The human heart longs for a joy it cannot locate, a rest it cannot find, a blessing it cannot grasp — and so shalom traveled to us to be found. We are starved for happiness uninterrupted, contentment undisturbed, life undiluted and unending — and behold, an eyewitness has reported, “the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us” (1 John 1:2).
Man longs for peace, for Hebrew shalom. And God sent it forth in his Son, Jesus Christ, our Prince of Peace.
Desiring God