Tag Holidays

A Prince of Peace: What We Need For Christmas…Part 5

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Over recent weekends, I’ve described Jesus as filling our need for a Wonderful Counselor, guiding us into the choices that are best for us, as Mighty God, empowering us to love Him and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and as Everlasting Father, who meets our need for relationship in His holy family. These names come from from Isaiah 9:6, a prophecy from around 700 BC concerning the Christ we celebrate each Christmas:

“And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

We may not feel we deserve the gifts in Christ I’ve described in these posts.  We may know for sure that we don’t, and so we don’t accept them.  As James Boice wrote: “We are also conscious of having done wrong things. We need to be forgiven. We need somebody to deal with our guilt”.  Which is why there needs to be a fourth name, and gift.  Our need for peace and unity is met by the Christ of Christmas, as described in Isaiah 9:6 as our Prince of Peace, who Boice says “highlights the gifts of peace both between ourselves and God and internally.”

What kind of peace?  Most of the New Testament of the Bible was written in Greek, and the word “peace” often comes from a Greek word meaning “to join.”  Peace does not just mean we aren’t fighting; it means that we are joined in a beneficial relationship.  This peace came at a steep cost, but He bore it all.

Photo by Guillermo Casales on Unsplash

Jesus was born to live the perfect life so that we won’t have to earn His approval, and He was destined to die as payment so we may have peace.  He did not have to rescue His people.  He could have left this world without a Savior, but as Prince of Peace, He instead took the initiative of joining us to Himself and to each other.  Our failures are not ignored, but our Prince of Peace willingly takes these failures upon Himself.  This is what He was born in the famous manger of Christmas to do.

Consider the story of Good Friday: Hours passed while Christ was on the cross.  He was mocked as helpless and unable to save Himself, while knowing that at any moment, He could just save Himself.  In those hours, our Prince of Peace considered all the sins of His people and decided: “Worth it”.  The all-powerful actively chose to embrace powerlessness in the face of hours of torture to save His people.  If God wanted to change His mind about you, He’s had plenty of opportunity before now.  He will not turn His back on you now, or ever, if you have accepted Him.

By bearing the cost for us, our Prince of Peace can accept us into His eternal family.  He can empower us to live lives like His, of love and sacrifice for others, giving meaning to our lives.  He can open our minds to His wisdom, providing the ability to make better decisions.  It won’t happen instantly, but it can begin today.  He was born on Christmas to make sure this all happened.

This Christmas Eve, we have the gift of Jesus as Prince of Peace, who meets one of our deepest needs:
“To be forgiven and at peace! Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He has made peace for us by his death.” (Boice)

He gives us peace with God, within ourselves, and toward others, granting us forgiveness and overcoming our guilt.  He asks us to also take the initiative and bring His peace to others, forgiving them as He forgave us.

This is the fourth gift of Christ in Christmas, and it makes possible all of the other gifts.  Have you accepted it?

The Savior Among Us

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“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” – Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23

In the Gospel of Matthew, this verse from Isaiah is applied to our Lord Jesus.  The name Immanuel means “God with us” and the name Jesus means “the Lord saves.”  In these two names is a beautiful picture of salvation, which means a restoration to a life lived with God beginning imperfectly here on earth, but eventually perfectly in His paradise.  Salvation and togetherness go together.  What we are saved from is our inability to live with God because our sin and His justice were unreconciled until the cross.

Among Jesus’ last words on earth were His command to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).  Included in this is bringing the hope to the world that He brought to us by being present.  God did not leave us alone but bore the cost of our reconciliation on Himself.

Today, be among those who need the hope God provides through the salvation He bought.  His desire is to live among the world through us, calling His current and future people to live with Him.

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Presents of Presence: A Holiday Quint of Quotes

Todd R 3 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

With mere days remaining until Christmas, here is a Quint of Quotes, five sayings for the holidays!

Photo by Stéphane Juban on Unsplash

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity” – Simone Weil

“The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world” – Plato

“When given the choice between being right or being kind choose kind.” – from the book Wonder, by R.J. Palacio

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” – Paul, in Ephesians 4:32

“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” – guardian angel Clarence Oddbody, in It’s a Wonderful Life

Merry Christmas to all my readers – first timers, occasional passersby, and a handful of regulars!

How December 25 Became Christmas – Sunday Share from Andrew McGowan

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Why is Christmas celebrated when it is?  Today’s Sunday Share is an article tracing the history of that decision, and also some background behind Christmas traditions.  Author Andrew McGowan notes that in contrast to some who believe Christmas just hijacked existing pagan holidays, “It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts.”  McGowan cites writings from the 2nd and 3rd centuries debating whether December 25th was actually the date of Christ’s birth.  However, McGowan also notes that Christmas was a later development than Easter, and that “most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.”  I’ve yet to find precise guidance from the Bible describing when, how, or even whether, to celebrate Christmas, but this article is a solid start in getting some facts straight and worth a read!

How December 25 Became Christmas

An Everlasting Father: What We Need For Christmas…Part 4

Todd R Leave a comment

Over the last two weekends, I’ve described Jesus as filling our need for a Wonderful Counselor, guiding us into the choices that are best for us, and as Mighty God, empowering us to follow through on those choices, which make us able to love Him and to love our neighbor as ourselves. These names come from from Isaiah 9:6, a prophecy from around 700 BC concerning the Christ we celebrate each Christmas:

“And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

In these names, Christ fulfills our needs, and according to James Boice, our third need is: “We are also individuals, but we sense that we are not meant to be alone. We want to belong somewhere. We need satisfying relationships.”  In Isaiah 9:6, the third name of Jesus, the Christ of Christmas, is Everlasting Father, who invites all into His family as daughters and sons.

In this world, you may not like everyone in your family.  Getting together for Christmas might come with mixed feelings and apprehension.  You may not like “church” people you’ve met.  But as close to man’s beginning as you can get (Genesis chapter 1), God created the family.  His intention from the start was to build His family, and it needed people in it for Him to love.  He wanted to give them the wisdom and power to become loving reflections of His own character.

The gift of Christ as Eternal Father means that He will accept us – as we are – into His family if we will receive Him.  In John’s gospel, the apostle wrote: “To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)

By believing in Him, we can be adopted as sons and daughters, giving us a sense of belonging and fellowship, and removing our fear of rejection.  He will accept us fully and eternally, nurturing and working with us to grow into the people He wants us to be.  He knows everything you’ve done and will do, and everything you are and everything you will be.

The gift of Jesus as Everlasting Father meets one of our deepest needs: “To belong to someone! Jesus answers this need, because he is our Everlasting Father. Through him we are brought into God’s family.”

To be loved as you have never been before.

This is the third gift of Christ in Christmas.

The next post in the series is here.

Photo by Mel Poole on Unsplash