Everlasting Peace

December 13, 2023

Advent 2023

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How far would we go to establish peace in our lives? Peace in the wider world, ending all wars, tensions between nations, people groups, religious factions? Peace in the relationships we are a part of, whether at home, school, in our families, with our co-workers?

I know how life is when everything is at peace with those around me. I also know how unsettled it is when there is conflict. When I have disagreements in my family or unresolved issues at work, I long for relationships and situations to return to peace.

In this passage, Paul is writing to the Ephesian Church, discussing how peace was brought to those who were God’s chosen people to those who used to be outside.

And what great lengths Jesus went through to establish this peace! Paul uses some active verbs to describe how Jesus brought about this peace. He “destroyed” the dividing barrier of hostility between Jew and Gentile (v. 14). Later in the passage Paul writes that He put their hostility “to death” (v. 16). He abolished the legalism of the law with its commandments and regulations. The way that Jesus brought this peace? Through His bloody death on the Cross (v. 16). God never ceases to amaze with the plan that He used to reconcile the world to Himself and to each other. The most ugly, violent execution brings about everlasting peace. Jesus would literally endure anything so that we might have peace.

The second half of the passage details the great blessing that in Christ there are no foreigners, no outsiders. Instead, we are all joined together into a great building, a temple. And what dwells in that temple? Nobody less than our living God by His Holy Spirit. What an incredible reward! All because Jesus, Our Prince of Peace, established His everlasting peace with us through the Cross.

For reflection: