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Luke 2
The answer to that longing has come.

“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
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
      Isaiah 9:6

May the peace of Christmas be with you. Certainly, with the children there is anxiety and excitement that leads up to Christmas. It can be exhausting. Then comes the thrill of opening presents. After all of the excitement and noise of unwrapping presents, there’s a lull as children play with their gifts. It’s like the peace of mother and child after labour pains, the agony and expectation and the doubts, ‘Am I going to make it?’ Certainly, as an onlooker, you can think, ‘Is this all it’s meant to be?’ Then, for the majority, there’s that moment of peace as mother and child are skin to skin. Wonderful.

Well, our Saviour has come! Could He really fulfil the promise? Could such a wonderful child be born to this world? There is this longing of scriptures of the Old Testament times. Yes, indeed. All throughout Luke’s infancy narrative, we find many references to peace. The Prince of Peace has come, that is what Luke is telling us. Zachariah was told that this special boy would restore relationships horizontally and vertically between men and between God. Mary was told her greater, special boy, the Lord Jesus, would sit on the throne of His Father David, reigning forever as King. This is the Kingdom reign described in Isaiah 9. Zechariah sang of the coming of God’s of tender mercy, that He would guide our feet into the path of peace.

The shepherds were told of this King, listening to the song from heaven of the angels, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, Peace to men on whom God’s favour rests.’

We rejoice this Christmas Day; God sent His Son, the Prince of Peace, who rules over His land in peace. He is a peace-giving and a peaceable Saviour. He speaks peaceable words that bring restoration and joy.

In His coming, our Saviour achieves peace. God didn’t send into this world a good politician, a diplomat. He stands in the gulf between men and God. Through the cross He bridges the gap, that chasm between men and God. The chasm is too deep for us, we need Jesus, that bridge. Because of His incarnation, we have this mediator between Man and God. The Son came to take on human nature. The Father will never renege on His holiness.

We all think of Christmas Day in different ways. Will you keep peace? The demands of the perfect Christmas are very high – the peaceable Christmas where no one falls out. The Father demands upon mankind are very high – unattainable for us on our own, yet not unreasonable. We mess everything, but praise God, Jesus did not mess up this day. He came and He lived for us. He achieves peace. Dear friends, as you think about the achievement of Jesus’ incarnation, of His coming to reign over you as the Prince of Peace, are you realising that? Are you going to maintain that peacefulness today?

God has led us, He has been with us, yet we often lack that sense of peace within us. We complain about being lonely, but He has been there. Maybe we complain about the lack of gifts. But God has given us the greatest gift. We should be all about peace. We should pray for peace, that we will be those who are living under the peace of Christ. God is near to us. He achieves things by His coming, by His living the perfect life, by His going to the cross, by His ascension, He achieves peace. It is settled, it is done. Peace has been made you and your Creator. Praise His name.

Secondly, He brings peace. When you know Jesus Christ, you know peace. He has driven that definitive blow to enmity itself. God has created us and given us life and this gift. Let’s celebrate that. Let’s be thoughtful of others and express our love. Think of family, the homeless. Man wants to remove God from the picture, to be thankless., to forget about the real meaning of Christmas Selfishness leads to anger and anger leads to violence. When you are right with God, peace ensues between God and Man. Peace must radiate from within towards others. Jesus came not to ponder peace in some ethereal idea, but to bring peace. The baby Jesus lying in that feeding trough was destined to die on a cross. As He died on the cross He carried the hatred of people towards God. He died so that we might be forgiven and experience peace and would also be peacemakers as well.

He achieves peace, He brings peace and He sustains peace. It’s a lasting peace. We know that unofficial story of that ceasefire in the First World War where those soldiers met and sang Silent Night and they played a game of football. It’s a wonderful, uplifting story. We all know that just a moment later the gun fire returned. It was short-lived. We know that any peace made on this horizontal level is short-lived.

The peace that the shepherds heard of must be more than a brief moment. There are manufactured peace treaties made, that look like peace, but really underneath the animosity is still there. May be some families are saying today, ‘I’ll keep my mouth shut for mum. I want to keep mum happy today, it’s a special day for her. I’m not going to say the things that I want to say.’ Brother and sister are going to get on today for mum. That’s fine, but it’s just going to last a day, isn’t it?

This perfect peace that Christ achieved in His coming is utterly secured by the Father. That’s why we speak of this justice being higher than any other. This justice has brought forth this plan of the Incarnation, of the cross, of Jesus’ work of salvation, of what He achieved. Justice itself came up with this. Therefore, it is a permanent solution. You know where you stand with God. I know where I stand with Him. I know that Jesus is my Saviour and I know that my salvation is secure. The Father will never take that away from me. He will never change His laws, His mind. He will never grow tired and weary of me. He will stay with me forever and ever because of Jesus. I know because Jesus came I will always be fundamentally at peace. I don’t always work it out in this lifetime because sin still remains, yet I am at peace.

Let’s make sure we spend some time realising God is for me, God isn’t against me. He will be with me forever. We have a wonderful song to sing, the Christmas message. Praise God with songs all year round. We really will be at peace, peace will reign where ere Jesus is King and Prince of our lives. “Peace I leave with you.”