18 Days to Christmas — Sunday, December 7, 2025

Our Piece of Peace

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent, the Sunday when many churches focus on Peace.  To some, peace may sound quiet or even unexciting. But to me — and to many of us — peace is almost everything.

When most people hear “peace,” they think of the absence of war. For thousands of years the world has longed for global peace, and yet it remains something humanity has rarely achieved. Even so, we keep reaching for it, because something deep inside us knows we were created for peace.

For others, peace means reconciliation — two people healing what has been broken between them. Sometimes that feels almost as impossible as world peace. Pride, hurt, misunderstanding, and disappointment can build walls quickly, and when reconciliation doesn’t come, it leaves sadness and grief behind.

Still others hear “peace” and think of being released from physical, mental, or emotional suffering. For someone living with chronic pain, anxiety, depression, trauma, or loneliness, the ability simply to breathe freely can feel like the greatest gift imaginable.

Many families long for peace at home — a space where people speak kindly and love generously. But even those we love the most can sometimes hurt us the deepest. When peace breaks down at home, it leaves scars that take time to heal: feelings of abandonment, betrayal, or fear.

Conflict can emerge anywhere. It shows up in workplaces, in schools, in churches, and everywhere people gather. Wherever there are people, there will eventually be conflict.

As a pastor, I’ve been asked many times why God allows conflict at all — between people, families, communities, nations, or within our own hearts. It’s a painful question, because all of us know what it feels like to be caught in conflict without a clear way through it.

However, I’ve learned this: God does not desire conflict for His people.  God desires true, restoring peace. Scripture is full of stories showing both the presence and the absence of that peace.

At the same time, God has given humanity a profound gift — free will. God did not create us as robots programmed to behave perfectly. God created people who can choose: to love or not love, to forgive or not forgive, to listen or refuse to listen. Real love requires real choice, and free will means conflict becomes possible.

But God has not left us alone in the struggle.  Each Advent we remember that God sent Jesus, the Prince of Peace, into a world drowning in conflict. Jesus did not come to remove every problem at once. He came to show us what peace looks like in a human life, to heal what is broken, and to plant the seeds of God’s Kingdom within us.

So today, on the Sunday of Peace, I pray for all who live in the shadow of conflict — in their homes, their relationships, their circumstances, or within their own hearts.

May each of us experience our piece of God’s peace this Christmas season —
not because everything becomes perfect,
but because Christ draws near.
And where Christ draws near…
peace follows.

“I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.”  (John 14:27, The Message).