The Angels Did Not Lie

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”                            –Luke 2:14

“And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men"

 – I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I was listening to Christmas music the other day as I was making Dutch Apple Pie for Christmas, when the song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day came on.  The words in the verse above struck me with even more force than they usually do.  I stopped my peeling and chopping for a minute to think about the seemingly insurmountable amount of division and ill will in the world right now.  The song continued to its crescendo of hope, but I was left pondering the seemingly failed promise of “Peace on Earth.”  Did the Angels lie, I wondered.  Where was this illusive promised peace?  Had it ever existed in human history?

The next day I happened to see a post where someone quoted Luke 2:14.  I stared at it and thought that it was misquoted.  I was raised with the King James translation of that verse which ends with, “And on earth peace, good will toward men.”  This English Standard Version rendering of the words jarred me.  

This peace, of which the Angels sang, was promised specifically to “those with whom [God] is pleased!”  If I didn’t know the gospel, I would have thought, ‘Well, that explains everything!  There may be a couple of people out there with whom God is pleased, but they are the only ones who have peace.  The rest of us are out of luck!’ 

I do know the gospel, however, and suddenly my spirits lifted.  The “peace” Christ came to bring is not the same “World Peace” for which every beauty pageant queen has wished.  It is the peace between God and man.  The very “Shalom” of God. 

It is the lost peace spoken of in Isaiah 48:18,                                                                                                “Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

    Then your peace would have been like a river
    and your righteousness like the waves of the sea….”

It is the promise of restored peace as found in Isaiah 66:12

"For thus says the Lord:

‘Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,
    and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip,
    and bounced upon her knees.’”  

It is the peace, the reconciliation, that could only come through the one human with whom God has ever been well-pleased, his Son.  That baby, about whom the angels sang, was the only one who ever “paid attention” to the commandments of God and whose righteousness was like the waves of the sea.  His obedience alone allowed the river of peace to become an overflowing stream to the nations.  

The Angels’ song may not have promised the universal peace on this earth for which we long, but that unfulfilled longing points to its ultimate fulfillment for all who take refuge in Jesus, the promised Messiah.  First, in him, we receive, right now, our peace with God and from that peace we have the assurance that we will one day enjoy an eternity of peace in the earth made new.