Advent Peace: Part I

The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overpower it.
- John 1.5

Advent is a dark time. As we journey through it, we have the opportunity to face the darkness within us and outside of us. And we face it in hope. In hope of the glory of God, now revealed in the face of Jesus - the Light of the world. We face the darkness of our present experiences in the light of God's promise of a New Day, a day of justice and peace.

And yet...

The reality is, we live in an age of violence and war. We cannot hide from this reality. We live in a world where powerful policy and monetary relationships between legislators, national armed forces, and the industrial sector form a sort-of 'iron triangle' that forcefully oppresses and enslaves people around the world. This "military-industrial complex" (MIC) is an all pervasive reality in modern western civilization. The MIC has been defined as "an informal and changing coalition of groups with vested psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs" (Carroll W. Pursell, The military-industrial complex, Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1972).

Please note, when I speak of the MIC, I am not simply throwing stones at the glass house of America. The highly profitable business of war-waging has been conducted with impunity by Canadian Liberal and Conservative governments for decades. About three-quarters of Canada’s military exports flow to the U.S. to help arm the iron fist of the American military.

Why do I say all of this? Because the net result of our cultures of violence result in untold devastation within the human and natural world.

Take, for example, the war in Iraq (which has, for a long time now, been conveniently pushed out of the imagination of many people in the western world!). There have been two scientifically rigorous cluster surveys conducted since the US-led invasion in March 2003. "The first, published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, estimated that 100,000 excess Iraqi deaths had resulted from the invasion as of September 2004. The second survey, also published in The Lancet, updated that estimate through July 2006. Due to an escalating mortality rate, the researchers estimated that over 650,000 Iraqis had died who would not have died had the death rate remained at pre-invasion levels. Roughly 601,000 of those excess deaths were due to violence...As of January 2008, a poll from the British polling firm Opinion Research Business contributed to our understanding of the Iraqi death toll, confirming the likelihood that over a million have died with an estimate of 1.2 million deaths." (http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/deathcount/explanation)

Almost 9 years of war in Iraq; an estimated $1.2 trillion of American money spent on the war machine; billions of dollars in profits because of Canadian military exports; untold damage done to the natural environment; and an estimated one million Iraqi people (mostly civilians!) are dead. Approximately one million Iraqi human beings are dead because of an unjust war. This death toll most likely eclipses the number of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.

Yet, our so-called North American mainstream media has not cover the story for years. No connections are made in the mainstream media. We hear no substantive discussion or debate about this on the evening news in Canada or the US. Little to no public discourse. This is entirely shameful. Devilish. From the pit of hell. And we are all to blame! That's right, it's the responsibility of the citizenry to gather, discuss, apply pressure on our leaders. It is our responsibility to act and demand action.

Advent.

And so, we continue to journey through the season of Advent. A dark time. Literally, the darkest time of the year. And only when we take the time and effort to face the darkness within us and outside of us, are we graced with a Godly perspective on how the Light shines in the darkness, bringing hope and peace to the world.

Shalom. Peace.

God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Messiah, and through him to reconcile everything to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross - whether things on earth or things in heaven. Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds because of your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him - if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.
- Colossians 1.19-23

God’s purposes for the world’s redemption are fulfilled in the Messiah Jesus. By his coming in the flesh and the blood he shed on the cross, all of creation has been reconciled to God. Peace has been established in creation.

In Christ, God offers shalom to a world gone mad.

Creation is God and Christ’s good work. Nothing can change that. Not even the evils and idolatry of the military-industrial complex. The world, though spoiled by sin, still belongs to God. God has a good plan for his world and it will be accomplished. Christ’s redemption is the way the Lord of the cosmos has come to claim his rightful possession and to establish peace in it.

When we encounter the story of the Story of Jesus, we discover that in a world where humans try to establish peace by making war, God sends his Son to live a peaceable life, to die by the violence of the cross and under the weight of sin, and to rise in newness of life.

God has triumphed over the power of evil and reconciled his sin-spoiled creation through the violence of the cross. This is the deep paradox of the Christian faith.

Through the blood of Jesus’ cross, God exhausts the force of evil, God shares the suffering of humanity, God gives us life, and God establishes peace in the world.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” says Jesus (John 14.27). Peace is the divine gift offered to all people.

That's enough for now. More later...