Casey McCall
What first comes to mind when you hear the word “Christmas?” For many of us, we imagine music, decorations and traditions. Others think more subjectively about feelings of warmth and joy. Of course, for multitudes, Christmas brings the sad reminder of loss. For the church, Christmas should cause reflection on meaning of the baby born of a virgin, lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloths. It’s a season of gathering to remember God’s promises fulfilled and the joy of hope eternal.
If the thought of Christmas brings “war” to mind, then it’s probably the culture war. Sadly for many, the “War on Christmas” means responding grumpily when the cashier says, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” We’ve got important battles to win.
But Christmas has everything to do with real war, like the violent and bloody one being fought between Russia and Ukraine right now. War occurs because human beings are enslaved to our passions. It is the expression of unfulfilled human desire. We want something and other people stand in our way, so we eliminate them (Jam 4:1-2). We kill in the name of getting what we want—whether land, money, power or glory. We would rather shed innocent blood than withhold something we want from ourselves. While it is impossible to know for sure, some estimate that as many as one billion people have been killed in war in human history. Human desire is a powerful killer.
No generation has ever experienced life without war. Sure, some eras are relatively peaceful for some people in some nations. However, wars and threats of war are a constant feature of the human experience. Calls for “world peace” have never even come close to ending this predicament. To be human is to know war.
Reflecting on the ubiquity of war in human history helps us respond appropriately to Isaiah’s radical vision in Isaiah 2:1-4. The word God gives the prophet ought to astound us. He tells Judah that one day God’s temple will be lifted higher than any mountain on earth and that all nations will flow to it. Remarkably, the peoples who come do not come by force of bayonet or under threat of assault. They come willingly to learn God’s ways. In this glorious future, weapons of war are no longer even needed. In fact, they’ve been repurposed as farming tools because “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
How do you get a race that has only ever known war—one that God wiped out once before because it “was corrupt in God’s sight” and “filled with violence” (Gen 6:11)—to finally stop fighting and live peaceably with one another? How do you finally succeed in the impossible ideal of world peace? How do you finally stop the nations and politicians from tearing each other to shreds? The answer, in one word, is Christmas.
How can the baby lying in a manger end all wars? If we skip ahead, we will learn that the baby born of Mary is the eternal Son of God and that he will one day grow up to judge God’s enemies, bringing destruction upon their heads. That ought to do the trick. Jesus will use violence to condemn violence. He will thrash God’s enemies without mercy. Judgment is coming, and Jesus will be the Judge. We might not like that part of the story, but it’s coming.
But let’s not skip ahead too quickly. Again, the nations at peace in Isaiah’s prophecy are coming, not to face the wrath of God, but to learn God’s ways in submission. They want to be a part of his new kingdom. No one forces them to do it, which means there’s a way to enter Jesus’ peace without experiencing his just wrath. There’s a way to know the end of all wars without having to endure the just war of Jesus.
Before the conquering King judges sinners, he endures their violence. Before he pours out his wrath on them, he submits to the war sparked by their sin. Why does Jesus do this? Why does he suffer? Why does he submit to shame, humiliation and ultimately, death on the cross? He does it because he loves the people he made. He does it to fulfill a divine promise to Abraham that one day his offspring would bless all the nations of the world. He came to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20).
Christmas has everything to do with war. Jesus came to endure war to save his enemies. His enemies who refuse him will endure their own war. But, in the end, his war will end all wars. A day is coming when humans will no longer need to learn war to live. That day starts now if you’re willing to submit to him.
Casey McCall is the lead pastor at Ashland Community Church in Buckner.
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Neither shall they learn war anymore: An Advent reflection – pmg-ky1.com
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