As I sat down to consider what peace means for me and generally this Advent, an old children’s song kept running through my head – Joy in my Heart.

I’ve got the joy joy joy etc and so on. If you grew up in the church pre-2000s I think you probably know it.

A later verse of the song, sometimes not sung if the Sunday School teachers tired of the repetitive nature of it all too soon, was about peace.

I’ve got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart

Where? Down in my heart!

Where? Down in my heart

I’ve got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart to stay.

My initial response to this memory was – wow another catchy little tune I was taught in my youth that is misaligned with my theology and set me up for disappointment in my inability to live it out. 

As I consider the lyrics there is a lot of disconnect. First, I don’t, presently, feel much peace,  Second, peace, true peace, is more than something I feel, i.e. something that’s down in my heart. And finally, “to stay”? Like most things any sense of peace I have ever had is more an ebb and flow than a permanent condition.

Yeah I’m super fun at parties.

But I realize I am being too harsh. There is something to be said for that old bop. But probably not the way I interpreted it back in the day. I did think of peace as a feeling and one that might be bestowed from on high. It would take away any fear or anxiety I had and I could walk around sort of above it all. 

Yup definitely not what the Bible has to say about peace and probably not what the little Joy, joy, joy ditty meant to convey either.

It’s that “passes understanding” part that I think is spot on.

So what is the peace that passes understanding and what is my relationship to it?

In his Sermon on the mount Jesus said:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Matthew 5:9

In his latest book Jim Wallis reviews this passage:

“Peacemaking is a verb. Words matter. Peace is a word that is at best overused and misused and at worst abused. So how do we make sense of what Jesus is saying . . . Jesus never said blessed are the peace lovers. Why would he have bothered? Don’t we all fall under that umbrella? But a preference for peace on its own doesn’t produce peace. We all think and say that we love peace, but what is just in our heads and even in our hearts is not enough. Jesus also never said blessed are the peacekeepers. Sometimes peace is kept so that the status quo may not be disturbed, but there’s no nobility in maintaining peace in the midst of injustice and oppression. In that case peacekeeping is almost nothing more than silent complicity. Rather, Jesus told his disciples that God’s blessings are reserved for the peace makers.” (The False White Gospel by Jim Wallis)

Shalom and Eirene, the Hebrew and Greek words for peace used in the scriptures, are not feelings or even simply an absence of conflict. No this peace, the peace we are to make is about a wholeness

“Walter Brueggemann describes shalom as God’s persistent vision that all of creation be as one, each in community with the other, “living in harmony and security toward the joy and well-being of every other creature.” (Reflections – Yale “The Search for a Peacemaking Culture”)

In an early sermon Martin Luther King spoke of his concept of peace, one he would often return to:

“Peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—war, tension, confusion, but it is the presence of some positive force—justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God.”

So while I do believe, and have known, a seemingly supernatural sense of contentment I know the Lord offered me, peace – Shalom and Eirene – is something else, something deeper. It passes understanding not because it is a supernatural gift, though it is made possible only through the in-breaking of God. It is something we are called to make, to seek and to co-create. And this Advent season I am considering how to be part of ushering in this peace that God broke into the world to bring to us all.

For to us a child is born,

    to us a son is given,

    and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace

    there will be no end.

Isaiah 9: 6