(Originally from Missouri, Dr. Joe Nichols serves as Pastor at Christ the Lord Community Church in Salina, Kansas. He is also an adjunct professor of Christian Apologetics at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.)
The fourth candle of Advent is often called the candle of peace. When the angel announced the birth of Jesus to shepherds in the region of Bethlehem, the annunciation was punctuated by the following event: 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:13-14). Literally, in the Greek, this last clause reads, and on earth peace among men of goodwill. The peace which the angels proclaimed was certainly a relational peace, the abolition of enmity between man and God who made him. It is also the abolition of enmity between man and his fellow man in the kingdom of God. Because of Jesus, it would now be possible for man to enjoy the kind of communion with God that had not been quite possible since the first sin in the garden of Eden. The apostle Paul stated it this way: 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).
Relational peace with God through Christ brings about another kind of peace that is particularly important in missions. It is the kind of peace that calms the heart and mind in the presence of turmoil and chaos. Let me show you what I mean. In the Summer of 2006, I was blessed with the means and opportunity to travel overseas on two separate short-term mission trips. The first of these two trips was to Beirut, Lebanon. A few days after we had landed and begun our work in Beirut, war broke out between an Islamic faction, residing in Beirut, and the neighboring nation of Israel. As we sat in our hotel in Jounieh, bombs were going off just miles away in downtown Beirut. At one point, a bomb was dropped on a military installation not more than a few hundred yards from our hotel. The news was not encouraging. The Israelis had destroyed the runways at the Beirut airport, and many people who were trying to flee from Lebanon were encountering difficulties at the borders.
At one point, we assembled our team and made the decision to charter a bus to take us out through Syria and into Jordan, where we would wait until we could find a way home. One member of our group felt rather uneasy about the decision, so we stopped to pray for guidance. Twenty minutes later, as we sat in the hotel lobby with our suitcases packed, waiting for the bus that would take us on our chosen route, the local TV news station reported that Americans fleeing Lebanon were being turned away at the Syrian border. Of course, we abandoned that idea. In the meantime, we had found a friend in Laura, an American woman who had come to Beirut to adopt a son and who was staying at our hotel. Laura was waiting for an entanglement in her adoption paperwork to clear up before she could return to the States with her son. Laura shared with us the name and number of her contact at the U.S. Embassy. We called the man, and he arranged for us to come to the Embassy, where we would await further instructions. After no small amount of confusion and the monumental task of caravanning in four cars through Beirut traffic, we finally arrived at the Embassy and all at the same time, which was a miracle in itself. Once inside we were ushered to a waiting facility near the helipad. Two hours later, two transport helicopters, manned by the U.S. Marines were delivering us to Cyprus where the State Department had chartered a plane to take us to Manchester, U.K. and then on to Baltimore. We arrived home only 2 days after we had originally planned to be there.
Once we had made contact with our friend at the Embassy in Beirut and the wheels were set in motion to deliver us home, an incredible sense of calm came over me. I knew that there was no decision that I could make nor action that I could take to effect our fate for better or worse. Even as we scurried through the streets of Beirut like confused rats in a maze, even as we were prepped and loaded onto a military chopper (which is an incredibly cool experience, by the way), even as we considered what would happen to us when we arrived in Cyprus (as we did not know about the chartered plane until we arrived), I remember being completely at peace with our circumstances. The only thing I could do at that point was to relax trust and ride in the hands of God, and in those of the people whom He had sent before us, to carry us home.
So it was, on the mission field, that I embraced the truth of Philippians 4:4-7: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
And so it was, some five weeks later, at 2:00 in the morning, as I stepped off a bus onto a dark street in Zaporozhye, Ukraine, I had peace. As our team was told that we were not staying in a hotel, as we originally thought we would, but were to split up into groups of two and three and to go home with three large Ukrainian men whom we had never met, and with whom we shared no common language, I had peace. And so it was, a few days later, when my host Sergei, placed me in a rickety taxicab, uttered something to the driver in a language that I did not understand and sent me alone on my way, I had peace. I had peace with God, because Jesus Christ purchased it with His blood. I had peace in my heart in the midst of stressful situations, because I was once again riding in the hands of my Almighty Father.
And though I have often failed in this regard, so it has often been the case since those times that when my circumstances were out of my ability to control them, I am still able to find peace in the God in Whose hands I ride, because I have peace with Him through Christ.
This Christmas season, for those of you who are or will soon be on mission for God, whether that takes you around the world or across the street, my prayer is that you will find peace of mind and be able to relax and ride in the hands of God, even when mission takes you to places and circumstances where chaos and turmoil abound. For those of you who may not yet know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, my prayer is that you will embrace Him as both, and that you will find the peace that He brings to men and women of His goodwill. The angels outside of Bethlehem proclaimed this peace in a prophetic sort of way. The Christ Child whose birth they celebrated would procure this peace as He took our sins upon himself and carried them to a Cross, where He would die as our atoning sacrifice. Three days later, He would rise, achieving victory over death and assuring a future victory for those who believe. Place your trust in Christ and find peace with God.
Merry Christmas, and may God bless you!
Rev. Joe Nichols
