The Peace in Advent
During the famous scene in the Garden of Eden, God gives them consequences after the humans try to take God’s place as knowers of good and evil. But He also gives us a diagnosis for the human condition, the natural consequences, and hope for lasting peace.
I am oversimplifying here. But God tells them that in a world where humans are going to be the ones who decide what is good and what is evil, there is going to be hostility. The woman will have offspring, and the snake will also have descendants, and they will conflict. But one descendant from the woman's line will come and crush, not the descendants of the snake, but the snake itself (I don’t believe the Bible is talking about literal baby snakes here). This is the first Messianic prophecy in the Bible. The rest of Genesis goes on to show how everyone, even the people of God, can choose to align themselves with God or the snake. With life or death. We can choose to be descendants of the woman or the snake.
During Advent, we ritually replay the anticipation for the Messiah that all creation experienced from those early moments in Genesis until the very first Christmas.
In a world where peace feels like a scarce commodity, we cannot afford to be vague when we talk about the peace that Jesus brings. Jesus is the one who will deal with evil. Evil in the individual human heart, our collective evil, and our use of violence to enforce good and evil as we have defined it. Jesus accomplishes this by going to its source and providing us with everything we need to follow him. The peace we celebrate at Advent is not peace by our own design or making. It is the peace of Jesus. When we, in our own wisdom, try to define peace, we tend to spend our time defining who is a snake. We tend to crush those who we determine are our enemies. But God, in infinite wisdom, saw fit to provide us with the one who would address evil at its source. His name is Jesus. This is why Paul, in the New Testament, can say that “our conflict is not against flesh and blood but with powers and principalities” because the stories of the Old Testament shaped him. Paul understood Jesus as the one who dealt a crushing blow to the snake itself, even while being struck himself. Jesus was not a baby-snake crusher in Paul’s mind. This is, of course, perfectly aligned with the same Jesus that commanded us to love our enemies (A commandment that is only reasonable if evil is being held accountable another way).
The book of Genesis ends, and the snake crusher has not yet arrived. But Joseph gives us a glimpse at what it looks like to partner with God correctly (and he provides the best summary of Genesis out there). Joseph finds himself in a position to deal with his brothers, who have very much been enemies to him, according to his own wisdom. He could achieve peace as he defines it. He could repay their evil with Justice. Instead, he says, “am I in the place of God? … you crafted evil, but God was crafting good… in order to save many”. The conflict in the story of Genesis begins with humans and rebellious spiritual beings seeking to take the place of God. As the story continues, they plot evil and do violence which they deem wise. But God is at work to save many. The ideal human partner refuses the temptation to take God’s place and trusts that God will hold evil accountable and save many. This is the peace we celebrate at Advent. This is the heart posture the biblical story trains us to have: trust in the Prince of Peace.
Pastor Luis Oceguera