Romans 12:18:
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”
In addition to its excitement, the Christmas season often presents its own challenges: financial stress, seasonal overwhelm, loneliness, and especially relational friction. Some of the very moments that make Christmas special can also make it painful. This is because value and vulnerability go hand in hand. If our relationships didn’t matter to us, we wouldn’t feel their fractures so deeply.
As we dwell on the theme of peace in this second week of Advent, we might ask: Confronted with relational pain, how can we foster peace? Paul’s words in Romans 12:18 offer a helpful starting point: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” This verse provides a couple of takeaways.
First, peace begins in the inner life. When Paul says, “as far as it depends on you,” he points out our sphere of responsibility: letting our hearts be shaped by the peace Christ has already provided. In Romans 5:1, Paul says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Advent reminds us that Jesus is not only the foundation for our peace, but also God’s embodied peace coming near. Before attempting to foster peace with others, we first receive Christ’s peace for our own hearts. His peace secures, heals, and orders our hearts. When our inner world is brought into harmony with Christ, peace naturally extends outward toward others.
Second, we cannot produce relational peace on our own. Relational peace requires the cooperation of others, which means that we cannot force its attainment. What we can do is invite Christ into those places in our lives that resist his peace – places of pride, mistrust, and hurt. Advent trains us in this waiting posture where we offer our efforts and entrust the outcome to Christ. And, if peace with others is unattainable, we can rest in good conscience knowing that the rupture is not due to our choices.
Let us begin this second Advent week by inviting Christ, the Prince of Peace into whatever feels disordered, distressed, or unsettled within us. From this place of receiving, let us extend peace toward others, especially toward those relationships marked by tension. As we endeavor to live at peace with all we remember that ultimate reconciliation belongs to Christ alone, the one who came, who is coming again, and who has already reconciled all things by making “peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”