Our capacity to make peace with another person and with the world depends very much on our capacity to make peace with ourselves. -Thich Nhat Hanh

One of Jesus’s many titles is “Prince of Peace,”
and for those anticipating some violent warrior god,
the title is beautifully disarming.

Through the way he chose to live,
through the company he chose to keep,
through the things he chose to say,
through the challenges he chose to make,
through the way he chose to die,
we see Jesus repeatedly choose peace.

And while the biblical account shows this external peace,
this interpersonal piece,
it’s more subtle in its portrayal of Jesus’s inner peace.

Here was a man truly comfortable in his own skin,
who could nap during a storm
and who had no qualms stepping away for solitude and rest,
a man content with mere fish and bread,
when at a word,
he could have brought down kingly banquets from the heavens.
Jesus of Nazareth— mighty and yet humble.

Yet the Peace of Christ goes even deeper than this,
for we know that the Son’s oneness
with the Spirit and the Father
yield a greater internal peace than we can know.
The Trinity is peace itself,
perfect communion,
perfect harmony.

And on this, the second Sunday of Advent,
we look to that peace,
which Christ preached to us and modeled for us,
that peace into which we will one day be called,
a peace which we glimpse in our earthly relationships,
especially —I hope— in our relationships with ourselves.

May peace find you today.

The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh passed away in January of 2022, so to celebrate his life and teaching, each post this Advent is guided by a quote from Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ.