“Peace, peace; it’s hard to find, trouble comes like a wrecking ball to your peace of mind, and all that worry you can’t leave behind you.”

These are the opening lyrics to a song on one of my all-time favorite Christmas albums, O Holy Night by Sara Groves. They’ve been hitting harder than ever these last two years as we’ve slowly come in and out of a pandemic into our post-pandemic “normal,” whatever that is. As an enneagram 9, “the peacemaker,” my core desire, my intrinsic longing, is for inner peace and stability. But how am I supposed to find peace or stability in a world with Covid, and politics, and war, and my own struggles with sins that have plagued me since childhood? Impossible, right?

Isaiah 9:6 announces Jesus as the Prince of Peace. And Isaiah proclaims that he is born to us, that this son is being given to us. Jesus – and by extension, his peace – is for us, in every sense. The government is upon his shoulders, not ours. And compare Jesus’ title of Prince of Peace with Satan’s title of the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2). How insubstantial is that title, and how flimsy the power that goes with it! 

Jesus promises that we will have trouble in this world. The prince of the power of the air is still ruling, unfortunately. That prince delights in escalating the troubles of a post-Covid world, and politics, and our own inner sins and fears. But Jesus, the Prince of Peace, also promises his own peace to us. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). 

By the way, the ending lyrics of the song I mentioned before: “All your hopes and fears are met in him tonight.” 

Take heart – he has overcome the world!