Expecting Heaven on Earth: Peace on Earth - Stephen

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play

And mild and sweet their songs repeat

Of peace on earth good will to men

 

And in despair I bowed my head

There is no peace on earth I said

For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men

 

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1863)

 
“Peace on earth, good will toward men!” 
 
That’s the proclamation the angels of heaven made that first Christmas night. But look around you—ever since those angels came over 2,000 years ago, peace seems to be moving further away from earth not closer. War, political unrest, a pandemic, natural disasters—and that’s just a description of this year alone. And how could we forget murder hornets…doesn’t sound very peaceful to me. 
 
So that leaves us with two options in relation to the angels’ words that first Christmas: (1) they lied or (2) we have misunderstood the kind of peace that Christ had come to bring. As a believer in Christ (aka Christian), I tend to believe it is option #2. I do believe we have all been guilty at times in our lives to believe that Jesus bringing “peace on earth” that first Christmas meant that we should expect a form of “heaven on earth.” But, as believers and unbelievers alike, is that what we should expect? 
 
Should we expect the never-ending wars of yesteryears to magically become the never-ending peace of tomorrow? Should we expect the dark clouds of history to become an unending supply of sunshine in the days to come? Should we expect everyone to get along where once they never did? Should we expect wars to cease, evils against each other to evaporate, and the wickedness of the sex trade, the porn industry, and the drug cartels to be completely vanquished from the face of the earth? Are these things we should realistically expect?
 
Most of us, if we’re honest, would call someone who believed those things to take place crazy! Yet isn’t that what we talk like we expect? For many of us here are some statements we have made over the last year— “I never thought it would get this bad,” “I never thought that could ever happen,” “Why can’t everyone just get along,” or “If that person becomes president, I think everything will get back to being just fine.” These statements reveal something within us all—we expect things on this earth to be better than they are. Deep down we all, for some reason, expect a little “heaven on earth.” But why?
 
If we believe the Bible when it says our world is sinful and fallen, and where the people who live here are people with hearts “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9), why do we expect it to be better? It would seem we are expecting people deemed sinful and fallen by scripture to live according to the rules of heaven. Yet, as Christians, we understand that it is only as fruit of the Spirit that we can even begin to obtain “love, joy, peace” and other Christ-like traits in our own lives, so why would we expect someone apart from the Spirit to possess those same traits? 
 
Now I am not seeking to shame those who have a desire for heaven because I believe that is God-given to us all. But may we as Christians be sure that our expectations are realistically divided between those of heaven and those of earth. For if we unrealistically (and unscriptually) expect “heaven on earth” we can’t help but continue to be disillusioned with this world; but if we realistically see this fallen world for what it is our hopes and desires for the life to come will only grow as God intended. As C.S. Lewis famously said: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”  
 
How we as Christians view this world (properly or improperly) will influence how we view the next. So how then shall we live in this life? Let’s look to the examples of those who have come before us in the faith— 

“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”

Hebrews 11:13-16

 
The promises of heaven will not come as long as we are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” That “peace on earth” Jesus brought that first Christmas was the bringing of peace now available between a holy God and a sinful man. Therefore, as long as sin exists, peace should exist within us but won’t always with those around us. 
 
Yet when Jesus came He also gave us a glimpse of what that peace will be when it is completely fulfilled in eternity—the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, and the mute will talk. Add to that no more sickness, no more death, and no more tears for as the Scripture reveals before it’s close: “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)
 
THAT is the hope of “heaven on earth” that now dwells within us…and one day soon will exist forever around us.

Then rang the bells more loud and deep

God is not dead, nor does he sleep (peace on earth, peace on earth)

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail 

With peace on earth, good will to men!