Our world of the 21st Century is full of stories of ambition, struggle, success, pain, rescue, loss, self help and even overcoming. But in our world, most of the good and bad stories are filled with one thing: conflict. Whether personal, relational, physical or even war, conflict fills the story of humanity in our century. And this has been true for thousands of years.

At the time of the writing of the Isaiah 9 passage, the prophet was speaking to the kingdom of Judah, both warning and assuring them of the judgments and mercies of God that would be coming to them. War was constantly present throughout the area. The daunting threat of the regional power, Assyria, was looming. Soon thereafter, Assyria would invade Judah and send them into exile. In this context, God’s message through Isaiah is that he would send his representative who would rule the Jews (“The government will rest on His shoulders”), relieving them of the conflicts and wars (“Prince of Peace”). One can imagine that they must have interpreted this to be a new king or military champion who would save the Jewish people from their foes and perhaps even regather the Hebrew tribes.

But what we know now is that the child who would be “Prince of Peace” would be the man of peace, Jesus. The Jews context in Isaiah’s time had them expecting a political or military person as a solution that would bring them “peace.”  But God’s answer was a person who was the embodiment of love (“God is love” - 1 Jn 4:8) as the means of bringing them peace. Even though it may seem like we need power, influence or success to bring peace, Jesus shows us that true peace only comes through love.