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Record Live is a conversation about life, spirituality and following Jesus in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Hi there, everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Zanita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church, faith, and living well.
We believe as followers of Jesus, faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we put into practice.
Let's go live. And we're back on Record Live. Thank you for joining us this week. We are coming to the end of another year and that means Christmas is almost upon us. However, it's good to be joined by Jesse, my colleague, my friend, my associate editor for Signs of the Times magazine.
Jesse, thank you for joining us today.
Good to be here, Jared. Excited to, spend some time with you and all the lovely folks online.
Yes, and we have entitled today's episode, Can There Be Peace On Earth? It seems as we wind into this Christmas season, some of us have had a year that feels anything but peaceful.
There are world conflicts going on in the pages of our newspapers and the Bulletins, the headlines of our, commercial news, et cetera, that just seemed to, the world seems to be a conflict filled place. Let's put it that way. So I wrote an editorial, of war and peace. It's going to come out on the 23rd of December in churches, but it's already up on our website today.
So if you visit our record website at record. adventistchurch. com, you will see that, article there and you can read it there already. And it basically, I was flying to Europe recently and I was flying through a conflict zone. I saw the pictures on the map and the little names next to the cities.
And I saw Mosul. I saw Raqqa, I saw Baghdad, and In the last few years, some of these names of these cities have been headlines for bombings, for war,, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, , the Syrian war, and now there's another conflict in the Middle East, the Israel Gaza, , conflict, Israel Hamas war, and it just feels like as you're flying through, wow, wow.
It brings it home, for me at least, it brought it home because we're on the other side of the world here in Australia and It's very easy to be disconnected, , from names on a map that are on the other side of the globe, but when you're there flying, , perhaps you're hundreds of kilometers away, but it's only hundreds of kilometers, not thousands.
It feels that much more real. And then as we flew up through that channel, across the Arabian sort of peninsula there and into towards Europe. And, I started seeing other names on the map, Odessa, Sebastopol, these are places in,, Ukraine. And there's also still war going on. It's less in our headlines, but they're still locked in a conflict.
And so it just brought it home. It. prompted some reflection from myself, and that's where we got the article, ,, and today's topic, we wanted to unpack some of these ideas and these issues.
Yeah, definitely. And I'm just reflecting as you were saying this, it almost feels like Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific is part of a different world.
In a way, , it takes a long time for anybody in this part of the world to travel to anywhere in the Northern hemisphere, certainly Europe and North America. But I think there's a very, I don't want to say privileged, but in some ways privileged position that we have here so far away from the rest of the world, which sometimes is a bit of a bummer.
If you have loved ones in different parts of the world, it's hard to travel and to see them. But when conflicts happen. It almost feels like,, they may as well be happening on Mars for all we care because we don't really see the, effects until, we go and fill up at the petrol pump and fuel becomes more expensive suddenly it's harder to buy, , grain products or, , many of the exports that we get from these different parts of the world.
, it's definitely a weird thing that we live in many ways in a very disconnected world, but also a very connected world in ways that often we don't appreciate. And I
think protected , and somewhat safe from some of those, conflicts. I think that's a privilege that we have that,, is a blessing really.
That we perhaps don't, we take it for granted, , so the Israel Hamas conflict, it seems to be evoking a lot of feeling on this side of the world as well, . all around the world., we haven't talked about it on this show, yet, or,, even, I don't think the science podcast has touched on it. , we've had a couple of articles that have touched on it. , but it, yeah, it seems to be stirring up a lot of passion and a lot of feelings for a lot of people. Why do you think that is?
Yeah, it's a very conflicted conflict, a conflicting conflict for many of us.
Because I think when the war first broke out, most of us in the West certainly were on the side of Israel, , because of the way the war started, because it started with such a horrific terrorist style attack on a peaceful music festival. , most of us, I think we're like, Oh, okay.
Well, yeah, we're against. Hamas were against the people of Gaza just by being in favor of Israel. But then as the war has kind of raged on, , I think I saw a stat the other day. And look, I think we should probably make the disclaimer. Neither of us are. Social scientists, we're not experts on Middle East conflict.
I certainly, feel very underqualified to speak about this at all, but I think it is important that we speak about it nonetheless, which is why we're doing this. So I saw a stat the other day that it's something like for every Hamas fighter that's killed three other civilians in Gaza are being killed because of the fallout and because of the way in part that Hamas is conducting its war and.
And because of the way that Israel is conducting its war against Hamas. So no matter which way you look at it, it's a humanitarian disaster. , it's a humanitarian disaster from the perspective of the hostages that have been brutalized by Hamas. It's a humanitarian disaster from the perspective of the, , Gazan and Palestinians who have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. , it's like There's no clear moral, , side and no clear immoral side, at least from where I'm sitting. And that's, I think, why I've struggled with it so much.
I think, as Christians, , there's some sort of theological ramifications for an Israel sort of, some connection there with sharing some of the same scriptures. , and that sort of thing as the Jewish religion. But at the same time,, Adventists have quite a different perspective theologically on, on some of that. , but I think The stance of Jesus and we'll get into this, a little bit more as we talk about the Christmas season that, we're in, I just, as you were speaking, I was thinking,, we should be anti, not anti Palestine, anti Israel, anti Ukraine, anti Russia.
We should be anti war. I think the horrors of what we're seeing is just devastating. I heard a stat from, and obviously. In war, it's about propaganda and making your side, , come out well, as well as possible. But it was something like 18, 000 people, the Hamas backed health ministry of Gaza was claiming have been killed.
18, 000 is a astronomical number of casualties. And it's hard to imagine that all of them were Hamas fighters. And so. Just the human cost of any conflict, any war, it just makes you think, why is this necessary? Like,
yes, there's historic
reasons, you know, there's, there's passion there. There's, , I get, I get that it's complex, but there's gotta be a place for voices that say war is wrong.
Problematic.
If your family's been kidnapped, you know, if you people are hostage, what do you do? You want to get them back.
Well, that's right. That's right. You do. And, , I think as a Christian. We have, I have to constantly remind myself that, , the protest literature, the poetry in the Bible, the apocalyptic literature, it all points to the same thing.
It all points to God being made king and God as the just king meeting out justice. As he sees it. And the constant reminder for me in all of that is that I am so compromised in what I see as just and unjust. There is, , image of God in me. That I believe was put there by God to be able to spot injustice and to be able to identify it and to, for it to bother me.
But when it comes to, administering the justice that I think I am so compromised because it's so easy for justice to become vengeance. And I think if there's anything that we can take from the current conflict happening in the Middle East, it's that when injustice turns into vengeance. That vengeance needs to be, and have justice administered to it, whether that's by a Palestinian, whether that's by an Israeli, and so on and so forth, and there's a chain of brokenness that just , it's not just decades old, it is millennia old at this point in time.
We could go all the way back to when the Israelite nation and the Judean nation first emerged in the promised land. These are the same people. It's the same story being told over and over and over again. It's just that now they have AK 47s instead of bows and arrows. Yeah, not to oversimplify, but
it's, it's, , it reminds me of that saying an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind because where does it stop?
Eventually the vengeance cycle destroys everything that it touches. , the verse that I guess. Stimulated the editorial that I wrote, , is found in Luke chapter two. And it's from the classic Christmas scene where the angels come, the shepherds are watching over their flocks by night, , and the angels sing glory to God in the highest.
And on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests. And it's like this concept, we have this concept around, , Christmas time that Jesus birth meant peace. Jesus was coming to bring peace. He is the prince of peace. That's one of his names., but he didn't bring peace or did he? I guess that's an interesting question to explore because the reality is he came and he didn't have a peaceful life.
Certainly his resurrection after that, did we see the ushering in of, a millennia of peaceful? No, we didn't. So what does that mean? What does it look like when the angels proclaim , peace on earth?
That's it. Yeah, it's a great question.. You know, it's so funny. I, , earlier today, I just was randomly flipping through Twitter and I saw that there's a prominent, Christian nationalist in the United States who , has a show kind of like this. Where he was basically saying, ,, he's a political activist and he says, when his people are in power, they're going to put a cross on every school, in every workplace, on every home, they're going to, proclaim the supremacy of Jesus Christ in every place.
And then he went on to say that anybody who is against that, , he basically called for their death. And. When I'm not going to name who it was because I don't want any attention on him. But when I saw that, I just thought to myself, how far have we gone as Christians? And I'm not going to, obviously we're not going to pretend like he represents the thoughts and views of every Christian, even a.
religion of peace, even a religion founded on the prince of peace, how easy it is to slip into our old way of doing things, our tribalism. And so when I think of Jesus, I think of the one who came to do not what we wanted him to do, but what we needed him to do. And when he comes onto the scene in the first century, he is not what the Jewish nation is looking for.
He is not the kind of leader that the people want, even his closest disciples and friends are constantly disappointed and confused by Jesus's seemingly lack of conviction. To overthrow the Romans or to, all that sort of stuff. And then
because they expected him to have a military victory, they expected him to be a conquering hero, King. , in fact, there's one story where it says that,, Jesus slips out through the crowds. He disappears because otherwise they would seize him and forcefully make the King. In other words, the rebellion would start, you know, the revolution is here, they would grab him and march him through and violence could be done in his name,, and so he actively avoids situations where that sort of thing can escalate.
So I think that's interesting.
I mean, it's understandable, these, these folks in the first century, I think even to a certain extent today, they're drawing on a rich. History of apocalyptic imagery, apocalyptic ideas, it's in their poetry, it's in their stories, the Davidic King, , the Messiah from the line of the Kings, , this is a Judean sort of innovation, and that this person who will bring about the day of the Lord will be a justice dealer, he will deal, with the oppressors and the tyrants, and will give them their salvation.
, give them their,, what's the term I'm thinking of, , they're, they're due, you know, they're just desserts, right? , and this is the person they think Jesus is. This is the person they think he's come to be. And yet.
But the Roman, but
the Roman Empire were also there to deal out justice and to bring the peace.
The Pax Romana, right?
The Pax Romana. So
en enforcing peace is what the Romans thought they were doing, and yet Jesus came to flip the script on that type of justice enforcement, I suppose.
Well,, this is, this is a key point, right? Because the Pax Romana is only. It's only possible through the use of excessive violence, of the crucifixion of hundreds, to appeal to your enemies, to kill their champions, so that they're all afraid
to step out of line,
basically.
This is it. And this is what happens, 40 something years after Jesus's death, when,, the Maccabees and all those folks decide we're going to rebel against Caesar and Caesar comes in and basically wipes the floor. Well, not Caesar, but Vespasian who, and Titus who Vespasian becomes Caesar.
I
think the Maccabees were before, I think the
Maccabees were intertestamental. Oh, yeah. Sorry, the Maccabees were, there was a small, yeah, I believe there was a small, , group of Mac, because it wasn't just a singular, rebellion, I did deep dive into this a little while ago, there was like three different factions that were all kind of trying to ,, be the revolt,, be the, the whatever, but yeah, either way.
It's the same thing, , it's the use of violence. And this is what's happening in Israel right now. The justification is violence is necessary in order to bring peace. And this is , the message that has been told throughout all of history, because, the only way that you beat a bad guy with a stick is to beat him with a bigger guy with a bigger stick.
, this is one of those
things. Yeah. This is what I struggle with in this conflict, because the Jews. Have been beaten with a big stick. If we look at the holocaust, if we look at their history, they've been bullied, they've been taken advantage of, they've been hurt, they've been oppressed.
And I don't know, my empathetic side, when I've experienced a pain, a pain of rejection, a pain of Being hit with a stick. I don't want that for someone else. I can't bring myself to be that person, , a bully or a stand over man , to pass that on. I know the, I do have that,, desire for vengeance in me, or I can lose my cool and want to get even, or get even on the road,, the road rage.
Someone cuts you off. So you want to get in front of them and stop on your brakes and ,
Yeah, just teach them a lesson. You want to, we think that's justice, , in our mind, when we're scorned, we think it's justice, but it usually turns into not justice. And that often escalates the situation, , and definitely
escalate.
But often, yeah, you know, there's that. Battle between the empathy. I don't want that to happen to me. So I shouldn't do it to someone else. And yet to see the treatment of the Palestinians with how the Jews have been treated throughout history. It doesn't square for me. I struggle. That's I think the thing that.
The thing that I struggle with the most is that idea that the infliction of pain, of oppression, when they've experienced that, shouldn't that make them more empathetic?
Yeah, and I think we have to really deal with the idea of, can we criticize the state of Israel? Without,, criticizing the people of Israel there's a, yeah, there was a, there's a book that I recently heard, a podcast, interview about what does it mean to be a nation?
And most of us think of like a nation is like borders and militaries and stuff. But actually in, according to, the German, , theologians, of the 17th, 18th century, a nation is the people, right? So you can criticize the state. And you can criticize the people, but those are two different things.
And it really bothered me recently when, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was basically saying, If you criticize Israel or what we're doing here, that's anti Semitism. And that was the point where I was like, you are losing me, man, you know? Right. It's, it's one thing to justify bombings of hospitals and schools and stuff.
That's horrific enough. But then to try and take a moral high ground on all that stuff and say, if you just, if you, you criticize us and what we're doing where you're being anti Semitic, that is just, that is not a bridge that I can cross. I can't go there with you. , I think. We have to separate, you know, the Jews have suffered incredibly awful things over not just the last 100 years.
Certainly that was, the Holocaust was definitely the high watermark for horror, but all throughout history from the, basically from AD, 70,, from the destruction of Jerusalem, from the siege of Jerusalem, and then the scattering of Jewish peoples all throughout the world throughout Europe and throughout North America have suffered incredible.
Anti semitism and racism. , and it's funny, you'd think that the state, the modern state of Israel would have learned the lessons from the past, but it just seems like in some ways we're doomed to repeat them. Which is just terrible.
So go back to Jesus for a moment. , Jesus. So when he was born, it didn't Institute peace on earth automatically, but as, a symbol of peace, or I like this concept of Shalom, , this completeness or this, , rest even, , and Jesus was a symbol of that in some ways, and in some ways also from his preaching, his teaching that we have recorded in the gospels, we have a manifesto of peace, the Sermon on the Mount, , Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God here in Matthew chapter five.
And then this is where we find, , you've heard about the eye for an eye go an extra mile for the person that asks you to go a mile. Love your enemies. Like this is wild stuff. This is difficult stuff.
We've, we had an episode
earlier in the year on record live about the hardest thing to do as a Christian.
And it's, I think it's loving and forgiving your enemies. , it's in that realm. , it's definitely,, similar to what we're talking about today. So certainly in his teaching and his example, he did the peace thing. He certainly promoted peace, but. He then also says things like, I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword,
you know, Come on, Jesus.
Can't you be consistent? Well, how
do we square some of that stuff? Like , what does peace look like? What does being a Christian peacemaker look like, today?
Well, I think it's, I don't want to minimize anything that Jesus said. , but I think one important thing to remember is that Jesus. was famous for using hyperbole because hyperbole shocks people out of their ordinary way of thinking and it makes them think, , , and reconsider things from a different perspective.
And so when we hear him say things like, , blessed are the peacemakers or, , even the really strange stuff, like I didn't bring, come to bring peace, but a sword , it's to shock us and to make us think. Jesus, what are you actually trying to say? It's not just here's something that I'm going to say so you can just follow it to the letter.
I think Jesus actually wants us to think and to consider what his teachings or, his ideas mean in our current context. And, it's important to point out that the church has always struggled with some of these kinds of teachings. , I don't think there's ever been a point in church history.
Where we've arrived and then have gone, okay, this is the standard for everyone. , however, I definitely think that there are wonderful examples of teachings throughout history of people who,, have embraced the way of Jesus and. have really carried it to, its full fruition. , one, one figure that I think is fairly I don't want to go into like go down a rabbit hole, but I have been, , researching, St.
Patrick. , of Irish, , fame,, who actually wasn't Irish. Funnily enough, he was actually, he was actually a Roman Briton, apparently. But he is the
patron saint of
Ireland. He is the patron saint of Ireland. But they've
adopted him as their favourite
son sort of thing. Well, that's right. , and so you can too, if you only, I dunno, drink green beer or something like that, I dunno, St.
Patrick's day's traditions are very weird. I have gotten very far away from what St. Patrick actually stood for, but I will say one thing that he is famous, well, not so much famous for, but is known for is, is. Changing the Celtic view of human sacrifice, because that was a big part of Celtic tradition.
And he basically said, , You don't need to sacrifice people , or even animals anymore, because there is a saviour who has sacrificed himself on your behalf. And he lived a life, the real St. Patrick, , not the one who supposedly drove all the snakes out of Ireland, , the real St. Patrick,, spent most of his life among, , a people that actually enslaved him originally, and after whom he escaped.
And then went back. So he was kind of like a Jonah, but if Jonah was actually a good person, , a little bit, so, sorry, sorry., not to throw shade on Jonah, poor Jonah, . But, St. Patrick, he spent his life, among people who actually enslaved him. And, , the love that he had for the Irish people, meant that he has now a permanent place in their, spiritual tradition.
, I think the other example is Seventh day Adventists throughout the last century of world wars. , we haven't gotten things right every single time, but one of the things that we have, I think done Mostly consistently is be a voice for anti war. Desmond Doss is a wonderful example of somebody who went willingly into, the jaws of hell in a way.
, not with a weapon, but with a med pack to carry people out and miraculously was able to save so many lives. . I think he's a wonderful example of somebody who did embrace that Prince of Peace way of life. And I think it's not that Jesus couldn't give specific instructions about how to live it out, but I think that people like Doss really grappled with that idea of what does it mean to be in a conflict that is absolutely horrendous and yet I think, I think Jesus did
give specific instructions.
He said, if someone asks you to carry a coat a mile, carry it two miles. And I feel like he was talking about an occupier or someone who said, Hey, come here and do this. And, there was some force there, not just your best friend who's trying to take their shopping home from the shops. It's, Hey, come and carry this or else.
And instead of doing it. , do it, double, you know, be cheerful, be helpful, be, , over and above. I think there are some principles that we can certainly take from there. , so Jesus came as this, the, this child of peace, this son of peace. We don't have peace on earth, but it's also not something we have to wait for until he comes in his second coming.
I think that's the other mistake we can sometimes make. Well, yes, he was proclaimed as the child to come. That would bring peace on earth, but he will come victorious only in the eschaton, second coming. He will return, he will stamp out every evil, every bad thing, and we will be able to embrace, embrace peace , and Shalom at that time perfectly.
I think as we've been wrestling a little bit with today, we can bring peace, be people of peace where we go and how we live, and this time of year. It's a good time to remember that, I suppose, as we land this plane, because,, I lost track of time and we were chatting and, , we're actually running out of time, but , what can we do this week?
What can we do in the lead up to Christmas to embody peace in this world? How can we bring Jesus peace to our current lives today, rather than waiting until some future point in time where ultimate peace will arrive?, what can we do to bring about peace? We're on the other side of the world from the conflict, as you mentioned, but there's conflict all around.
Yeah, I think one of the things that is often overlooked, but it's kind of obvious is to pray for peace. I think if we're Christians, we take that for granted somewhat, but at the same time, if we take it for granted, often we don't do it. , I know in my life, the things that I take for granted, often the things that are just, I neglect and so praying intentionally for peace is something we can all do at any time.
And God is always listening. , there's a sense sometimes that things are kind of rolling out of control that, , things are absolutely unraveling. If we have a biblical worldview, if we have a view of history that sees God involved in history, then we also have a view that God is working right now.
Because we're still part of history because it's still unfolding. And so if we're praying for peace, then we're praying that God continues to do his will here on earth as it is in heaven. And that's what Jesus instructed his disciples to pray for specifically. And so we can specifically. Pray for that.
I think it's important also to see how conflicts far away play themselves out in our everyday life. , there are Palestinian, populations diaspora here in Australia. There are Jewish, massive Jewish diasporas here as well. Not as much as, , perhaps Europe or North America. We do have that.
And so I think it would be. Well, for us to consider, what does it look like to, , reach out to my neighbor, , if they're Palestinian or if they're, Jewish, what does that look like? I've seen wonderful examples of that, of Palestinians and Jewish people sitting down at tables and dining with each other and praying with each other.
And, . I saw that,, , one of my colleagues here just across the road,, last year, I think it was attended a prayer weekend where a Ukrainian and a Russian, were spend time praying with each other. And I think that's something that we need to do. So I think that's one thing that we can all do.
It doesn't require anything. It just requires time and attention. , on a very practical level, , even though Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific, we're not, as directly involved with this conflict as say the United States, , much of our tax dollars still does go to funding the war, through alliances, through treaties, through, , international agreements.
And so. If that bothers you, , talk to your local MP, send them a letter, send them an email, ask them how your taxpayer dollars are being used. And, , if you have issues with how they're being used, , express that, , we all have a voice thanks to the internet. , so,, I think that's something that we can all do.
Whether they listen, that's not up to us.,
awesome. Well, peace be upon you. We've run out of time, but as we enter this Christmas season, , it can become busy. It can become hectic. It's sometimes anything but peaceful. So I encourage all of us to try and find some peace within the season, the silly season as some people call it, find some time to spend with God. , it's often easy to forget God on holidays because you might get out of your routine, your normal routine, find some peace in the morning to spend with God, find some peace with your family, reconnecting, joining up your family unit, spending time away from the hustle bustle , and meditating. And as Jesse has mentioned, praying for.
Peace is probably a good place, to be as well. So yes, thank you for joining us today, Jesse. Thank you for those watching, listening along. Please feel free to comment as well, and we will see you again next time. God bless.