Psalm 85:10-11 (ESV)

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky.

A Prayer for Peace. Restoration of Favor. Revive Us Again. This psalm has various titles depending on which version of the bible you look at and shows up in a lot of churches at Christmastime due to its subtle yet profound murmurings about the coming of Jesus Christ to bring Shalom to the earth. Rather than lighting up the block like Clark Griswold did in Christmas Vacation, the psalm writer lights up the heart, instead, with visions of a glorious restoration after a terribly disheartening fall. The immediate context, according to most commentators, is when the people of Judah returned from the Babylonian exile. The broader context applies to all who would seek Christ to bring peace and restoration into their lives.

Shalom is a word and a concept that does not show up much in the Western world. Our English substitute—Peace—falls far short of the greater meaning. Shalom is not merely the absence of trouble, but the presence of completion…fullness…life as it is meant to be lived. When a Jewish person greets you with “Shalom,” it is a far cry different than saying “Have a nice day!” Shalom harmonizes all that is good and pours its blessings down upon your mind, body, and spirit. This is not the peace that the world offers, but the peace that can only come from God (Jn. 14:27).

Psalm 85 teaches us to anticipate the restoration of Shalom…in our own lives as well as on the earth. It will be purely at God’s initiative as seen in the first three verses: “You showed…You restored…You forgave.” We must look to God and God alone for Shalom. We can’t manufacture it ourselves. It is a gift that only He can give, and we must humbly seek it in prayer.

We can anticipate Shalom by looking to His attributes, as the psalmist does when he asks a series of questions: “Will you be angry with us forever? Will you not revive us again?” He is calling out to God based on who God is, and God is always the same, yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).

Finally, and most powerfully, we can anticipate Shalom through God’s Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the embodiment of when “steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” It is only through Him that any of us can experience the shadow of Shalom that is available in this broken world…and then the fullness of Shalom that will be the everyday norm in the Kingdom that is to come!

St. Augustine, in his commentary on Christmas, summarized the anticipation of Shalom that is found in Psalm 85 when he wrote, “Truth, then, is sprung out of the earth: Christ who said, ‘I am the truth’, is born of a virgin. And justice looked down from heaven: man, believing in him who has been born, has been justified not by himself, but by God. Truth is sprung out of the earth, for the Word was made flesh. And justice looked down from heaven, for every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above. Truth is sprung out of the earth – flesh born of Mary. And justice looked down from heaven, for a man cannot receive anything, unless it be given him from heaven.”

Shalom to you today, my friend…and Shalom for all of God’s Children forever and ever in Heaven! Amen.