Establishing and Restoring Shalom

by Sam Barkat

This is the first half of The Heart Cry of God; to view the second half click here.

Note: This is a shortened version of an address given by Sam Barkat at the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Global Briefing, October 1999.

Missio Dei
There are many individuals, many organizations that are interested in working on their vision, their mission statement, their objectives. But I don't think God had a committee that sat down and said, "Let's write down our mission statement first." He does have a mission. He has a purpose. But the question is, how do we as human beings get to the heart of God and see his mission, his purpose for the universe?

In order to consider the mission or the purpose of God, I think we need to envision who God is. Who is he? For sure God is far greater than any of our limited categories of understanding - far greater. But if we are to enlarge our understanding of his mission and purpose, we must be open to an ever deepening and broadening understanding of who God is - what he has done, what he is doing, what he will be doing. But all of that has been given to us. Transformative experiences that lead us to a more profound understanding of God are recounted in Scripture again and again.

You may recall the experience of Moses, hearing God, seeing God in a burning bush; their dialogue and Moses making excuses and God coming back with answers. That transformed Moses. We look at Gideon, sitting down under a tree, waiting. God comes and though Gideon says, "No I can't," God says, "Yes you can." David is changed when Samuel comes and anoints him while he's tending sheep. Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus - what an experience!

But the experience that I would like to focus on is the experience of Isaiah. Isaiah responds to a transformative experience that leads to a fuller vision of God. It's recorded in Isaiah 6. He sees God in his glory. He sees God sitting on his throne exalted high and lofty. I encourage you to just stand with him for a few moments and look at God.

What would you come back with after that kind of experience but to say, "Woe to me! I am undone. I see the people among whom I live and I see the way I am." That kind of a vision is what we need if we are really going to talk about the mission and the purpose of God. If we don't do that I think it would be nothing more than a theoretical, cognitive exercise only in our heads, only a exercise. But let it come down a little and touch our hearts, touch our lives.

We must come to see that God is God of creation and God of redemption. If we don't have a good understanding of that I think it would be difficult for us to really get to the mission and the purpose of God.

In the beginning, God creates. He creates order, harmony, tranquility, and is interested in the continuity of all of that. He creates and desires the wholeness and well being of his creation. And he's against the destruction of his creation. He desires that his creation flourish and is against the withering and the death of his creation. And that's what you and I are trying to do, keep God's creation from getting to the point of withering and dying.

God's intent purpose and mission center around a predominant theme that runs throughout Scripture. God's mission is to create a creation - including human beings made in his image and the rest of the natural world - which he values, receives pleasure from and to which he is deeply, very deeply, related. In turn that creation is very deeply related to him.

Shalom
So one needs to understand the God of creation. This state of well being in his creation is captured in the Hebrew word shalom. Often it is translated in the English language as "peace," which is really an incomplete translation. Shalom is much, much more than peace, which often means an absence of conflict, absence of disunity or conflict. But shalom means the well being, the wholeness and the flourishing of all that God has created. But we need to remember that shalom is broken as a result of the fall. God is on another mission - to reestablish that shalom. As something that he intended from the beginning, He wants to keep shalom.

Take a brief look at the first two chapters of Genesis. In his creative activity God moves from chaos to order and from order to rest. Look at the first two verses: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless, void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters." It was without form. It was empty. It was dark. But then God said let's bring some order to it.

Then it happens in a very systematic way. He creates light. He separates darkness from light - the balance, the beauty. Then he creates throughout the rest of the chapter. He creates heaven, sky, firmament. He separates water from water. God creates land and sea. He moves step by step, from one thing to another. Then God creates vegetation - trees that bare fruit with seed so that those trees could continue to keep on flourishing, not just wither and die and be the end of it, but to keep on living. And God creates the sun, the moon, the stars and the planets, and He creates the balance in which they move around each other. Then God creates creatures of the sea and the birds.

Finally, God creates human beings. In chapter three we see how, after the fall, God comes in the evening, in the cool of the day. He calls for Adam. Maybe this was God's habitual order, this was the thing God did, just come and commune with Adam. Consider that state of being for a moment: the beauty of Creation, the balance and tranquility. Consider being there with Adam as God comes and talks to him. And God enjoys it. What a beautiful thing.

We read in 1:28 that "God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it." I think in most parts of the world, but especially in the West, we have taken this whole phrase, these words subdue and dominion, to mean we own the earth, as if we have the right to destroy it and have the right to change it in any way we want to. We don't understand it in a sense of stewardship. The earth is not ours. It is given to us to take care of, to be good stewards of it. So we need to remember that this creation does not belong to us. We are here just to take care of it and help it flourish for it is God's.

So God creates in harmony, peace, tranquility and balance. We need to remember many things about this creation story. I want to note seven. First of all, we need to remember that God is the creator of all that exists. If we are going to talk about the mission and the purpose of God, we need to remember that firstly. Second, God's creation was created to be relational. Note the relationships between God and man and amongst human beings. But also see how everything else that God created is in relationship. Thirdly, in his creation there was balance, harmony, tranquility. Fourth, there was wholeness and harmony between God and human beings. Five, balance and harmony also exists among persons, between Adam and Eve. Sixth, human beings are created in the image of God (there are many references in Genesis and then in the New Testament, Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10). Seven, God's creative act and his creation move from chaos to order and rest. This is the kind of God we worship. This is the Creator we know as we talk about his mission.

Now, once we see God in his holiness as Isaiah did, we see God's holiness in His creation and His creative activity. We acknowledge that God not only created all that exists, but God gave us a gift of shalom. Everything and every being that was created is to exist in an integrated and harmonious relationship. The reality of shalom ensured that all should flourish in its fullness.

This is the first half of The Heart Cry of God; to view the second half click here.

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Establishing and Restoring Shalom

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