´PEACE´ is a word which is often on our lips at Christmastime. Our Christmas Carols and the Christmas gospel speak of ´peace on earth and goodwill to all people´. And yet we all know that peace is so rarely the reality of the world around us.
At home also, the run up to Christmas is so often a time not of peace but of stress.
How can we sing of peace when there is no peace?
The true theme of Christmas is God‘s placing of his Son in our world in order to restore us to a right relationship with God.
Images of the means by which God achieved his purpose - by placing a baby in a manger at Bethlehem - can sometimes distract us from this truth. And yet the Christmas story reminds us of a reality which itself was no doubt anything but stress-free and peaceful.
For the truth is that the peace which Christ brings is no mere absence of stress or strife. Rather it is an invitation to enter into a new way of life which is to be lived actively in the service of Christ and so brings us to peace with God.
I would hope that during the Christmas season you may find an opening both into this way of life and into this peace which Christ brings in the Christmas worship of your parish church.
John-David Yule