Each Christmas we celebrate the birth of a baby in Bethlehem. His parents called him JESUS. But over the years, Christians have given him many other names and titles.
Particularly around Christmastime,
we call him Emmanuel (God is with us), the Morning Star and the Prince of Peace.
Prince of Peace? To be honest, 2004 doesn't seem to have been a very good year for peace. The war in Iraq goes on and on - a seemingly intractable conflict in which there are no winners, only victims. The half-forgotten wars in Africa - in Darfur, in Congo, in Northern Uganda - these seem only to bring continuing misery to those caught up in them. And across the world there are so many other simmering conflicts. Where is the Prince of Peace in the world of today?
And in this situation, how can the sugar-sweet memories of a baby born two thousand years ago be of any help at all - particularly when those who claim to be his followers sometimes seem to be most enthusiastic participants in the most violent of the conflicts?
In spite of this, I think the baby of Bethlehem does show us a way forward. There may be conflicts in the present and there will be wars in the future - but in the manger of Bethlehem, God comes to us in utter helplessness. He needs the help of his human parents to supply his every need. And these parents are not kings or queens or rulers of the nations - rather, they are ordinary everyday people, chosen by God to serve his cause. Building peace in the world starts with people like them - people like you and me.
All you need is love, as they say. And for me the key text on love comes from St Paul: "Love keeps no score of wrongs" [1 Corinthians 13.6 in the New English Bible]. If we all bore that motto in our hearts, I believe the causes of most of the conflicts around the world would evaporate overnight.
This Christmas, my prayer is that we may all start to build peace in our lives, peace among our friends and neighbours, peace in our community. And perhaps then this peace may spread throughout our nation and even between the peoples of the world.
Simplistic? Naive? Well yes, perhaps. But it is a start - and no more simple than the start that God made in that birth two thousand years ago in Bethlehem.
John-David Yule