Peace
on Earth
Texts: Isaiah 62.6-12; Psalm 97; Luke 2.1-20
A moment ago we heard the story of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, and how
the angels sang ‘glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace
among those whom God favours’. But what is this peace that the
angels sing about? And what has it to do with the birth of this
particular child?
Is the peace of the angel’s song the ‘peace’ promised by someone like
George Bush, the peace you produce if you are big enough and strong
enough to cower everyone else into submission? Is the peace of
the angel’s song the peace promised by a good many infamous leaders in
this past century, that specifically fascist kind of peace which says
‘Don’t be afraid. I know best, trust me. I’m taking away
your freedoms in order to protect you from our enemies?’ I doubt
it very much. The child born in Bethlehem grew up to say things
like ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ And ‘If
your enemy strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other as
well.’ And as to who one might trust with one’s life or liberty,
he said: ‘Do not call anyone on earth teacher. The Christ is your
only teacher. Put your faith in God alone.’
Well then. Is the peace of the angel’s song like the ‘peace of
mind’ you apparently get if your house and contents, your car, your
health, your mortgage, and even your life are fully and comprehensively
insured against disaster? I suspect not. The child born in
Bethlehem was not, apparently, insured in this way. Indeed,
his whole life might be described as totally un-insureable! First
he becomes a religious nutter, then he neglects his responsibility to
contribute to the family’s economic fortunes, then he goes all
anti-globalisation, preaching against the powers that be. Finally
he is executed by the Roman State as a dangerous criminal. As far
as I am aware, neither he nor his family received any compensation for
any of it. And I doubt that a modern insurance company would have
paid them out either.
So then, perhaps the peace of the angel’s song is more like that ‘inner
peace’ promised by the ‘new’ (so-called) spiritualities and
therapies? You know, the calm you are supposed to feel by getting
away to a deserted beach or mountainside, where the factions and
fractions of our tumultuous world cannot intrude? Or that ‘peace’
you are supposed to receive, in Buddhism, when you rid yourself of
every desire? I doubt it very much. Don’t get me
wrong. The child born in Bethlehem was very often alone in prayer or
meditation. But when he was, it seems that the tumult of his
world went with him, so that he wrestled inwardly with a deep sense of
care and responsibility for the lost and broken all around him.
He wrestled also with his own desire, praying earnestly that he might
be delivered from the temptation to seek the safe and easy way through
life. But that should not be taken to mean that he was a good
Buddhist. For instead of doing away with desire altogether, as
the Buddha taught, Jesus immersed himself in the desire of another,
that one he called his ‘Father’, the God of Israel. His whole
life, it seems, was filled with the strongest kind of longing, a
groaning and a pining towards a world in which the poor were no longer
poor and the rich no longer rich.
Well then, is the peace of the angel’s song finally a social and
political peace, a democratic tolerance of all our many
differences? You could certainly get that impression if your only
exposure to Christianity was the many ‘Carols by Candlelight’
celebrations that have colonised the countryside in the past couple of
weeks. You know their message well, I’m sure: ‘We’re all
different, we have different aims in life. Some of us are less
well off than others. But let’s not bicker. Live and let
live. Let’s just get on with each other.’ Is this the peace
promised by the angels? Again, I doubt it very much. When
the child of Bethlehem was grown, he got himself into all sorts of
trouble because he was certainly not
particularly tolerant. He was intolerant towards poverty.
He was intolerant towards the indifference of the rich and the powerful
towards their suffering neighbours. He was intolerant towards the
racism of his fellow-Jews towards non-Jews. He was intolerant of
the way his society relegated women and children to the bottom of the
food-chain. But deeply imbedded in all these intolerances was the
intolerance that motivated them all: his refusal to accept that human beings
can find a real and genuine peace apart from a relationship with God.
For it is this peace—the
peace that God gives to all who acknowledge, deep down in their hearts,
that there is no peace apart from the loving favour of God—that the
angels announced at the birth of Christ. The peace given by
Christ is also the peace given by God. It is not a peace that can
be generated by either prayer or politics, insofar as these attempt to
create something out of the raw material of the human heart. For
the whole of human history bears witness against us. We cannot
make a peace that lasts. Even now, we are at war, and many of
these wars are being waged against phantoms of our own devising, demons
hidden in our own souls that have been projected onto the faces of
others so that we will never have to acknowledge our own
failings. And for all our fantastic progress in science and
research, for all our booming economic fortunes, can we really claim to
be happy, to be at peace with ourselves? I doubt it very
much. There is considerable research now to show that the more
prosperous we become, the unhappier we become at the same time. I
have spoken about these things often in this church. I shall not
go on with all that again this morning, except to say this: that
peace, a peace that lasts, seems to elude us. And Christians are
not immune from this experience. Insofar as we have been seduced
by modernity, Christians are at least
at troubled as everyone else.
The peace that Christ gives cannot be given by the world or anything in
the world. It cannot be generated by either prayer or
politics. The peace that Christ gives is a gracious gift, the
gift of a deep and profound communion with God that transforms every
dimension of one’s life, whether in body, soul or community. The
peace of Christ is something that, as the apostle Paul wrote,
transcends our understanding. The peace of Christ is not,
therefore, something you can make a project of. It is not a
feeling you can induce by thinking happy or positive thoughts. It
is a state that comes upon you slowly, wheedling its way through your
defences, making its way into your heart like a transfusion of
life-giving blood from another’s body. It is a gift. It is
pure communion. It is a deep down sense and conviction that
because God is for us, nothing can prevail against us: not other
people, not our own misguided desire, not the present, nor the future,
not anything in all creation. It is a peace that comes to us only
as we look and listen for God’s word of favour in the story of Jesus,
who is called the Christ.
A blessed and holy Christmas to you all. May God’s peace wheedle
its way into your hearts today. Glory be to God—Father, Son and
Holy Spirit—as in the beginning, so now and forever, world without
end. Amen.
Garry
J. Deverell
Feast of the Nativity 2005
back to homily index