A brief Christmas message, included in Christmas cards distributed around the Riverside Parishes (near Darlington).
When the angels told the shepherds about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, they said: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth’.
It’s easy to wonder what happened to that ‘peace on earth’! Conflicts continue around the world, with no sign of resolution. Life, for many of us, is far from peaceful. And so often we lack the inner peace we long for. What, then, are we to make of the words of the angels? And what should we make of the birth of Jesus?
The first followers of Jesus knew that the world was still far from peaceful. But they continued to speak about the peace that Jesus brought. One of Jesus’ followers put it like this: ‘we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’.
There was peace in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. But before long we find fear, strife and violence. It all started to go wrong when the first people rejected God. Fear and conflict are the symptoms, but our rejection of God is the root cause.
When Jesus came as our Saviour, he didn’t just come to deal with the symptoms. Instead, he came to deal with the problem itself, by making peace between us and God. Through Jesus, we can know peace with God, and then we can find greater peace within, and we can be agents of God’s peace in the world around us.
May you know peace with God this Christmas!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the new-born King,
peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!’