“Peace on earth among those
with whom he is well pleased.” So the angels sang on that first Christmas
evening.
Where
then was the peace, when Herod cast out his murderous net
and killed thousands of young
children?
Where
was the peace when Zechariah, the father of the Forerunner,
was cut down by Herod’s soldiers in
the very Temple itself?
Where
is the peace in our day, when children at school are killed,
and innocent
people die in conflicts around the world?
We are surprised and shocked
when violence strikes.
But maybe, in the light of
today’s gospel lesson,
we
need to re-adjust our notion of peace.
Peace is not the absence of suffering, of conflict, of war.
The Church teaches us
powerfully in the days just after Christmas. We remember the Protomartyr Stephen, the 20,000 martyrs of Nicomedia, the 14,000 children killed by Herod.
Is it any wonder, when people
hear of Christmas peace,
then see the bloodshed...the violence...the anger
all around and within us,
that they question the message of this season?
Yet what they question…what
they reject…is not the true and living God,
but an idol of their own imagination,
an idol that takes a truth
and bends and twists it out of shape.
For Christ himself told his
apostles,
“Do
you think I have come to bring peace on earth?
Not
peace, I tell you, but a sword!”
And later he told them,
“In the world you will have tribulation”
Eleven of the first twelve
met violent deaths, because they followed him.
So in the light of what
happened to the holy innocents, and to Zechariah, and to countless witnesses
who followed Christ and suffered—why this violence? And what is this peace the
angels spoke of?
The violence comes, because Christ’s
nativity is a kind of D-Day,
an
invasion of a place that once was free,
but had fallen under the tyranny of a usurper.
The enemies in this war are the
Devil, the World, and our own sinful flesh:
the devil—the tyrant and usurper, whose weapons are
deceit and death;
the world—the system he set up, run by fear;
and our own flesh—the enemy within ourselves,
who fears and
serves the devil, and loves the broken world.
Between
God and the devil,
the
world as created and the world as fallen,
the
new man we received in baptism and our sinful flesh,
there can be no peace.
No man can serve two masters.
To love one, is to hate the other.
The Christian life is
constant conflict with these three foes. We fight, we fall, we get up again.
And again…as long as we live and breathe.
What, then, is this peace? Maybe
it’s better to ask, “Who is this
peace?”
St. Paul tells us elsewhere,
“Christ himself is our peace, who broke down the wall dividing us from each
other, and reconciled us both in one body to God through the cross, by it
having put to death the enmity.”
Look at his holy life. He ate
with sinners and tax collectors. He spoke with a Samaritan woman, outcast both
from the Jews and from her own people. His love moved a rich man, Zacchaeus, to
share his wealth willingly with the poor.
See his innocent death.
Suspended between heaven and earth, arms outstretched in welcome, he spoke
words of forgiveness for those who hung him there. He bought us for God by his
holy precious blood.
Behold his glorious
resurrection. He came to where the disciples were, cowering in fear. He showed
them his hands and his side. Then he said, “Peace be to you.” He is our peace!
When he died, and rose, he
defeated the devil in principle.
But what began in the Head,
must be completed in the Body.
The servants are not above
their Master;
it
is enough for us to be like him.
So in this world we have
tribulation.
We are conformed to the
likeness of his death…
and
yet we live,
for we are joined to him who overcame death.
We face constant conflict,
fear within and fighting without
yet
we have peace,
for we are joined to Christ, who is our peace.
Is life, then, wearing you
down?
Come to the Child of
Bethlehem, whose coming brings us peace.
Lay your troubles at his feet.
Take his yoke upon you, and learn from him;
For he is meek and lowly in heart,
And in him you will find rest for your souls.