Peace on Earth at Christmas

[LittleBill 2,231]

I think BP takes the prize for being the most balkanized forum on the interweb. I just found this sub forum today. Anyway, this is an essay I wrote a few years ago. I hope someone reading it will find it worthwhile. Merry Christmas!

It is that time of year again, when people are happier, or at least pretend to be. For the most part they act more politely towards one another, show patience, and generally try to get into the "Christmas Spirit", whatever that might mean to them. But what does it mean? What is "peace on earth" really all about?

Everyone seems to want it. At least, they say so. It is the fashionable thing on which celebrities, politicians, and news media talking heads seem to dwell. If someone asks a "famous person" what they want for Christmas, the answer is invariably, "All I want is peace on earth". That is easy for many of them to say. It is calculated to boost their appeal, and from the worldly point of view, many of them already have everything else a person could desire. But do they?

How many people really even know what peace on earth is all about, much less have it? The Bible speaks of it, and since many of us are celebrating Christmas, we draw on that reference in Luke as our source of all that is good and desirable. Early on in the gospel of Luke, we read the following:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2:14 KJV

Peace on earth. There is only one problem with this. There wasn't any peace on earth. There was the Pax Romana, which was a sort of peace. It was an enforced peace, in that everyone behaved themselves or else the Romans would step in and settle it for keeps. That's not exactly peace, especially on the terms the Romans were dealing out. There hasn't been any real peace on earth since then, and there really wasn't any peace on earth before the coming of Jesus Christ. Mankind has been fighting and squabbling since Cain smacked Abel with what ever he smacked him with. But the lack of peace goes back even further than that. It goes all the way back to when Adam made the conscious decision to disobey God, and eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At that instant, a state of war existed. It existed between God and man. Man, in the person of our first father Adam, had made an enemy of God by disobedience.

So what was the big deal, and why were the angels singing? Peace on Earth is real. It is not the peace that worldly men envision. Even many Christians are confused at times as to what it really means. It is not peace between nations, or peace between individual men or women. It is the peace that Jesus Christ brought through the atonement of His death on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead. It is peace between man and God, peace that is available to any who come to Him. That Peace had arrived on the earth in physical form in the person of Jesus Christ, the little baby in the manger. He had finally come to do His work, and so complete God's plan to restore peace between Himself and sinful mankind. That is why the angels were singing.

This is the peace that many of us Celebrate this time of year. It has nothing to do with the violence on this earth. It has nothing to do with the wars that have been fought, and are still to be fought. It has everything to do with knowing that we are the redeemed of God, and that we now have peace through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Rom 5:1

This is the real Christmas message. It is my hope and prayer this Christmas season, that in the midst of all the good food and good fellowship, and while all the toys and gifts are being distributed, that many of you here will earnestly search for this peace, and appropriate it for yourself. Merry Christmas!

[laceemouse 631]

Excellent, thanks for posting

[fordtmacrae 21]

Way to go...AMEN!!

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