Every year just after Christmas in our house, we sit down and go through all the Christmas cards one more time. While doing that, we choose three of our favourites and out of those three we chose the one we like the most. This year we have already made our choice about three weeks ago and here it is. It says, Imagine Peace on Earth!
Imagine, peace on earth! Do you like to dream or fantasize? I do and there isn't a time of the year that I do it more than at Christmas. I love Christmas! I love the decorations, the food, the music, and the stories. Don't bother to "Bah Humbug!" me at Christmas, because I won't listen. They say Christmas is for children. Well if that is true, it may be because children have a wild imagination. Perhaps those of us who have lost our enthusiasm for Christmas have done so because we have lost our imagination. If we have lost our imagination, then we have lost our ability to dream and when we lose that ability we shut out all kinds of possibilities - like imagining peace on earth.
Now let’s think about why we are here tonight. Just let your imagination run wild with me for a minute. Imagine those shepherds out in the field with their sheep...it could be on that sheep farm that I will pass on my way home. Imagine being surprised by the angels that night dispelling the darkness with their blinding light and breaking the silence with beautiful songs of praise. Imagine only being able to borrow a farmer's stable to have your baby...it could be just about any barn out here in the valley. Imagine having donkeys, sheep and cows in the same room as your baby. Imagine being visited by a group of curious towns people when you are trying to comfort your new born son.
For those of us who can't still imagine these things, perhaps it's because we have gotten too old or too cynical. But alas, there is always another chance for us just as old Ebeneezer Scrooge was given a final chance.
So then, lets imagine...peace on earth! This is, of course, the real message of Christmas. "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will!" Perhaps it is here that we all need a second chance this Christmas: to imagine peace on earth!
What would it be like? PAUSE As I wondered what it would be like to have peace on earth, I was reminded of that song written by John Lennon. Listen to some of the words.
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for...
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.
Those words were written over 30 years ago at the time of the Vietnam war. Yet for all our talking, things haven't changed much have they? But it strikes me, as it did John Lennon, that peace isn't just about absence of war. It is about people genuinely caring for each other in the smallest communities that dot our globe.
Imagine a world without greed....a world without homelessness or food banks or breakfast programmes in the schools of the richest nations on earth. Imagine a world in which corporate drug companies aren't more interested in making billions than they are in curing diseases such as AIDS in Africa or cancer here at home. Imagine a world without tribal or religious tensions where the Jews and Arabs, French and English, Protestants and Catholics and Christians and Muslims can live side by side. Imagine!
Imagine a world where everyone is free and everyone is accepted. Imagine!
Tonight we have all gathered in this place to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace. Some of us here tonight have a strong faith that has withstood the test of time. For others our faith is tenuous at best. But something - Someone calls us together tonight for this celebration. That Someone still calls us just as He called the shepherds over 2000 years ago.
Tonight is a moment in our life, a moment in this year when we pause, once more to celebrate peace. I believe that deep within all of our hearts is a desire for peace. Each of us would love to live in a world that John Lennon imagined, but it seems so far beyond our reach, doesn't it?
Yet what is within our reach is finding peace in our own hearts through the Prince of Peace. Saying yes to the peace that Jesus can bring to our own hearts, our own homes and this community. Bringing peace to the world may seem out of our reach, but bringing peace to this community isn't.
Imagine peace in our town. Imagine harmony, acceptance, freedom to grow and to be in this place. So I invite each one of us here tonight to imagine peace on earth. Imagine what we might do to bring peace to this earth. And let us make a commitment to the Prince of Peace and to all that that decision could possibly mean in our lives. AMEN
