And on earth, peace. What an ancient longing! What a long-standing frustration! On earth, peace.
I don’t know what language angels sing in, and I suppose the shepherds would have known only Aramaic, but we have grown accustomed to choirs singing the angelic words in Latin: “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra, pax.” In terra, pax. Terra. Earth. Sounds like the word we have been using since September 11: terror. In terra, pax. In terror, peace.
Is peace possible? Is it too much to ask for? Is it beyond all reasonable expectation that we on planet earth will somehow, some day, live in peace? That’s what the angels sang. That’s what the shepherds needed to hear. And we need to hear it too. In terra, pax. In terror, peace. Songs promise it; hearts crave it. True and deep and lasting peace.
In 1864 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned a poem about peace. It expressed both his longing and the feelings of many Americans, weary with the long and bloody battles of the Civil War. Some of it is not printed in our hymnal. Longfellow wrote,
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
That’s the promise. But then Longfellow turned sorrowful, and wrote,
“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said,
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Hate? Mockery? What did he mean? You don’t find this in the hymnal, but Longfellow, thinking about the Civil War, about the causes for which it was being fought, and, no doubt, about his own son, who had been seriously wounded – Longfellow wrote:
“Then from each [loud] accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent
And made forlorn the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
In 2001, more awful than Longfellow could have known in 1864, the earthquake of conflict has rent hearthstones, torn homes, destroyed cities, and taken lives. Today, more anguishing than the poet could have seen nearly a century and a half ago, cannons and smart bombs, jet fuel and heat-seeking missiles make forlorn the landscapes of our lives. And we are left worrying and wondering, yet again, where is the peace that is promised? In terra, pax; in terror, peace. Can it be?
Think with me this morning about peace. Think with me about the foolish ways we try to carve out peace for ourselves. And that will set the stage for us to praise God for Jesus Christ, the authentic hope of genuine peace.
I
First, what have we done about peace? To what have we given ourselves in order to make peace happen? Do you know that there are some striking parallels between the world into which Jesus was born and our world? Are you aware that so much about His time is like our time?
a
First of all, it was a time when some trusted in government for everything. It was a time, much like ours, when some people, particularly those in positions of power, really thought Rome could do it all, and that if Rome didn’t do it, it wouldn’t be done! Just as in our own day, we have some folks who are quick to expect the President, the Congress, the Mayor, and the bureaucrats to do everything under the sun to protect us. In Jesus’ day there were people who thought that the Roman Empire would bring peace and stability. Rome had an extensive system of control; its military might was felt far from the capital city. Its governors were like CIA, watching every little twitch in the body politic. It even bought off local rulers like Herod to keep them loyal. It was a time when some trusted in government for everything.
And yet there was no peace. No peace because when you understand nothing but power, then power battles power, and there is no peace. Maybe a time of uneasy quiet for a while, but not peace. The attack on the Pentagon reminds us how government-dependent peace can be shattered. Do not look for peace on earth from government.
b
Second, it was a time when some trusted in wealth to make themselves invulnerable. It was a time, much like ours, when accumulating wealth had become an obsession for many people. They built fine houses; they constructed great palaces for their institutions. They even curried favor with God by parading their financial muscle; the same Herod who wanted to kill all the boy babies had just completed a major remodeling of the Temple in Jerusalem, as if to say, “Here, God, let me show you how much You need me.” It was a time in which your stature and your character were measured by the weight of your bags of gold.
And yet there was no peace. No peace because when you spend your life doing nothing but gathering wealth, well, you have spent your life, and it’s gone. But it has no meaning. Jesus told that story about the man who filled his barns with grain, and when they got full, he pulled them down to build bigger barns, and when he faced up to what that meant, it was nothing but a great big coffin to hold his empty, soul-starved body! The attack on the World Trade Center reminds us how fleeting our wealth is and how it will not protect us. The decline of our economy – it’s painful, but maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s best for us that the malls are not so crowded and the spending not so liberal. How did it get to be that Christmas was the time when you give gifts they don’t need to people you don’t like with money you don’t have?! Do not look for peace on earth from wealth.
c
It was a time when some had come to trust in government; it was a time when some trusted in wealth; and, most of all, it was a time when people trusted in their own ingenuity to get by. It was a time when people ignored faith, paid lip service to religion, but went their own way and made themselves into their own gods. From the Romans who called their emperors divine to the Greeks who worshipped their own philosophies to some Jews, like those who stood around the cross of Jesus and sneered about God coming to save Him, many of the people of that day no longer paid attention to God. They no longer really believed that God was involved in His world. For them God was a remote abstraction that you hauled out on ceremonial occasions. But they – and many of us are no different – they thought they didn’t need the presence and power of God in their daily lives. They and we feel that we know enough, thank you very much, to handle what we need to handle, and God is for sissies and sanctimonious saints sipping sassafras sodas in a rose-colored world, but I’ve got myself together!
Isn’t that the way we think? Isn’t that it for much of our world? Oh, some of us go to church on Sunday, but what is that really about? That’s about doing what respectable people do; or that’s about giving the children a good example; or that’s about getting a charge out of the singers and watching the preacher hammer the sinners. But a relationship with God? You’ve got to be kidding! Letting God guide us and empower us? That ain’t cool. That’s not 21st Century. We, like the world into which Jesus was born, think that if there is to be peace, it is up to me, and I will handle it. I, I, I. Ego is our god, and satisfaction is the son of that god.
And so of course there is no peace. There is no peace because when I am the center of my universe, there is no smaller package than me all wrapped up in myself. And if I go down deep enough into my heart of hearts, I find there is no peace because there is a god-shaped void down there that nothing else but God Himself will fill. There is a restlessness down there that cannot be satisfied by anything less than God Himself. There is no peace on earth; there was not then, and there is not now. Not if we trust government to bring it, or wealth to buy it, or ourselves to make it happen. None of those things bring peace.
II
The angels sang of a new peace, of a new thing, and sang it to terrified shepherds. Terrified, no doubt, not just because of a sky filled with the rustle of angels’ wings, but terrified because they had been terrorized. Scared and shaken by everything. Victimized by a world full of false premises. When a person gets enough beating and buffeting, he will be frightened of anything. Some of those who saw the planes hit on September 11 or who watched bodies fall and buildings collapse are today afraid to leave their homes or to fly airplanes or to open the mail. Terrorized hearts. The shepherds were terrified not just because of this new thing, but because they had been conditioned to fear just about anything.
Yet the angels sang of a new peace, a peace that would be brought by this tiny child, lying in a Bethlehem manger. A peace that would be wrought by one unable to wage war, one who owned nothing, not even a place to spend his first night in the world, one who could not even take care of himself, much less manage a world in conflict. Peace, from this child? How? But that is what the angels sang.
We must hear, this year, that Jesus is the source of the world’s peace. In Him and by Him and through Him, peace will yet come, elusive as it may seem, far-off as it may have appeared to those shepherds.
a
Jesus is the source of the world’s peace, because He will show us that it is not might that makes right, but the way of loving sacrifice that wins the world to peace. The carol says that “Love came down at Christmas”, and here love stayed, in human form, for three and thirty years, tasting what we taste, feeling what we feel, suffering what we suffer, and all of it to show us that our lives count for something. His single, solitary life, all too short, has meant more to humanity than any other. His life was given to service, to love, and to sacrifice. Jesus is the source of the world’s peace, because His teaching and His example have swayed more hearts than all the armies that have ever marched, or all the parliaments that have ever debated. In times of terror there is peace because we know in Jesus that right is not forever on the scaffold nor wrong forever on the throne, but standeth God within the shadows, keeping watch above His own. In terror, then, peace, because of Jesus’ life.
b
Jesus is the source of the world’s peace, too, because He will show us that God is for us, God is on our side. From the moment of the announcement of His birth, when Mary heard that He would put down the mighty from their seats and exalt them of low degree, Jesus was on the side of the poor, the displaced, and the ordinary. His angels came to ordinary shepherds, rough men, not to kings and princes. His youth was shaped by peasant people in a nowhere town called Nazareth, not in the great capital city Jerusalem and certainly not in the self-puffery of a city that calls itself “the most important city in the world”. When He enlisted followers, He found them among the salt of the earth fishermen, and discouraged those who needed a place to lay their heads. When He died, they gambled for His one garment.
Jesus is the source of the world’s peace, because He shows us that we can live without worrying about money, we can live without concerning ourselves with social standing. We are somebodies simply because God has chosen to come and live with us. Peace comes because we learn that in Jesus’ world, everybody is somebody and nobody is put down. In terror, peace, because of Jesus among us.
c
And, most of all, Jesus is the source of the world’s peace because He is the child of the Father. He is in His own person the ancient of days, throned in glory, and He is pointing the way to reconciliation with God Himself.
I do not know how to say more pointedly or more clearly what I want to say –that Christmas is not just about gentle oxen lowing and no crying He makes and isn’t Mary a beautiful young mother! All of these things are fine and true; they have their place. But they stop short of what we have here. For in this place, in this crude and lonely place, all eternity has gathered. The one who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords has come down and poured Himself into a few pounds of human flesh. He was made man, for us and for our salvation. He is reaching out to us. He is pleading with us. His very heart and life are urging us to come home. For without reconciliation with God, there is no peace. Without knowing God intimately, there is no peace. Without living in the presence of our Creator, knowing His love, turning over to Him our sin, with all of our arrogance and pain, there will never be any peace. You can frame all the political settlements you want; you can forge all the interim governments and hire all the security personnel and sip the Cipro all day long. But if Jesus Christ is not honored in your heart and in the heart of this His world, there will be no lasting peace.
But in Him, all things are possible. With Him, peace can come. That is why I, for one, do not intend to crawl into a little shell and hide from the world. I do not intend to let terrorists terrorize or pessimists put me down. I said it in September and I say it again, if we want to respond to terrorism, let us do it by telling the good news. Let us do it by committing ourselves to our mission, both here in this city and around the world. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me and with what I do and say to extend the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. The way to peace, ultimately, is to share a vibrant witness and to bring others to Christ.
III
In terra, pax. In terror, peace. I know what I am talking about. It is not just preacherly rhetoric cooked up because it’s Christmas and we have to say these things. I know what I am talking about. I have heard peace ring out.
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, and right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
I have heard peace ring out in the voice of a child telling me that after she accepted Jesus as her savior, she settled a playground fight. Jesus. In the terror of conflict, peace.
I have heard peace ring out it in the report of a student, saying that despite the racist remarks he had overheard on campus, he did not retaliate. Jesus. In the terror of oppression, peace.
I have heard peace ring out in the agonized confession of a friend that she and a relative had a huge fight, with name-calling and accusations and deep, deep anger, but that she would find a way to apologize. Jesus. In the terror of family conflict, peace.
And I heard peace ring out Thursday morning in the whisper of a dying man, repeating with me the Scripture that promises that if we are anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we let our requests be made known to God, then He will grant us that peace that passes all understanding. Jesus. In even the terror of death, peace. Because of Jesus.
I have heard the song of the angels. And because I have heard that, the din of war, the clatter of conflict, and the empty silence of loneliness are all taken away. Jesus took them away, and gave me peace.
“Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
