Peace on earth?

December 31, 2016

What did the holidays look like for you this year?

Underneath all the discarded wrapping paper and leftover turkey was it a peaceful time of joy and laughter? Or was it interspersed with tension, sharp words or full blown rows?

This is the season of ‘peace’. We swap cards proclaiming it. We watch films where love conquers all and peace and love win out. And we hear about this Jesus who was called the prince of peace, who came to the world to change it. To fix it.

We hear about this Jesus lying quietly in a manger. ‘No crying he makes’ – the perfectly behaved child. And this child, meek and mild, he would make life better for us. Make life easier. Wouldn’t he?

Is it just me or does it often feel like not much has changed?

God chose to dress himself in humanity and walk with us. So shouldn’t the world be fixed by now? Even if you avoided relational tensions over the holidays, it’s still a picture that clashes with real life. Especially after the kind of year 2016 has been.

Sometimes it’s hard to trust that something did change. That the baby who lay in a manger grew up. That he did what was right, not what he was supposed to. He turned the world upside down. He challenged societal norms and the culture of ‘easy’ and ‘now’. Don’t we need this kind of peace more than ever? This peace has nothing to do with whether he cried (let’s face it, he must had a few screaming tantrums guaranteed to wake the neighbours). It has to do with putting things right. Reconciling people, with themselves, with each other, with the environment, with society and its broken structures, and with God.

I think the reason that we feel so detached from the picture of a peaceful baby in a manger is because it’s something that we have created and cling to. It isn’t what real peace looks like. It’s what we might want – life to be easy, to cover up all the tensions, for everything to quieten down for a moment. But it isn’t what we need. And it’s fleeting. Real life crashes in again eventually. We need our lives to be turned upside down. We need to be willing to do the hard things that will actually create change. Things that will bring real, lasting peace. That will bring real reconciliation.

Jesus winning peace for us didn’t look like something you’d want on the front of a Christmas card. He didn’t just cover it in magic dust and wish it away, hoping it would last. It was ugly. It was hard fought and hard won. It required facing, not brushing it under the carpet. It required blood, sweat and lots of tears. It required death. His death, instead of ours.

So, as I walk into 2017, I’m thinking about what kind of peace it is that I’m looking for. Am I satisfied with an easy peace that floats at surface level and allows me to have a smooth life? This year, I’m going to remind myself that I don’t have to settle. That I can fight for the peace that begins to heal broken relationships and that addresses injustice. That once I’m willing to let go of ‘easy’ and ‘now’, there is a peace that goes so much further.