Claiming true peace
Keep your eyes on the prince of peace, the one who doesn’t cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights, and rule with great power … the one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind, the one who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement. Keep your eyes on him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak. He is the source of all peace.
Henri Nouwen
Joy radiates peace. Love brings peace. “I proclaim to you great joy that shall come to all peoples—peace on earth!” The true Christmas experience is to feel that this Christmas peace is the greatest power, that even now on earth it overcomes all unpeace. That this peace shall come to all—that is the expectation and the faith of Advent!
The Christmas star in the night sky, the shining of the Christmas light in the night—all this is the sign that light breaks into the darkness. Though we see about us the darkness of unrest, of family discord, of class struggle, of competitive jealousy, and of national hatred, the light shall shine and drive it out. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shined.”
Jesus is the light. Nobody else is the light; others can only witness to the light.
The eternal light shall come to earth
And give it a new radiance;
It shines into the midst of night
And makes us children of the light.
Only those who are reborn as children shall become children of the light. Wherever the Christmas Child is born in a heart, wherever Jesus begins his earthly life anew—that is where the life of God’s love and of God’s peace dawns again.
Emmy Arnold