Let us reflect on the true peace of Christmas
My most recent bedtime book is Jimmy Carter’s new effort, “Our Endangered Values.”
His deep, personal Christian faith has formed how he sees the world, as it should. What he sees in our current national culture is of grave concern to him, so he writes as boldly and directly as I’ve seen in his books.
It’s hard to believe he left the White House 25 years ago. The impact of his presidency is still wide open for debate, but I don’t think anyone can seriously doubt the positive impact our former president has had as he and his wife have fought hard for human rights around the world.
His new book focuses on many traditional American values and how they are being compromised by a disturbing trend in our government and society to blur the lines between rigid religious fundamentalism and politics.
As I was reading the other night, a biblical phrase kept crowding its way into my consciousness: “Peace where there is no peace.”
We celebrate the “season of peace” this weekend. Tonight is the night the angels appear to the shepherds and announce “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those he favors.” (NRSV)
Their shout begs the question: So whom does God favor?
That’s a great question for another column. But one short answer is God favors far more people than some of us would like – social outcasts, the marginalized, people who believe differently than we do.
As individuals, some of us know peace in some form this weekend. But as citizens of America and citizens of the world, we know that peace is only a cruel illusion for millions of people.
We only have to read the front page of any newspaper or listen to television news to realize that.
Just check out which “Christmas toys” are most popular this year or read reports of how countless people go into big-time debt to purchase gifts for family members or friends. Peace is a cruel illusion for millions of people.
When we stop to look deeply into the heart of the “reason for the season” – when God becomes a human being in the form of a helpless baby to show us what “peace” looks like – the commercial craziness and shallow joy lose some of their glitter.
It’s only then can we be embraced by the Holy Night.
“Peace, where there is no peace.” The phrase sounds like it might be something Jesus said. But it isn’t. It comes in a provocative section of the book of Ezekiel – 13:10, to be exact.
Ezekiel 13 is a scathing attack on those who claim to be God’s prophets but who really “substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies.” (Ezek. 13:6, from “The Message”)
False prophets were numerous in Ezekiel’s time. People were eager to listen to them because they played on the people’s fears.
“Because, in truth, because they have misled my people, saying ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it.” (13:10 NRSV)
The rest of Chapter 13 describes God’s anger in graphic terms but concludes with God saying, “I will save my people from your hand. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” (13:23)
In the midst of fear, of rigid religious manipulation, of rampant social injustice, of both natural and manmade destruction both of life and property, God will come to save the people. God will bring peace “among those whom he favors.”
Oh, did you think I was still in Ezekiel-time? No, it is today, Christmas Eve 2005.
God’s promise through Ezekiel is God’s promise to the Bethlehem shepherds and is still God’s promise to us. It would appear our timetable is far more impatient and self-centered than God’s.
We want peace now.
I suspect God wants peace now as well. But something else in God’s greater plan invites us to settle for smaller glimpses and grasps of peace.
We relish peace when we can recognize it:
•In a baby’s joyful dependency on her parents.
•In a child’s excited discovery of new things in the world around him.
•in a teen’s reluctant acceptance of the limits that suggests the beginning of wisdom.
•In an adult’s gentle recognition that he is not always the most important person in the room.
•In an elder whose smile acknowledges that her life still has great meaning to her children.
When we stop pretending “peace where there is no peace,” the Christmas mystery becomes more real to us.
Peace is within us, waiting to transform us.
We just need to scrub the holiday whitewash off and let God meet us as we are.