The Hopes and Fears of All the Years: Day Eight

Peace on Earth?

Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won’t rhyme
So what’s it worth?
This peace on Earth - U2

Text: Luke 2:8-14

When the angels exploded the night sky with a song about the birth of a savior who would bring peace on earth, there was already a savior who had done just that. Sort of. When Jesus was born Rome ruled the world, and Caesar Augustus ruled Rome. Caesar had inaugurated what is known as the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace. Inscriptions from around the Empire extolled Caesar as the Lord and peace bringer who had saved the world. They called this announcement good news.

So, when Jesus was born and the angels announced his birth as “good news of great joy” that would bring “peace on earth,” the job wasn’t vacant. That, to me, is one of the most powerful details of the Christmas story. It is the announcement of a new world being born and of a different kind of peace on earth—a peace that is the result of justice being done on earth, and not just who happened to have the superior military—and it begins right in the middle of the old world. The announcement of the good news of Jesus’s birth, and the joy and peace that it brings along with it, didn’t happen at an ideal time or place. Everything wasn’t lined up for an easy launch. Advent and Christmas are about the possibility of a different kind of world, one that begins now, even as the old world seems to be entrenched and immovable.

Each year during Advent we retell this story, and perhaps this year we can hear the invitation a bit differently. We aren’t waiting for an ideal scenario. The injustice and violence of the world are just as entrenched as they’ve ever been. It was in this same kind of context that Christ was born, and it is in ours that Christ must continue to be born. We are invited to be a people who live by the rules of a different world—one that is just, generous, and compassionate—even as we exist in this one.

We do not have to wait for a future anything to happen. When we begin to live and embody this alternative vision for the world that new world begins to arrive, even if a little bit at a time.

Reflection:
What are some practical ways we can seek to embody this alternative vision of a more just and generous world, right here and now?