Homily

On the night of Christ’s birth, the angels in great choir sang to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to those on whom His favor rests.” Just before we begin the Liturgy the priests and deacons bow and make the sign of the cross two times while they say these words, and of course the first petition in the Liturgy is, “In peace let us pray to the Lord.” But the words of the angels are interesting to me. “Glory to God in the highest…” is surely a great phrase to the Lord. But then they talk about the peace of the people on whom God’s favor rests. They don’t exhort people to pray, or repent, or even to rejoice. They simply mention peace. Because Christ has come there is the opportunity for peace. He is indeed the Prince of Peace.

So we hear about peace at one end of Jesus’ life and we will hear about peace from Him on the night before He died. John 14:27— “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives peace do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

What is the peace the world gives? I would like to describe it as the peace that is “out there,” the conditions out there, outside of me. When there is no war or fighting, no aggravation or hostility or threats of violence or injury. When the world and people and conditions outside of me are all going well and not causing me any trouble—that’s the peace of the world. But how often do we share in that peace? How long does it last?

Yesterday I was watching a small piece of a documentary about some of the world’s great empires and how they eventually collapsed and were taken over by other people. And in the usual style they would perform some historical re-enactment and in between scholars would talk about the historical aspects of these different nations. And in this particular segment a German professor of history made a comment about two different groups of people, praising the culture of the one group and criticizing the culture of the other group. I couldn’t believe it. This comment came in from nowhere, out of the blue, but it was a politically correct thing to say and I guess she just had to throw it in somewhere. It totally contradicted what she herself had said earlier, and it contradicted what the other professors had said, and, worst of all it contradicted all the facts that the film had just given us. It was a very, very stupid thing to say but it didn’t seem to bother her. She had to get this comment in somewhere.

It made me a bit angry, first, because it was a typical comment often repeated by academics, and secondly, it totally contradicted everything she had said but she felt that didn’t matter. “How can she say that? Grumble, grumble, grumble. I’m so tired of hearing this ridiculous propaganda, grumble, grumble, grumble.” It went on in my head for a while, but I got busy with other things. During the course of the next hour every so often it would pop back into my mind like some tar baby I couldn’t free myself from. Finally, by the grace of God, I asked myself why did I want to keep going over this stupid comment and letting myself get bothered by it again and again? Why? What is the point? And as long as I continued to let it back into my head, I was unable to focus on something good, or positive, or helpful. As long as I let it keep coming back into my head, I was missing opportunities for gratitude and helpful thoughts. “Stop it and just shut up. Do you need to have your Christmas preparation disturbed by the comment of one person in a documentary?” That was the end of it. Now a bit later in the day these thoughts tried to poke their way back into my head several times, but I shut the door on them. And this indeed is the grace of God.

We shouldn’t let our thoughts push us around. As much as possible we should serve in the peace of our Lord. What good, of what use were my thoughts about this professor’s comments? Why should I give away my peace because of them? Ridiculous. But at least I recovered this time.

There are hard, difficult and stressful times in our lives where for a period, we may not be able to find peace at that moment. Even Jesus was in agony at the Garden of Gethsemane. But far too often we give up the peace of Christ ourselves. We allow other people to take it from us by what they say, or what they do, or what they won’t do. It’s as if we think we can only have peace when everything out there is working the way I want it to work, and everyone out there is acting the way I want them to act. Then I can be at peace. But that’s not the peace of Christ.

The peace of Christ allows me to be free from obsessing, and worrying and being afraid, and getting angry, because of this thing or that, this person or that person, this situation or that situation. The peace of Christ does not mean we rest secure in a perfect world, but rather that we rest secure in the protection of the Son of God, and whatever comes our way He will not abandon us. The Word took on flesh because God wanted to be with us. And when we come up at the end of Liturgy and kiss the cross, what truth do we profess? “Jesus Christ is among us! He is and will be!”

I saw an article headline on the internet, “How to avoid the stress of the Holidays.” Ha! I’m sure it didn’t talk about embracing the peace of Christ, but my friends, let us actively seek out His peace this week and grab ahold of it whenever we are tempted to anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness or worry. Let us take hold of our thoughts and call on Christ for His gift of peace in our minds and in our hearts—so that just like the shepherds we can find Him, love Him and thank Him.