Peace inspite of the 7 o' clock News

Our lives aren’t any less fettered by “fightings and fears within and without” than that of those who lived two thousand years ago. The Bethlehem Bugle of B.C. 4 would have reported the dreadful news (those near synonymous words) that our very own newspapers carry almost every single day. Lies, cheatings, murders, wars… would have figured in their headlines just as they steal ours.

In the light of the imperfection and warped nature of human predicament, it is not hard to imagine that those folk who were going about their work so long ago would have dismissed the angel choir for the seeming incongruity of the message they were trying to convey, “Peace on earth, goodwill among men.” I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had dismissed the experience as being the result of a combination of the tedium of labour, calamitous political climate and wishful thinking.

It must be credited to them, for they did not allow themselves to be consumed by doubts; It wouldn’t be very far from the truth to imagine that they had in them the peculiar strain to search inspite of doubts; For Scripture narrates that they made haste to Bethlehem and found the baby just as the angel had announced. We know from Scripture and other sources that since that fateful night, things in the world didn’t change. They probably woke up the next day and found that some of their sheep had been stolen and they definitely woke up to the unpleasant reality of the Roman occupation of their country and they continued to be fleeced by those corrupt tax collectors. However their lives changed. In their lives they saw fulfilled the peace that was announced by the angel for they came away praising and glorifying God. While the world remained the way it did, their lives were changed (changed to be agents of change perhaps).

The sorry state of our world should not be an impediment to our encounter with that ancient yet new message of peace on earth and goodwill among men. We will encounter this peace, which often appears paradoxical, only when we meet Christ, even the babe that the shepherds saw in the manger, the Prince of Peace. And our lives will be so changed even if tomorrow morning’s headlines remain the same. And perchance, we will in our small way strive to be the agents of change that God wants to bring about in the world.