A sort of familiar, I will stress, "sort of familiar" Christmas carol speaks of bells that make that announcement. It's called "I heard the bells on Christmas Day." Longfellow wrote the poem it is based on when he heard his son had sustained injuries in the civil war. He considered what had just happened and wrestled with his picture that life seems to tell a different story than the one the bells tell regarding peace on earth.
His observations still seem to be on the mark. On Tuesday we heard about a random, rush hour shooting along or near a highway in Dallas. During the same news report, I heard more about the plane that went off the runway out west and went up in flames. All of us are hearing about the weather and the delays this is creating for travelers this Christmas, and my own story is that I went into the hospital last week afraid I was having a heart attack.
All of them have at least one thing in common. Sin is behind each of them.
Now, when I say "sin," most people would agree sin would be behind the random shootings, but wonder how sin has anything to do with bad weather or me going into the hospital. And what does this have to do with the announcement of peace on earth?
Everything.
Christ is the prince of peace. He didn't come simply to be born. He didn't stay baby Jesus. He came to bring peace to the earth, but not quite as we wish or as quickly as we wish.
And still, most would hear peace on earth and see it as only between people. I want you to expand your minds and think beyond just that. Yes, we hear a lot about friction between people and nations, and feel it between ourselves, but friction and disorder happen in a lot more than just between people. A lot of animals don't get along. Our dog and cat just tolerate each other, but occasionally our cat will pull back her paw like this and start striking at our dog playfully, teasing her, just to start a little fight. The dog doesn't see it as playful and doesn't like it at all. Doesn't peace on earth mean an end to that? Coyotes each chickens and other livestock. Don't a lot of the farmers around here know it? Wouldn't peace on earth mean that won't happen anymore?
Where else do we find death and disorder in creation? Like I said, I went into the hospital for what I thought was a heart attack. It may not have been that, but it still showed something was out of whack.
What about other things out of whack? When the car breaks down, is something out of whack, demonstrating that we don't live in a perfect universe? What about a plane that goes off the runway and bursts into flames? Does peace on earth have anything to say about that? What about untimely snowstorms? Does peace on earth say anything about that?
You might be inclined to say this is life, and that is true. It is life as we know it, but it is not life as it was meant to be. That's why Jesus came. He came to make life as it was meant to be, and the price for it was His life and death.
This might seem to be asking you to expand your mind too much, but I've taken it in this direction because of a reading we had for the first Sunday in Advent. On that last Sunday of November, when we heard about Jesus as a grown man riding into Jerusalem, riding in to die, just as He came on Christmas so He could die. He rode a donkey, two of them actually. One of them, however, was unbroken. This donkey had never had someone sit on him, and yet, a full grown man gets on him, rides him into a noisy crowd, and the donkey lets Him. Something was happening in the animal world that day.
We think about the animals that were there when Jesus was born. The Bible doesn't say anything about them, but the fact that Jesus was placed in a feeding trough, says there probably were animals around. I'm sure they were domestic animals, donkeys, horses, sheep, cattle. But what if a bear or lion had wandered in that night? Would it have killed those animals? No, I would think that just as Isaiah describes the lion lying down with the calf and the wolf dwelling with the lamb, that the peace, the Prince of Peace would bring, would have been seen there at Jesus' birth.
Still, what all this talk about peace illustrates is what we want to hear the most. It's nice to think that one day when Jesus returns He will bring peace, the universe will be perfect, there will be no more crying or dying, nor more pain or complaints. But what really matters is now. What about now? What does the angels' message mean now? What does God want you to know now this Christmas Eve? What do you need now, so you can make sense of a world that is still out of whack?
First, there is no peace between Him and us without this child. We sin against Him. When we think we are only hurting others, it is always against Him. Even when we try to do the right things and make things better between Him and us, we are simply making it worse. I say this because we can clearly see what He has provided to bring that peace. It is lying in the manger. Any attempts we may take to make peace, makes the situation worse, because it is denying what He has said about us, and denying what He has already done. Give up trying to make peace. Stop struggling and acknowledge you can't do it.
And then look inside the manger. There it is. That's the way peace is made. God Himself has been born as a human being, to suffer for all the evil and even for all the good we think we are doing. He suffered and then He died. And then He rose again. His resurrection proves that Jesus was all He claimed, that the baby born in Bethlehem really is God as He said. It also proves that His death was what we needed so peace could be between us and God.
And then look at His claim on you. Do you wonder if it really could be true, despite the way you sin against Him, your best intentions that still fail? Do you wonder if there really could be peace between you and Him? Look at your baptism. He has brought it to you unmistakably. Peace is yours not only because Jesus has earned it, but because it has been given to you.
The end of the song, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, ends with a positive message after all. After talking about how hatred and war mocks the song, then it says
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep God is not dead, nor doth He sleep The wrong shall fail the right prevail With peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Yes, God is not dead. He lives forever. He lives forever for you. Christ has conquered sin and death. He has conquered it for you, and the angels announced it for you long ago to a bunch of shepherds on a hillside outside Bethlehem.
AMEN