It’s always during this holiday season, as another year begins to bow out and the western sky is scattered with a million colors. Folks’ hearts are filled with almost as many colors, too, and good cheer and peace abound.
I have to shake my head a little and offer a wrinkled brow, though, even in this special time: Sometimes peace can be way off over a thousand hills.
That’s how far away peace is over on the other side of the world, in a land where feuding and fighting is as much a way of life as getting up in the morning. Peace is as far away as the east is from the west.
And here’s the ironic thing: Right in the middle of that world, two millennia ago now - in the city of David, in the little town of Bethlehem, in a little manger — was born the Prince of peace.
That’s sad, isn’t it? No, not that our Savior was born but that he was born right in the middle of the place that needs peace the most — yet there is no peace and, really, never has been.
On that silent and starry night, angels came and planted themselves down on a sheep-scattered hillside in Bethlehem, and they erupted in the presence of those simple shepherds in what must have been a song to make chills run all the way down your spine and back up it again:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth PEACE and goodwill toward men.”
But too many men of that day weren’t paying attention, and too many aren’t paying attention today.
If you were just passing through, somehow, you’d have to ask “Why?”
We know why: Most never accepted the Savior of the world, the Prince of Peace. They’ve never found him, and they’ve never found peace, either.
But I’m glad to say that peace did come the night that star of Bethlehem shone, but it came only to those who wanted it in the worst way.
It came to those simple shepherds on a nearby hillside and to some scholars who came from afar.
It would come years later to a woman who had a chronic blood disease and would slip up behind the Prince of peace and touch his garment. She felt her hemorrhaging stop and heard the Master say, “Go in peace.”
And she did, no doubt with a hop in her step.
It came to the disciples in a boat out on the Sea of Galilee when the fierce storm walked in uninvited. The Prince of peace, without so much as a wrinkled brow, said,
“Peace, be still!”
And those sea billows quit their fussing and became like a country pond on a windless night.
It came on another similar night, too, when the Man of peace took a stroll out on the turbulent waters to a bunch of scared sailors.
I have to tell you: This ol’ world could use more of this Prince’s walking through the storm, now that a new year is soon to be dawning and a million more colors will be blending together on the eastern sky of 2009.
We could use more cheek-turning and second-mile walking and thinking more of others than we do of ourselves.
We could use more forgiving others just the way we’ve been forgiven and showing mercy just as we’ve been shown mercy a thousand times in our lives.
We could use more, “Here’s my shirt, and - oh! - here’s my coat, too. You take it all. I’ve rather we get along than to have the wardrobe of a king.”
Ah, there’s nothing like peace. If you’ve ever slept on a wave-tossed bed or walked a daily mad and stormy sea in your life, you know what I mean.
Some even see the rockets red glare and hear the thundering of war outside their bedroom window every night. Surely, beneath the fear, their heart has a deeper longing.
Whether it be an inward churning, or a relationship that’s gone south, or a war across the world - it’s nothing that the Prince of Peace can’t fix, not if we let Him in.
The peace He brought on that starry Bethlehem night was special and rare, and it still is.
Readers may contact Steven Bowen at Steven.bowen@redoak
isd.org
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