Peace on Earth

Merry Christmas?

I do love this time of year.. there is a sense of anticipation in the air at our house as the kids try not to speculate too publicly about what presents they might get.

There is also that sense of pre-Christmas madness as we host the Christmas lunch for the first time and somehow the house needs to move towards some semblance of order.

The more I connect with others, and the more I am aware of my friends in other countries however there is a stark reminder that Christmas isn’t the same for everyone.

In fact, the idealism of Christmas sentiment seems out of place in the context of the challenges so many people will be facing tomorrow.

One of the best doses of Christmas reality comes in the form of U2′s Peace on Earth.

The song begins:

Heaven on Earth, we need it now

I’m sick of all of this hanging around

Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain

I’m sick of hearing again and again

That there’s gonna be peace on Earth

Can you identify with those words?

The song is a desperate plea as Bono contrasts the cliches of Christmas with what the reality is.

Jesus can you take the time

To throw a drowning man a line

Peace on Earth

To tell the ones who hear no sound

Whose sons are living in the ground

Peace on Earth

Jesus this song you wrote

The words are sticking in my throat

Peace on Earth

Hear it every Christmas time

But hope and history won’t rhyme

So what’s it worth

This peace on Earth

Christmas is a holiday full of commercially wrapped cliches, but the first Christmas wasn’t like that at all.

The saviour of the world comes into the world as a bastard, born to a desperately poor family and delivered amongst the excrement of dirty animals.

Its true that withou t the perspective of that little baby, hope and history won’t rhyme.

Tomorrow while my kids unwrap their presents, other beautiful children will be breathing their last breath and having their last thoughts simply because they had the misfortune to be born in the wrong part of the world to the wrong family.

Tomorrow while we sit down to a delicious Christmas meal, little children will be being abused in horiffic ways.

Tomorrow while I enjoy the company of friends and family, many people will be desperately lonely, hoping that someone will take the pain away.

For these people a fat old man dressed in a suit whose colors were chosen because they fit well with a soft drink commercial, seems a pointless fantasy.

Intellectually, a  baby born into a very messy and hopeless world, might also provide very little hope.

Somehow though, the baby whose birth we celebrate at this time of the year changes everythng.

He might not stop the unjust death, or the horrific abuse, or the desperate loneliness, but by coming as a helpless baby into a harsh and dangerous world, by experiencing injustice and abuse, Jesus came to change the game.

He comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

He challenges me to care about more than myself on a day where greed and self interest seem to be the major themes in the Western World.

He invites me to let my heart break as I look into the face of the children who are putting up with things that children shouldn’t have to put up with.

He invites me to befriend the lonely.

He changes the game and invites me to participate in this new, and real game.

Under his direction, hope and history can ultimately rhyme.

Heaven on Earth, we need it now
I'm sick of all of this hanging around
Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing again and again
Heaven on Earth, we need it now

I'm sick of all of this hanging around

Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain

I'm sick of hearing again and again

That there's gonna be peace on Earth

 

That there's gonna be peace on Earth