December 17
“On earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.”
Luke 2:14 (ESV)
A lot of Christmas angst is expressed every December. There’s Charlie Brown who ponders what Christmas is really all about, and folks everywhere trying to make this season the most wonderful time of the year. Let’s pause on that word wonderful—it means to be characterized by wonder, by awe; to be overwhelmed by something bigger than ourselves, like a choir of angels or a virgin giving birth.
If you don’t believe in miracles, you won’t track down the Christmas spirit. We have to be like the poor, humble shepherds who were so smitten with awe and wonder that they left their fields the miracle baby. Now, we have our secular versions of Christmas miracles—a jolly, old, present-delivering elf; a reindeer with a luminous nose; and even a wedding-performing snowman. These “miracles,” however, are only poor reflections of the real thing.
We settle for attenuated miracles and then expect them to fill us with awe. The wonder of Christmas blossoms only when we grasp the fact that the eternal and transcendent God wrote Himself into our story. He placed Himself in a Bethlehem cave; wrapped in rags, He shivered in a manger. The baby whom Mary bore would one day bear all our sins.
“Peace on earth and goodwill to men.” We long to believe this peace is possible, if only for a day. Contemporary Bible translations capture better what the angels said, even if less poetically: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.” Peace is God’s Christmas gift. Without wonder, we will never get peace. It came in human packaging, within which the fullness of the Deity dwelt. The peace we desire—that evasive Christmas spirit—is not manufactured by our efforts to fix the world or even to find that perfect Christmas present. The trappings of Christmas don’t contain the Christmas spirit. At best, they point to it. Many people work so hard to achieve heaven on earth for that one best day each year, not realizing that it already happened. Heaven came to earth over two thousand years ago, and the peace of God is available for all who embrace, with wide eyes and wonder, God’s Christmas present, Jesus Christ.
That’s what Christmas, and the Christmas spirit, is all about, Charlie Brown.