I get to do a short talk on Sunday night at an ecumenical village carol service. Here is what I’ve come up with. I take some short cuts for sake of time in certain places – e.g., I’d like to link peace and forgiveness to the Cross. However, perhaps this is just setting out the markers, like an initial conversation.
Last weekend we took our children to Marsh Farm Country Park to see The Christmas Journey Live. Actors drawn from local churches guide you around the farm, telling the Christmas story. Roman soldiers met us and demanded we leave our village to register for the census. As we walked, Palestinian peasants accompanied us, complaining about the Romans on the way. We met Mary, Joseph and their donkey, as they travelled to Bethlehem, where innkeeper after innkeeper turned them away. We saw a star and the Magi, and our narrator interviewed one of their lackeys. We went to a barn with a nativity scene, and sang carols. We ended with mince pies, apple juice and some literature.
But one scene will stay with me: the angels and the shepherds. For this, we went into one of the buildings where Marsh Farm keeps their own sheep. In one of the pens sat the actors playing the shepherds. Some angels rushed onto stage block and declared their message. However, the angel and our narrator had to compete with a vociferous Marsh Farm sheep who wanted to take over the entire dialogue!
And it is to the angels and shepherds that I would like us to come for a few moments now. Let me take some words from the middle of the story:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’
‘On earth peace.’ Peace on earth. Couldn’t we just do with that? Iraq. Iran. Afghanistan. Zimbabwe. Closer to home: murders of teenagers on the streets of London. Or in our families: domestic abuse. Tragic, heartbreaking divorce. Peace on earth is a joke, isn’t it? Two thousand years on, and no sign of it.
But the Christmas angels promise ‘peace on earth’ for some specific people: ‘on earth peace among those whom [God] favours.’ Oo-er. God has favourites? It reminds me of Jose Mourinho’s arrival at Chelski, when he described himself as ‘The special one.’ Religious people claiming special favour make us nervous – and with some justification.
But the story of the shepherds and the angels makes us see the question of whom God favours very differently. Who are favoured in the story? The shepherds. They get the angelic visitation. No politician. No religious leader. Shepherds.
Why is that important? Because shepherds were treated badly in first century Palestine. They could provide the lambs for the sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple, but the same religious authorities labelled them ‘unclean’, and banned them from the Temple. Commonly people thought they were criminals. Imagine how we often think of gypsies or travellers, and you won’t be far off. Yes, these people are the ones favoured by God.
God’s favour isn’t for those who consider themselves special or superior. Take that attitude and you can never receive God’s blessings. If we behave as if our religion is doing God a good turn, we’ll find ourselves lacking his approval.
But the shepherds are different. They have no status or privilege. They are more likely to approach God humbly. Those who come to God humbly find his peace. Moving towards God with a sense that I fail him, that I don’t want to let him down but I have, and that I need his forgiveness. Well, then he does forgive. His ‘peace on earth’ begins in our hearts. We know that he loves us and accepts us.
Do you feel like a ‘nobody’? Are you someone whom society despises? Do you think you are a failure? Hear the Christmas Good News: God favours you. He wants to heal you of the wounds others have inflicted on you. He wants to forgive your failures.
And then what? Sit back and enjoy the peace? Just treat it as your ticket to heaven when you die? No. The shepherds didn’t. They went to Bethlehem to find Jesus.
Bethlehem – where Jesus was born in poverty, in a land occupied by a foreign power. If ever a place needed peace on earth, it was here. Just like so many places today.
And just as Jesus was born to an angelic fanfare proclaiming peace, just as he came as the Prince of Peace, so he calls everyone who receives his peace to take it into the world, too. Where can you and I take the peace of Jesus to broken or hurting people? It might be in the peace we extend to friends, family or neighbours. It might be at work, or at leisure. It might even be a call to go further afield.
One thing is for sure, if Jesus has healed and forgiven us with his peace, then he calls us in response to heal and forgive others in peace.
Yes, let’s receive peace on earth from Jesus this Christmas. And let’s share it with the world.
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