Peace on Earth

 

I don’t know how excited you get in the lead up to Christmas, but I know that families with young children or even older children can have a bit of a tough time.
 
I remember at Christmas time, when I was small, how excited we got quite a bit before Christmas, just making paper chains to hang round the kitchen and lounge. Maybe you remember the strips of coloured paper with a bit at the end which you licked to make the paper stick to make a link, then repeated loads of times to make a complete chain, often many feet long. So the excitement began, maybe even three or four weeks before the day.
 
My brother and I shared a bedroom and I remember waking up one Christmas morning and feeling a lump at the bottom of the bed and realised I had been given a stocking full of surprises. Traditionally these stockings contained small items like a paper hat, balloon, sugar mouse, an orange, some nuts and sweets. That particular Christmas I found a plastic trumpet, which actually worked. Meanwhile my brother had been opening his stocking and, amongst other things, he was given a toy drum. Well, the excitement levels had, by now, reach atmospheric proportions as the trumpet blared and the drum was bashed to create a concert.
 
Now, the only problem with all this is that it was only one o’clock in the morning, Christmas morning! Needless to say, we had managed to wake up the whole family and the visit from mum and dad to our room didn’t end too well! At that age we never realised all the preparations for Christmas that had taken place by our parents. There were the cards sent, the food buying and preparations, the cooking beforehand, the present buying and wrapping and all the other things done to give us a great Christmas.
 
I got to thinking about all that with my mum and dad and how they must have wondered what “PEACE ON EARTH” was really all about. We read in Isaiah 9:6 of a Saviour called, “Prince of Peace”, or Luke 2:14 where it actually talks about ‘Peace on Earth’. Sadly what a long way we are from that today.
 
But for me, John 14:27 explains about peace, where Jesus says, “My Peace I leave with you; my Peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid”. This Advent we are reminded that God’s gift to us is a special Peace.