Maurice Andrew considers, as Christmas approaches, what peace on Earth might mean for us today.
Peace on Earth? With all the conflicts on Earth, what a ridiculous expectation.
Still, many people do notice the words ''peace on Earth'' at Christmas.
They are part of the good news of Jesus' birth in Luke's Gospel (2:8-20). Luke presents a picture that many readers can see - shepherds ''in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night''.
The story then presents a startling meeting: with an angel, the glory of the Lord shining around them.
This meeting must bring some kind of expectation, but what kind? Since this is only the first of several interactive meetings, readers must be met by them all before they perceive what kind of expectation this is.
The first meeting does not begin promisingly; it frightens the shepherds.
But it does assure them with a reason not to fear: good news for all the people, the birth of a Saviour, Messiah. Such titles suggest the political background of the time, Roman occupation.
No military saviour is born here, however, but a child in a poor stable. So it is the kind of expectation that takes an unexpected turn.
The meeting is also expanded: the angel is accompanied by ''a multitude of the heavenly host''.
This meeting fosters a comprehensive expect-ation: the multitude confirms the good news of the child born in poverty by calling out for glory to God in heaven and peace on Earth. The expectation has become one of peace, and it is vital that giving glory to God in heaven is combined with peace on Earth.
It is Luke's intention that the angel and multitude should present God meeting people, but it is also made clear that the meeting is expressed through peace.
The good news being for all timplies, further, that everyone is responsible for fostering peace.
In his story, Luke expresses this human responsibility for peace when the angels do not remain on Earth but the shepherds do.
They are the ones who must draw the consequences. God meeting the shepherds stimulates them to meet among themselves, encouraging each other to do something - go and see the new birth.
Their resolve then leads to another meeting, with Jesus' parents and the child.
Meeting them further impels the shepherds to meet other people outside, showing that they cannot keep the good news to themselves.
These other people are amazed. Far from being only some kind of expectation, this expectation of peace is one of amazement.
Stimulated by all these meetings, God may meet people today in Jesus' birth when his mother Mary is now introduced abruptly but movingly: she treasures everything she has heard about Jesus and goes on thinking about it.
God meets people today as they go on thinking about Mary thinking. The shepherds also go on, returning to their everyday work, still meeting among themselves praising God for everything heard and seen. Praise is people meeting God.
All the meetings interact with each other: they frighten, assure, encourage, impel meetings with others, amaze, inspire thought and response.
God meeting people with peace in the birth of a child is not only in one meeting or thought but through the interactive dynamic of the meetings themselves and with the thought and response they inspire.
Through such meeting, thinking and response, people today must also foster peace.
The expectation of God's peace for Luke's readers culminates when we become aware of the indispensability of our own meetings. No angels will meet us but, as angels were pictured as God's messengers, people meeting today may also become messengers of God's peace.
Some meetings, after all, while not involving military conflict, certainly express heated views about other peoples, the poor, and attitudes to the land.
Meetings in connection with land should also convince us to complement our expectations for peace on Earth with peace in earth.
Such a startling inversion is a challenge to foster peace both with and for the earth.
God may meet us with peace through Jesus' birth when Christmas is not isolated for itself but meets us in a clash with an issue that is of the greatest urgency for all humanity.
We may not be in military conflict, but if we do not foster peace in our conflicts concerning the Earth, we cannot expect others to do it in their military conflicts.
Peace on Earth. With all the conflicts on Earth, what a necessary expectation!
-Maurice Andrew is a retired Presbyterian minister and Biblical scholar.
