‘Hark the herald angels sing …’ But peace on earth, when?

Only those waging war can bring about the peace so desired by people everywhere who simply want to enjoy life’s goodness. Without just relationships between communities and nations, there can be no peace; justice is peace’s only lasting foundation.

Christmas is, according to Christian belief, a celebration of God becoming human. In the birth of a baby to a young woman two thousand years ago, in the Roman occupied province of Palestine, the Christian faith makes the bold assertion that God enters human life in all its joys and suffering.

All the familiar characters in the Christmas stories of the gospels, Mary and Joseph, Herod the Great, shepherds and wise men, carry symbolic meanings disclosing deeper truths about Jesus. His name is a Greek version of the Hebrew Joshua, meaning God saves. His peasant parents live in a village in the Galilee region governed for the Roman occupiers by a puppet king, Herod. The child is born in Bethlehem, near Jerusalem in Judea because his parents had to walk there to be counted in a census. There is no welcome for the expectant mother except in a borrowed dwelling where animals are kept. The story makes no mention of a donkey for Mary to ride, nor of a quiet place to labour.

You don’t have to believe it is the angels’ song to want to sing it, you just have to raise your voice.

This child might be said to be a king, but there is no silver spoon in this mouth. When the angels appear to shepherds, they sing of peace and goodwill to rough-living outsiders. And wise men from the east carrying expensive gifts, who have followed a star to find the child, inadvertently alert Herod to a rival.

Insecure and already accustomed to murdering his own family, Herod orders the death of all boys under two years old. The young parents flee to Egypt, unauthorised arrivals seeking safe asylum far from home. Thank God, they find welcome! There is darkness in this Christmas story which is little reflected in the customary cards and carols focusing only on the joy of a new life.

The grandest expression of the meaning the birth of the child is found in the fourth gospel, John. The poetry of the prologue is breathtaking in its claims. God speaks an eternal Word, and it is light shining into darkness without ever being overcome by it. God speaks a Word, and it is life so vibrant that all peoples are energised by it.

The Word takes on our mortal flesh and pitches a tent among humans, not that we knew, though some perceived the grace and truth he embodied, and still do.

Christmas is a celebration for believers, and a welcome festival at the end of the year for everyone else who wants to enjoy gathering with friends and family. Since it is a time of gift giving, of food only eaten then, and of travel and holidays, businesses rely upon Christmas for a substantial part of their income.

People try to be their best selves at Christmas, leaving toys under communal Christmas trees, giving to food banks, buying gifts of cows and chickens, or school needs for people in places recovering from war or trying to mitigate climate change. Others make the effort to be civil to relatives or promise not to get drunk.

Even if they would not acknowledge it, something of the spirit of the first Christmas draws people to long for a world where there is peace on earth and goodwill, not suspicion, rivalry, and violence.

You don’t have to believe it is the angels’ song to want to sing it, you just have to raise your voice.

Colleen O’Reilly is archdeacon of Stonnington.