Christmas Gifts – Day 23
Our daughter Allison has always been our “Christmas child.” While her brother loved the gifts Christmas brought, Allison loved the music. I still remember listening to Kenny G’s Christmas CD flowing from her room until long into the New Year… like Valentine’s Day.
Her favorite Christmas CD still today, however, is Michael W Smith’s Christmas CD. She would sing it from the backseat of our car on trips back to see grandparents. She would sing it through the day, and throughout the season, and into the New Year also!
One song on the CD is entitled “All is Well.” It’s one of the most haunting and lovely Christmas songs on the CD, and (thanks to Allison) has LONG reminded me of Christmas. A few weeks ago, at the beginning of the Christmas crush, Allie texted us a brief video of her singing that song. It was a deeply moving experience for me and for Pam to hear this. Partly because of memories it kindled. Partly because of the meaning it conveyed.
The message of Christmas is captured with those words. The message delivered by the angels of “peace on earth, goodwill toward men” is one that resonates with us. It has never been more needed than it is now.
Perhaps the greatest gift that Christmas brings is the gift of peace. Not peace in the form of the serenity painted on Christmas cards of starlit, snow-covered fields with a horse-drawn carriage or roaring fires roasting chestnuts. The peace Christmas brings is more gritty, more real-world than that. It is peace in spite of circumstances. It is not peace that comes in the absence of a storm, but in the midst of it. It is peace while living on a planet in the middle of a war zone.
It is peace that was purchased with a price. On a cross. With blood and nails and tears. It is peace with God that can only come from God. And because of the peace that comes with the baby of Bethlehem, the Prince of Peace, we too can say,
“All is well.”
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Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1)
FOR REFLECTION: What is one practical thing you can do to share God’s gift of peace this
Christmas?