Approaching Christmas with Peace - Day 2Davey Spens - 7 Dec 2010
Postage Stamp Peace?
When I think about ‘peace’ at this time of year I think of it written in capital letters on the front of a Christmas card, splashed across the inky blue sky over sequined angels, with multi-racial wise men and a porcelain-looking Jesus who’s as quiet as a church mouse in his crib. The sheep are humming ‘Silent Night’ and the angels are quietly fuming over who got the solo in ‘Away in a Manger’. I love that picture. Especially when I’m licking the back of it on a Royal Mail stamp, and sticking it onto a card I’ve written to a friend who lives far away. It conjures a magical feeling, the same warm wintery tingle I get from holding an Egg-Nog Latte in a red cup from Starbucks. But I have a very hard time imagining that that first Christmas was as picture perfect as that – take a teenage mum who’s given birth in a cowshed, no epidural, no gas and air, her fella has failed his paternity test, someone wants then dead, the baby is screaming because he wants a feed, and all these odd visitors keep turning up. I don’t think I’ve seen that captured on a Christmas card before. But try to picture it, and then in your mind write the word ‘peace’ above it in swirly Christmas script and see how it sits.
Sometimes when we think of ‘peace’ we get our wires crossed, our picture gets muddled up with a dream of what happiness looks like. I wonder whether that first Christmas was a Happy Christmas or just plain scary. Mum wasn’t around to help out. They didn’t play Pictionary, watch the Queens Speech, or eat chocolates off the tree. Peace doesn’t mean happy families, or happy homes. It doesn’t mean financial stability, or being healthy, or getting everything you wanted on your Christmas list. If ‘peace’ had a sound I’m not sure it would be a purr. When peace really counts it’s a shock. True peace is a gift. It’s a feeling you shouldn’t be feeling if you laid out the evidence on a table, a feeling right in the centre of your stomach that despite the mess of a situation you know it’s going to be okay, and that despite not having a picture postcard life, you haven’t been forgotten.
As we wait for Christmas, the celebration, the feast and the wonder of an incarnate God 24-7 Prayer will be posting a series of reflections to help us to wait well. We have asked friends from across the movement and around the world to creatively express themselves and focus us on the coming of Christ. This the 2nd week of advent explores Peace. Follow along with the 24-7 Prayer 'Approaching Advent' Calendar.