By Mark A. Taylor
The angels announcing the birth of our Savior promised “peace on earth.” But today in America we are beset with war”s losses, weary with war”s news, and divided by debates about war. It is only natural that Christmas messages this December focus on peace, because this Christmas many are longing for peace as never before.
Ishmael Beah speaks about peace after having his own life ravaged by civil war in Sierra Leone. Orphaned by the conflict, he fought with an AK-47 by the age of 12. Drugged and terrorized by insurgent thugs, he was forced to kill or be killed. Rehabilitated by UNICEF at 15, he eventually was adopted by an American and brought to the United States where he graduated from high school and college. His book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, has given him a national platform to plead for peace.
“Even nature knows when war has come,” he told an audience in Cincinnati. After the first explosions, the swamps and forests fell silent, he said. Birds and animals flee at the absence of peace.
Among men and women who cannot run from war, many seek God.
John Barkemeyer, a Catholic priest from Chicago, is completing a 15-month tour of duty as an Army chaplain in Iraq. He told National Public Radio that war leads almost all soldiers to ask questions: “What”s the meaning and purpose of my life? Is there a God? Does he care? How do I get connected with him?”
In an article for his newspaper back home, he wrote, “The lines for confession are long. . . . Maybe more so than any other time in our lives, we are aware of our need for God”s forgiveness.” He described the “palpable sense of peace” soldiers demonstrate after coming to confession in a war zone.
But in another column, he wrote, “I fear what war does to our soldiers. . . . Everyone gets wounded by the experience of war. The injury may be physical, emotional, or spiritual, but it”s hard to come back home unscathed.”
All Americans will be touched somehow by the high toll of lost lives and spent resources demanded by our latest war.
And every human being is damaged by the war waged by our chief enemy Satan.
Jesus, whose first bed was a manger, told his disciples, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart,” he added, on his way to Calvary and then an empty tomb. “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Because he came, Christmas talk of peace need be no empty sentiment. In fact, his peace is our very best reason to celebrate.
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