Peace

It's Christmas Eve. The presents are wrapped, the stockings are hung. It's Christmas Eve, and I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for that promised peace in the midst of a darkened world.

I'm waiting for peace for the refugee, peace for the broken, peace for the outcast, peace for the children.

I'm waiting for God to show up.

This is the glory of Christmas...that God shows up and his favor rests on us all. Rich and poor. Jew and Gentile. Wise and foolish. God's favor lands smack dab in the midst of our ordinary lives, and there is peace.

We don't always see it, do we? Sometimes it is small, so very small. As small as one baby in one town on this great big spinning planet.

But that baby changed everything, didn't he? Born in pain and blood, born for pain and blood, love stepped into our world. Love keeps stepping into our world, in the midst of the breaking and the pain, the sorrow and the blood.

Love keeps on being born. When we reach out our hand to the outcast, when we lift the children up, when we sit with the broken, when we welcome the refugee. Love is born anew.

I don't have God all figured out, and most likely never will. But this much I know to the very core of my being...Love walked among us, and Love brought and keeps bringing peace.

I'm waiting for the fulfillment of that peace.

May the peace of Love made one of us rest upon you all this Christmas, and may you love with all of your heart, and all of your mind, and all of your soul, and all of your strength.