Each Sunday, we include a moment of call and response as an element in our worship service.
“May the peace of Christ be with you,” proclaims a worship leader.
“And also with you,” intones the congregation.
Yes, the familiarity of our ‘passing of the peace’ may dampen the significance of what it intends. However, Advent and the Christmas season remind us to extend peace to others just as God extends peace to us in Jesus.
God gives us peace—that is, epic and eternal assurance—through the gift of Jesus’s teachings, his servant leadership, and his sacrifice on the cross. The least we can do is pass that peace on to others.
At our best, we find ourselves extending acts of loving kindness to others during this season. As children, we learned that just as God gives us the gift of peace--and just as the Magi gave gifts to baby Jesus--we too are called to be gift-givers. At Christmas, we permit ourselves to be more thoughtful, more hospitable, more generous.
But let’s consider that we are called to be more than just amiable. The scripture compels us to give the peace of Christ to one another. At an elementary level, this means being peaceable.
To share the peace of Christ with someone means that we sacrifice our right to strike back when injured or aggrieved. It means choosing reconciliation over grudges, grace over passive-aggressiveness, and a spirit of quiet rather than one of gossip. Peace-making is a practice that requires self-reflection and a commitment to opening our hands when we’d rather make them into fists.
Christ’s peace is more palatable to pass with those who share our pews than it is with those for which we have little time or energy. It’s far harder to be peaceable to those who disrupt our peace--whatever the reason.
And yet, it’s hard not to be moved by a God who chooses to share His peace with us when we certainly do not deserve it. At Christmas, we remind ourselves that God makes peace through the gift of his presence and his sacrificial love. Emmanuel—God with us—is an extraordinary, eternity-shaping step toward establishing a right relationship with us.
It’s funny. As I read over this ‘Five-Day Forecast,’ I find myself holding a polished stone that sits on my desk. Etched on its surface is the word “Peace.” It is my peace-stone. I like to joke that I rub the smooth stone because it helps me not throw it at others!
Ultimately, Christmas is a touchpoint where we are reminded that Christ is God’s peace to a warring, contentious world. So, in the spirit of the season, “May the peace of Christ be with you!” I pray, also, that you find your peace-stone, your memorial rock or Ebenezer, this Advent and Christmas season.
And then, may you find the shalom and the grace not to throw that rock at someone else, also.
