SCRIPTURE
LUKE 2:4-7

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

At times, Christmas can seem like the least peaceful time of year. Anyone who has ever left their Christmas shopping to the last moment can testify to that! Yet even when all the planning and preparations are complete, many of us still find very little peace. Between wrapping and cooking, family meals and family fights, and accommodating out-of-towners, peace seems to be a rare commodity.

We can, perhaps, find some comfort in the fact that a lack of peace is perfectly in keeping with the very first Christmas. Finding peace in the midst of chaos may well be the oldest Christmas tradition we have.

Joseph and Mary had already spent months facing the problems and struggles that come from a suspicious pregnancy in a small and rural community. Now they had to travel all the way to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census—around an eighty-mile journey, which would have taken at least four days. Then they arrive in Joseph's ancestral hometown only to discover that the crowd had beaten them. Bethlehem was full to bursting with travellers, and the only place they could find to deliver Mary's child was literally fit for animals. There seems to have been little room for peace in their Christmas, just as there often seems to be little room for it in ours-because soul-deep peace cannot be found; it has to be accepted.

Joseph and Mary undoubtedly experienced the peace they desperately needed when they held the newly born Son of God. Even amidst all the chaos of the pregnancy and the journey and the delivery, there can be no doubt that they felt the peace that can only come from God when they heard and saw and held their baby--their Saviour.

Peace cannot be bought at a store or ordered online. It cannot be gift-wrapped or served on a plate. However hard we strive, however much we do, the peace we most desperately and urgently need has its source in Jesus Christ. The peace of God is a gift of God's grace, freely given to all who do as Jesus's earthly parents did--simply be in his presence. The chaos may not cease. The holy family eventually had to flee Bethlehem because a tyrant plotted the murder of every male child in the area in a futile attempt to kill the Messiah.

Our chaos may continue, and it may even increase. After the miraculous and incarnational birth of the Christ, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus were refugees in another country for a time before they could safely return home. But the chaos of a broken world cannot diminish or spoil the peace that God gives. It cannot overcome or overwhelm the peace that comes from sitting at the feet of Jesus. Christ promised us unmatchable peace (see John 14:27). To paraphrase the old song, "We've got peace that the world can't give, and the world can't take it away."

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION OR DISCUSSION

Does it comfort you, as the author suggested, to realise that the first Christmas was probably not a very peaceful one? Why or why not?

What does the author mean by the statement that "soul-deep peace cannot be found; it has to be accepted"?

If Jesus is the source of our peace, and if we are Christians who follow Jesus but we don't feel at peace, what can we do to bring the peace of Jesus to ourselves? (Think about the difference between finding and accepting peace.)

PRAYER

Write a prayer asking God to grant you peace in a situation where you need it.