Glory To God ... Peace To Men

What does Christmas mean to you? To 94 percent of us, according to one survey, it means "exchanging presents". This year spending in Britain over Christmas will be £7,600 per second. And some want to give more than they can afford. This can have criminal consequences. In one Christmas trial the judge asked the prisoner, "what are you charged with?" The defendant said: "doing my Christmas shopping early." "But that's no offence," said the judge; "how early were you doing your shopping?" "Before the store opened," the man replied.

The real meaning of Christmas is in those words of "the heavenly host" from our last carol and in our last reading - Luke 2 verse 14:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests.

That is the Christmas message in a nutshell.

For Christ is the Prince of Peace, as we heard in our third reading. But where is the evidence of such peace? Take Bethlehem. Since last year there has been a four month occupation by Israeli troops. During that time there was a 39-day siege of the Church of the Nativity with Palestinian militants inside. The occupation ended in August. But recently, on 22 November, Israeli troops were back. The BBC now calls it "the troubled town of Bethlehem."

Just as real are our personal troubles. These seldom make the headlines. Some of you tonight are experiencing difficulty in your family or marriage. Perhaps for others there's been the collapse of a business or loss of a job. You may have an addiction. Undoubtedly there will be those who have a serious illness. Yet still the message comes through, "on earth peace to men on whom God's favour rests."

You say "that can't be for me with all my troubles?" You're wrong. In our fourth reading, we heard that Mary had "found favour with God." But she experienced the peace and favour of God at the same time as she experienced trouble. Mary first had a long and wearing journey to Bethlehem; then the pain and strain of childbirth away from home; then a frightening journey to Egypt with threats on her baby's life; then a return to Nazareth with probably years of poverty; and finally she saw her son crucified on a Roman cross. All that time she was experiencing the favour of God. The evil was not from God; but he was able to use it for good. And she experienced God's peace as she trusted and obeyed him.

For some of you tonight suffering may mean God's favour in his sovereign way, however hard it is to believe. Corrie ten Boom was a great Christian Dutch-woman. She wrote movingly of her experience of Christmas 1944 in the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. She said that God's plan for our lives is like a tapestry. We only see the underneath - a mass of tangled threads. From God's side there is a wonderful picture. That loss of a loved one, something that has gone wrong at school or college, or whatever it is, can be God's favour on your life. Remember, God overruled in Mary's life. He will overrule in yours. God not only loves the world and has a plan for history that is centred in Jesus Christ who came that first Christmas and will one day come again. He also loves you and has a plan for your life. Jesus says,

even the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Mat 10.30).

Archbishop Donald Coggan used to say: "God sometimes puts us on our backs to make us look up." God is teaching you through your troubles to trust him and obey him. It is more important to know God than to be comfortable.

For the second coming of Christ will be for judgment. His first coming, however, was for peace - but peace in his way. He said:

in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (Jn 16.33)

And if you trust in Christ, by his Holy Spirit you can experience peace through his presence. He promises:

I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Mat 28.20)

Do you know the presence of God as a reality in your life?

It was exactly three nights before our Carols by Candlelight service in 1985. A young mother woke up to find her house on fire downstairs. She, her husband and three children aged six, four and two were stranded upstairs with the phone dead. They could not call the fire brigade. They had a rope safety ladder but it did not reach the ground. However, her husband carried the two year old down and jumped off the bottom. The six year old went down by himself and also jumped. The four year old, called Jason, was too big to carry but too scared to go down alone. Then a neighbour turned up at the bottom. So the little lad, with great courage, went down, on his own, and all was well. But the house suffered huge damage - all due to a candle being foolishly left alight. Later the mother praised the children and especially Jason. He replied:

"It was nothing, Mum. 'Be strong and courageous. Be not afraid. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.'" He was quoting Joshua 1.9, a verse from the Bible. The young mother was amazed. Here are her own words:

"I could not hide my tears. I had been trying to teach my children a bible verse each week and read bible stories to them and gave them pictures to colour. Jason hadn't shown much interest, and I wasn't aware that he even remembered Joshua 1.9."

But that is at the heart of being a Christian - knowing and experiencing the presence of God in your daily life and so his peace. And Christ gives us peace not only by his presence in life but also by his presence in death. He assures us of heaven. By his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead he drew the sting of death.

Our second reading spoke of that primeval disobedience when the man and the woman went their way and not God's. We all sin like that and are all guilty before God. Some of our troubles are directly due to our sin. But Christ took away our guilt by dying on the cross in our place to give us "peace with God", now and for eternity - the most important peace of all.

Christmas trees, as we know them, go back to Martin Luther, the great German Reformer. On Christmas Eve one year, he saw an evergreen tree lit up by the stars shining above. He wanted to capture the moment for his children. So he cut down a tree, took it home and decorated it with candles. The tradition took hold and took off. But Luther is most famous for teaching (in the 16th century) about "peace with God" through faith in Christ and about those words of St Paul from Romans:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Christmas was just the beginning. Ahead was the cross. And beyond the cross was the empty tomb which proved not only the power of the cross but also the truth of Christ's claims - that he alone is the way to God. The empty tomb sets him apart from every other religious leader. The empty tomb proved that the Christmas story is not just a romantic myth.

As our first reading taught, the baby in Bethlehem was none other than God coming into the world. Perhaps you now see why men and women don't experience, on earth, the peace that God offers and the angels sang about. They ignore the first part of the message. They do not give "Glory to God in the highest". That is necessary before you can have "on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests". And as people give "glory to God" there is not only peace to men but also peace among men as relationships change.

Will you give "glory to God" this Christmas? How do you do that? You thank God for his greatness, his goodness and his love; you obey his word; and you trust in Jesus Christ his Son as Saviour and Lord.

So let us all sing the last verse of our next carol thoughtfully and prayerfully:

O holy child of Bethlehem,Descend to us, we pray;Cast out our sin and enter in,Be born in us today!