by Jeff Jacoby

Christians regard Jesus as the "prince of peace," and the dream of a world at peace is woven into the story and meaning of the holiday celebrating his birth.

As an angel shared good tidings of great joy with the shepherds abiding in the field, the Gospel of Luke recounts, the heavenly host sang of "glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Two millennia later, what could be more familiar than Christmas cards sharing a wish for peace on earth, or the tender carol "Silent Night," with its image of a mother and her newborn sleeping "in heavenly peace"?

Our world has never been a paradise of tranquility and benevolence, yet the yearning for such a utopia is deeply rooted. It can feel especially compelling at this time of year. One of history's most astonishing illustrations of Christmas goodwill occurred 99 years ago this week, during the early months of World War I, when tens of thousands of British and German soldiers took a break from slaughtering each other along the bloody Western Front. In a remarkable series of unofficial truces, troops on both sides silenced their machine guns and emerged instead into the No Man's Land between their trenches to exchange Christmas greetings with the enemy, sharing souvenirs, exchanging cigarettes and liquor, singing carols, and in some cases even playing soccer.

We take it for granted that the world would be a better place if only such interludes of peace and brotherhood were the norm - if only the butchery and cruelty of warfare could be banished forever. "On earth peace, good will toward men," the angel says in Luke. Nearly eight centuries earlier, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah had expressed the ideal of peace with arresting eloquence:

"And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Those words are carved on a wall facing the headquarters of the United Nations, an organization created, in the opening words of its charter, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

What decent person wouldn't want such a world? Universal peace and harmony would be an unqualified blessing: What could be more self-evident?

In fact it was anything but self-evident in antiquity. That war is an unspeakable curse and peace among the greatest of treasures is not a value human societies have always inculcated. "We may be sure," writes David Wolpe, the well-known rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, "that no one in ancient Assyria stood up and cried, 'How can we fight like this? It is cruel! After all, we are Assyrians!'" Isaiah's vision of nations at peace must have sounded preposterous to the martial nations of his day. "Assyrians fought untroubled by conscience," Wolpe remarks. "Romans cheered the brutalities of the arena."

This point was vividly driven home to me this year when for the first time I read The Iliad, Homer's great epic of the Trojan War. In scene after scene, Homer depicts warfare in gruesome and hellish detail. On nearly every page he graphically describes the killing of Greek and Trojan warriors, portraying their deaths with an intensity and focus - the severed limbs, the shattered skulls, the screams of agony - that are shocking in their barbarity.

Shocking to a modern reader, that is. Homer plainly isn't shocked or upset by the savagery he details. On the contrary. The culture of the Iliad is one in which slaughter is the key to glory and the total destruction of the enemy - women and children not excepted - is exhilarating. At one point the Trojan hero Hector, in the company of his beloved wife, prays that their infant son will grow up to be a great warrior in his own right, admired by all as he returns from battle, "having killed his enemy, carrying back in triumph the gore-stained armor to gladden his mother's heart."

To the ancients, it was obvious that a mother would be proud to see her son return from the battlefield with the "gore-stained" armor of the man he has just killed. That was the world into which the Jewish prophets long ago brought their messianic message of peace on earth, goodwill to men. In time, Christianity would spread that radical ideal across the globe. Its impact may be gauged from the fact that on this day, as Christians mark the birth of their "prince of peace," it is hard to imagine there could ever have been an age when good people everywhere didn't long for a world without war.

The time had come for the Son of God to become man for love of us. His mother Mary and St. Joseph had to leave their home in Nazareth and go to Bethlehem.

This journey had to be made because the Roman emperor wanted a count of the number of his people. So every Jewish family had to go to the city of their ancestors.

Since Mary and Joseph belonged to the royal family of David, they had to go to David's city of Bethlehem. The emperor had made the law, but this law helped to fulfill God's plan. The Bible said that the Savior was to be born in Bethlehem.

It was a slow, hard journey for Mother Mary as they had to travel over hilly country. But Mary was calm and peaceful. She knew she was doing God's will. She was happy thinking of her Divine Son soon to be born.

When Mary and Joseph reached Bethlehem, they found that there was no place for them to stay. At last, they found shelter in a cave. There, in that rough stable, the Son of God was born on Christmas Day.

His Blessed Mother wrapped him up warmly and laid him in a manger. Baby Jesus chose to be born poor so that we would learn that riches and comforts are not important at all.

The night that Jesus was born, God sent his angels to announce his birth. The angels were not sent to the emperor or the king. They were not sent even to the learned doctors and chief priests. They were sent to poor, humble shepherds.

These men were watching their flocks on the hillside near Bethlehem. As soon as they heard the angels' message, they hurried to adore the Savior of the world. Then they went home giving praise and glory to God.

The great prophets of the Old Testament had been comforted by the thought that someday the Savior would come into the world. Now he had been born among us. Christ came for all of us.

The Bible says: "God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son." If those who lived in the hope of his coming were happy, we must rejoice much, much more because we know that as always, God had kept his wonderful promise.

We have Jesus' teachings, his Church and Jesus himself on our altars at every Mass. Christmas is the time when we realize more than ever how much God loves us.

by Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D.

As fall moves onward toward winter, we have places to go, things to do, people to meet. Yet as we go about our business, we notice the days are getting shorter. Sweaters come out of storage, we close the windows, and turn on the heat.

Advent is a season where we stop and remember that the light of this world is waning in more ways than one, that the world as we know it is passing away.

The word "secular" comes from the Latin word for this present world with its priorities - getting a job, paying the bills, finding a mate. Politics, economics, entertainment, sports are all realities of the secular world. "Secularism" is the modern program that insists that this is all that there is. A version popular in America says that there may be more to life than this, but it is entirely a private affair that you may not talk about in public. God, higher values, heaven, are all out-of- bounds topics in school, politics, and the news media.

The agenda of secularism would have us live under the illusion that things will always be the way they are. There may be ups and downs in the economy, but it will keep humming along. Elections may change the office holders, but the government will just keep on keeping on. That's the way people thought in Noah's day. But then the flood came (Matt 24:37-44).

St. Paul calls this attitude being asleep (Rom 13:11-14). God, breaking into space and time in a manger in Bethlehem, changed things forever. The central moment of human history has come and gone; we're in the end game now. The things that now seem so real, so ultimate, will come to a crashing halt.

For many of us in December, the bleak light injects a dose of melancholy into our dispositions. But then we remember that "the holidays" are coming - there is something to look forward to! We string lights on our shrubs and put candles in our windows to cheer ourselves up and thumb our noses at the darkness.

For Christians, these lights have a deeper meaning. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. At the moment when the darkness of human society is at its deepest, the Light of the World will come.

So is it a waste of our time to get educated and employed? Should we just spend our days praying, reading the Bible, and trying to predict dates for the Return of the King?

St. Paul sharply rebuked some for taking this approach. As focused as Paul was on the age to come, he was thoroughly engaged in this one. Besides his profound life of prayer and preaching, he labored with his hands to the point of exhaustion so as not be a burden on anyone, and have something to give to the needy. He said that those that refuse to work should not eat (2 Thess 3:6-13). The Second Vatican Council said that living for the future world should make us more, not less, committed to improving this one (Gaudium et Spes 37).

Besides, the Lord clearly says that His Second and final coming will be at the time we least expect it (Matt 24:44). If God is purposely designing it to be a surprise, I don't think there is much hope of outsmarting Him.

So what do we do about His Coming? Very simple. By the power of His grace, let's make sure that when the Light arrives it won't for us be a cruel light. Are there things in your life that you'd rather not be seen by God and everyone else? Then you'd best get busy rooting them out of your life. Because the Light will reveal all.

About The Author:

Dr. D'Ambrosio studied under Avery Cardinal Dulles for his Ph.D. in historical theology and taught for many years at the University of Dallas. He now directs www.crossroadsinitiative.com with a special emphasis on the Year of the Eucharist, the Theology of the Body, the early Church Fathers, and the Sacrament of Confirmation.

by Adrian Rogers, Love Worth Finding

Scripture: Luke 2:40-47

If you're not careful, you may lose Jesus this year during the Christmas season. Rather than Christmas drawing people closer to Christ, it's been my observation that our eyes get distracted by parties and gifts. Many times there's a let-down in our prayer life, soul winning, and witnessing. In the very midst of the Christmas celebration, we lose the Lord Jesus.

Now we can never "lose" Him in the sense of our relationship with Him. Once God puts His mighty hands around you through Jesus Christ, no power on earth, in heaven above, in hell beneath, "nor any other creature will be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). When you become a child of God, you're His forever.

But there's a difference between relationship and fellowship, and if you lose Him in the sense of fellowship, you're going to be sorrowful. That's what happened to Mary and Joseph in Luke 2. After a wonderful Passover trip to Jerusalem, they went a day's journey without realizing that Jesus was not with them! When they returned and found Him they said, "We have sought thee sorrowfully." There's always sorrow when we lose fellowship with Jesus Christ. The most miserable person on earth is not a lost person but a saved one out of fellowship with Jesus.

Who lost Him?

Mary and Joseph were the two most intimately associated with Him! All of us are in danger of losing fellowship. We should heed the apostle Paul's warning, "Let him that thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12). Some of God's best saints - Noah, David, Samson, Peter - have done it. The closer you are to Jesus, the more fire you're going to get from the devil. He aims his biggest guns at God's best.

When did they lose Him?

In the midst of a religious celebration (v. 41). The Passover was symbolic of Jesus and, irony of ironies, it was at the Passover that they lost Him. If you're not careful, you may do the same - lose the Christ of Christmas in the midst of Christmas.

You can lose Him in strange places. You can backslide with a Bible under your arm. Has the Bible become a textbook to you rather than the precious Word of God? You can lose your sense of the Lord Jesus while working on the Christmas music and doing all the festivities of Christmas.

I heard of a little girl who loved her daddy so much she wanted to make him a special Christmas present - some slippers. This little girl and her dad had a close relationship. Often she would sit on his lap, he would tell her stories, and she would hug his neck. But wanting the present to be ready for Christmas, she did not sit in daddy's lap and he didn't get to tell her stories, because every evening after supper she'd run up the stairs to her room, day after day, working on that present. Finally on Christmas Day she presented him those slippers. Of course, he acted grateful. He didn't tell her, but in the back of his mind he thought, I'd much rather have had the fellowship with my little girl than these slippers she was making. I wonder if sometimes the very things we're doing for Christ may be what keep us from Christ.

Jesus had rather have you sit at His feet than sing in the choir. He'd rather you spend quiet time with Him alone on your knees than be in church. I'm not against being in church or singing in the choir. But if you're not careful, the things you do become a substitute for your love for Christ. They can come between you and the Lord.

How they lost Him

Mary and Joseph, "supposing Him to have been in the company, went a day's journey" (v.44). Are you supposing the Lord Jesus is with you? Have you really checked? Do you know? Does God's Spirit bear witness with your spirit that Jesus is a bright, living reality to you? You can come to church, hear sermons, take notes, use your Bible, sing hymns, give money - and not be in fellowship with Christ, but suppose you are! It's dangerous to think we're right with God when we're not.

Samson rose up to fight the Philistines "knew not that the Spirit of God had departed from him." The church at Laodicea "knew not" it was "wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked."

Take inventory. If God's Spirit is not vibrant in your heart, if there was ever a time when you loved Jesus Christ more than you love Him at this moment, to that degree you're backslidden.

People backslide one step at a time. Mary and Joseph lost him one step at a time. They walked away, taking for granted He was with them when He was not.

Where did they find Him again?

Right where they left Him. You're going to find Him where you left Him. Jesus is right there. You're the one who moved.

You might have left Him when you started neglecting the secret place of prayer. You'll find Him when you go back to that secret place of prayer. You might have started neglecting the house of worship. That's where you'll find Him. You might have left Him when some grudge arose in your heart toward someone in your family. You'll find Him when you go back and make that right. You may have left Him when some grievous sin or habit came. You're going to find Him where you left Him.

How can you lose Jesus? By losing fellowship. Who may lose Jesus? Those who might least expect to lose Him. When may you lose Him? Sometimes in the middle of religious celebrations. How do you lose Him? Going away one step at a time. Where are you going to find Him? Right back where you lost Him.

by John Piper, Desiring God

What does Jesus want this Christmas? We can see the answer in his prayers. What does he ask God for? His longest prayer is John 17. Here is the climax of his desire: "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am" (v. 24).

Among all the undeserving sinners in the world, there are those whom God has "given to Jesus." These are those whom God has drawn to the Son (John 6:44, 65). These are Christians - people who have "received" Jesus as the crucified and risen Savior and Lord and Treasure of their lives (John 1:12; 10:11, 17-18; 20:28; 6:35; 3:17). Jesus says he wants them to be with him.

Sometimes we hear people say that God created man because he was lonely. So they say, "God created us so that we would be with him." Does Jesus agree with this? Well, he does say that he really wants us to be with him! Yes, but why? Consider the rest of the verse. Why does Jesus want us to be with him?

. . . to see my glory that you [Father] have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

That would be a strange way of expressing his loneliness. "I want them with me so they can see my glory." In fact it doesn't express his loneliness. It expresses his concern for the satisfaction of our longing, not his loneliness. Jesus is not lonely. He and the Father and the Spirit are profoundly satisfied in the fellowship of the Trinity. We, not he, are starving for something. And what Jesus wants for Christmas is for us to experience what we were really made for - seeing and savoring his glory.

Oh, that God would make this sink in to our souls! Jesus made us (John 1:3) to see his glory. Just before he goes to the cross he pleads his deepest desires with the Father: "Father, I desire - I desire! - that they . . . may be with me where I am, to see my glory."

But that is only half of what Jesus wants in these final, climactic verses of his prayer. I just said we were really made for seeing and savoring his glory. Is that what he wants - that we not only see his glory but savor it, relish it, delight in it, treasure it, love it? Consider verse 26, the very last verse:

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

That is the end of the prayer. What is Jesus' final goal for us? Not that we simply see his glory, but that we love him with the same love that the Father has for him: "that the love with which you [Father] have loved me may be in them." Jesus' longing and goal is that we see his glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son. And he doesn't mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father's very love becomes our love for the Son - that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit becomes and bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit.

What Jesus wants most for Christmas is that his elect be gathered in and then get what they want most - to see his glory and then savor it with the very savoring of the Father for the Son.

What I want most for Christmas this year is to join you (and many others) in seeing Christ in all his fullness and that we together be able to love what we see with a love far beyond our own half-hearted human capacities.

This is what Jesus prays for us this Christmas: "Father, show them my glory and give them the very delight in me that you have in me." Oh, may we see Christ with the eyes of God and savor Christ with the heart of God. That is the essence of heaven. That is the gift Christ came to purchase for sinners at the cost of his death in our place.