And yet, and yet…

(Photo credit: Chris Barton)

Having grown up in church, I’ve heard the passage from Luke 2 many times where Scripture shows us the announcement of the birth of Christ. We’re exposed to angels telling people not to fear, pronouncing good news, and singing of peace on earth and goodwill to men. In my mind, this whole scene had a quiet and warm glow, with silent night vibes and all that. And yet, when I considered the scene and the strife that Mary and Joseph and Jesus were walking through and the upheaval of that world, I wondered at that pronouncement of peace.

I didn’t understand peace.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I learned a very important fact about this story, in particular the identity of these angels pronouncing. In most translations, the Bible calls them “the heavenly host.” If you’re like me (and I really hope you’re not that strange), I’d bet you see that phrase and think of some kind of divine maitre d’ up in the heavens with a nice crisp suit on. A bumrush of waiters perhaps.

But that’s not what “host” means. A “host” in that terminology is a military term, for a massive army. What the shepherds saw that night wasn’t a nice group of nice angels singing nice songs about a nice Savior. It was a glorious and beautiful and terrifying army of armed angels, pronouncing military victory in the heavens. It was a shout and clamor of war as the armies of the Lord marched out to defeat the powers of death and sin. It was glory, it was cataclysm, it was all noise and power and might and victory and movement. Then it was gone, leaving a group of rough herdsmen to seek an infant child.

We don’t understand peace.

Forever, peace has not been an absence of activity or an abundance of leisure. It is not lethargy or indifference. It is not an obsession of providing ease for one’s self. If anything, those things are all signs of decay, of the spirals of entropy drifting.

No, peace is always won. It is bled for. We live in a world of contention and pressure, and peace is never shrugged into. It must be a fight, must be a war that is won.

So when the armies of heaven arrive and announce “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased,” it isn’t a sigh, but a shout! The beauty of Christmas is that the Lord won the victory over death, a battle we lose everytime, and gave those spoils to us in goodwill. The Arrival announces the End, and all those in heaven and earth who are in the Lord rejoice.

This holiday season, you may struggle to find peace. Here’s what we must understand: peace is always fought for. If we identify with Jesus Christ as our victor and Savior, we fight alongside him against the powers and principalities of this world, of the prince of the kingdom of the air. We fight for the lonely, the weak, the poor, the helpless, the rich, the powerful, the sinners.

When we fight against the evils of the world for the sake of Christ and those he loves, we understand his peace.

I hope that you have a Merry Christmas friend, and that this season as you worship our Christ, that you’ll worship as though you hold spear in hand and helmet upon brow, and that you shout among the armies of the heaven, the angels who fight alongside us, the military cry of victory:

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased! Luke 2:14