And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" (Luke 2:13-14)

Peace. We all want it!

But it never seems to come!

I look over my lifetime, and it's been one continuous narrative of human cries for peace.

One of my earliest childhood memories was that of my parents pulling the shades of our home in Arlington, Massachusetts, during the early 1940s blackouts protecting the Boston area against attacks by German submarines. Although my parents tried to protect from a traumatized childhood, stuff of what was going on in the world leaked through, to the point that two names caused me to freeze with fear--Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. We actually had two ugly andirons in our basement fireplace named after each of those two world-terrorizing characters.

Then came the Korean War, the Cold War and, along with that, the Hot War--the Viet Nam War. Tom Brokaw's recent TV special zeroed in on the year 1968 and all the turmoil going on in the United States. Was there ever a more tempestuous time than that presidential campaign with the forced retirement of Lyndon Johnson, the early primary successes of Eugene McCarthy, who was then pushed aside by Bobby Kennedy. And with Bobby Kennedy's assassination here in California, there came the turbulent Democratic Convention that summer in Chicago. While the officials battled it out within the convention center, young people marched in the streets, waving high the peace symbol while chanting, "All we are saying is--give peace a chance!" Simultaneously, the Republicans battled it out between Romney, Reagan, Rockefeller and Nixon. Nixon emerged to run against Humphrey with his slogan being, "Peace with honor."

But there was no peace. As a young pastor in Key Biscayne, Florida, on eleven occasions I preached with the president of the United States sitting in the sanctuary, while outside young people marched, continuing their chants.

Well, the Viet Nam War finally ended. We honored the dead. Soon after, our hostages were taken at our embassy in Tehran. The Soviets struggled with their bloody battle in Afghanistan. Hot spots of conflict continued to erupt throughout the world. Genocide was repeated in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and we are once again bogged down in a war in Iraq that, at this time, has already gone longer than our involvement in World War II.

We don't have to review history to be reminded of how elusive peace seems to be.

It's hard to believe that it was just last weekend a crazed young man, twenty-three-year-old Matthew Murray, took out his revenge for being dropped from a missionary training program by killing two staffers at the Arvada, Colorado, Youth With a Mission training program at 2:30 a.m. last Sunday morning. He then made his way to the New Life Church in Colorado Springs where, at 1:10 p.m. the same day, he killed two more innocent people. Can you imagine that churches now have to think about having to have armed security officers?

And, the same week, a block and a half away from us here at Ensign Intermediate School, a seventh grader was arrested Tuesday after bringing a bomb on campus.

We aren't even safe in America's favorite pastime. This week, former Senator George Mitchell gave his report on the status of steroid use in baseball. We had already watched as some of our heroes, such as Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, had been discredited. And now Roger Clemens and dozens of others are added to the list.

With this reality backdrop, how can your pastors, Jim Birchfield and John Huffman, even conceive of the idea that one can preach about "peace" being one of the gifts of Christmas? Perhaps a better text than those of today would be that of Jeremiah, who quotes God as denouncing prophets and priests for ignoring injustice and immorality among God's people while ". . . carelessly saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace"(Jeremiah 8:11).

We are confused, aren't we? We don't know quite what words to chant, what signs to make. Still, within us, there is that cry, "Peace, peace." And even though we do not observe it in the larger world out there, in the smaller world surrounding us, we're privileged to stop and think again. Piercing our melancholy yearning for peace and the resultant conflict that seems to come, comes another word from God.

This word came from the angel that first Christmas Eve. It declared to the shepherds (Luke 2:10-14):

"Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!'"

This word comes from the very lips of that Babe of Bethlehem some thirty-three years later, the night before His crucifixion, then in the darkest moment, the least peaceful of all, when a few hours later, His very disciples would flee in fear, he shared these words with them in the Upper Room: "'I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid'" (John 14: 25-27).

This word also comes in the exhortation the Apostle Paul wrote on his sufferings as a prisoner in Rome to his fellow believers in the northern Greek city of Philippi, who themselves had real struggles: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:4-7).

Is this possible? Can it be true? Peace? Is this an illusion or a real possibility?

The Bible speaks to the yearnings of your modern heart. God confronts the conflict of our day, bringing a reassuring word. The Bible says you can have peace!

This peace from God is different from the world's view of peace.

Did you catch that key phrase in those words of Jesus to His disciples that night in the Upper Room on Mount Zion? He made clear to them that His peace differed from the world's notion of peace, that His kind of peace is possible.

At the time Jesus spoke these words, the classical Greek view of peace was identical to the modern definition we find in Webster's Dictionary. Peace as defined by men and women who have not been spiritually reborn through faith in Jesus Christ is a negative. To the nonbeliever, peace is simply the absence of war. It is the removal of conflict. The nonbeliever's endeavor to achieve peace suffers from a totally unrealistic view of human nature. It picks isolated statements from Jesus, calling us to "turn the other cheek." The interpretation is that if there was a total disarmament, an unconditional withdrawal of troops, an abolishment of the industrial military complex, then we would have peace. Or the flip side of this is that the only way to have peace is to arm to the hilt, exercise one's extraordinary power by threatening to bomb if you don't get your way. And you can secure peace by overwhelming human power.

You and I have been around long enough, haven't we, to know that neither of these extremes work.

Jesus still urges you and me to be peacemakers. We have the responsibility to analyze abuses of power. The Christian is responsible for questioning where his tax dollars go. We must set priorities carefully, determining how we can reach out and minister to the life-sapping hunger of millions while, at the same time, providing defense against those who would rob our freedom.

In all of our peacemaking efforts, I pray that we will never come to the point where our values are so watered down that they are not worth defending. War is horrible. War is an ugly thing. Even more ugly is a person who doesn't think that anything is worth fighting for, who depends upon better persons than them to defend freedom. Hiding one's head in the sand in denial to the ugly threats the world around only encourages those who would arm to the hilt and roll over the powerless.

A dear friend of mine from France, Henri Lardon, has shared with me his experiences prior to World War II. He described how France was caught up in the quest for peace. Workers demanded higher wages. The nation was paralyzed by strikes. During this social revolution, the Germans were rearming at a rapid pace. Finally came the day of reckoning. Unimpressed by the French desire for peace, the Nazis, on September 3, 1939, made their move against a nation incapable of defending itself. Within eight months, France had fallen.

Peace seen simply as the absence of conflict can lead to naive optimism. Its symbol is Prime Minister Chamberlain's pre-World War II Umbrella Policy. He made a wishful accommodation to Hitler, and much great disharmony resulted.

At the other extreme is the idea that we can purchase peace, attaining it with overwhelming military power. That was part of what caused us to believe that we could prevail in Iraq. I remember reading articles in Foreign Affairs magazine as recently as 2001, calling for a "American imperialism." Notions of the neo-conservatives behind this concept was that, now that the Cold War was over, Russia defanged, we were the superior military power in the world and had an obligation to maintain the peace of the world using our military power to do it. It was this optimistic view that, somehow, our motives would always be right, our decisions the right ones, and, not only could we prevail in our own self-interest but that we had an obligation for the sake of the world to do this.

Well, all you have to do is read the Bible and discover things don't work that way. One would think, from reading the newspapers today and listening to the political commentary, our invasion of Iraq was all the idea of President George Bush. I happened to be in Washington, seated in the Senate chamber for one whole day in January 2003 as guest Senate Chaplain, listening as the war was debated. There were only three senators who showed up for the debate. All three were Democrats, who not only argued with the Republicans but pled the question, "Where are our fellow Democrats, who should be speaking up against the war?" By the time I was back in Washington the middle of March that same year, a momentum had built up in favor of our invasion with support of both Republicans and Democrats. But the same three senators, who again were pleading against the war, were dismissed as irrelevant. And now we see, we can't just arbitrarily bring democracy to the world by overwhelming military might. Human nature is much more complex than this.

Disarmament isn't the answer. Overwhelming strength isn't the answer. I will leave it to persons brighter and more knowledgeable than am I to determine our nation's foreign policy. But what I can say is, the peace of God is different!

God's peace is positive.

It is not simply the negative concept that defines itself strictly as the absence of conflict. Biblical "peace" is primarily a positive. It covers every single relationship of life. It captures the Old Testament "shalom." It carries on into the New Testament the concept of the ideal state of life--wholeness, well-being, harmony. It embodies a totality of life that is available when a person or a nation is right with God.

The biblical concept of peace is not the absence of conflict. This peace is dependent upon a right relationship with God. It admits the presence of sin within the human race. It emphasizes God's necessary judgment upon sin. The gift of peace is tied in with the gift of salvation, at which we've already looked. Jesus Christ came to bring peace. But His peace is no easy harmony.

The biblical scholar Alan Richardson writes:

. . . the peace of unbroken union with the Father in the midst of adversity, which is the supreme gift of Jesus to the disciples and which is to be distinguished from all forms of worldly security (John 14:17), is dependent upon His final victory over the chief enemies, sin and death (John 16:33). Hence it is that after the resurrection the Lord greets His disciples with 'Peace,' shows them the marks of the passion and passes on to them His own mission and victory over sin (John 20:19-23, 26).

The life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus is God's Gospel of peace for all humankind. It came not out of some nirvana, some narcotic stupor of insensitivity to pain. It came out of God's willingness to be expendable in the person of Jesus Christ. It came out of Christ's passion--His suffering, His death, His resurrection--providing you and me with a fullness of life, a well-being, a oneness with our Creator which is otherwise impossible.

This peace, which Jesus Christ promises to you, passes all human understanding.

It is not determined by material and political circumstances.

Human understanding would be inclined to say that peace can be identified with material affluence. It is equated with the ascendancies of one's own political views. Though this human understanding of peace would say that, if I get enough money, a good enough education, accumulate to myself enough political power that I can have my way, I will be at peace.

It simply doesn't work this way.

Many young people do not understand this fact. During the peak of the violent student demonstrations in the late sixties and early seventies, I had an opportunity to engage a number of these young radicals in intimate one-to-one conversation. On occasion, I would dress the way they dressed and march with them in their demonstrations, trying to understand what made them tick.

I remember one young woman of seventeen years of age alongside whom I marched. She described her inner yearnings for peace. It led her to join The Weathermen, the radical wing of the Students for a Democratic Society. "It's too late to bring peace by peaceful means. The only way to save America is by revolution--a violent overthrow of the government, which will involve the annihilation before a firing squad of the ruling capitalistic class," she declared. Then from underneath her halter, she pulled an ice pick. Brandishing it, she said, "I'm prepared to use this to bring peace!"

Another alongside whom I marched held a master's degree from the University of Chicago. He was an articulate young man. He echoed the same concern, stating that our nation needed to be turned over to the people. Peace would only come when the revolution was complete and all men and women had access to the wealth. He blasted away at our government's callous efforts to maintain the status quo, therefore robbing men and women of their humanity.

These radical responses of the late sixties and early seventies came out of a genuine desire for peace.

Their yearnings, as misguided as they are, are not that dissimilar to those of us of my generation who think that we can rationalize what a great world should look like and then bring the world to that either by military power or clever political persuasion.

What any of these genuine desires for peace, no matter how revolutionary or political in the solutions offered, fail to understand is that this peace of which they talk will be forever elusive until the return of Jesus Christ. There will be periods of relative calm. There will be times of great unrest, international and domestic conflict. We should use the best of our own human, rational efforts to bring some comparative degree of peace but without that optimism that naively assumes that, in our own human efforts, we can bring permanent peace. We forget that even someone as sophisticated and knowledgeable intellectually and as recognized as a world leader as President Woodrow Wilson naively declared that World War I would be "the war to end all wars." It just doesn't happen that way!

The fact is, the only permanent peace any one of us will ever have in this life is that peace described by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:7. He declares, "And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

This peace is totally independent of one's material resources, intelligence and political power. In fact, I would emphatically declare that some of the most pathetic individuals I've ever seen are the affluent who have everything that money can buy, great educations, an enormous political leverage, but are spiritually empty. Their outward circumstances mark them as people of great success. You would think that they would live at the very center of tranquility. But look closely enough, and you'll discover that, for many of them, their internal lives are empty of that most precious commodity of all, authentic shalom, authentic peace.

On the other hand, one can be living at the very center of turmoil, conflict, uncertainty, and experience the peace of God which passes all human understanding. Interestingly enough, peace can be present, even in the heart of conflict, crisis and deprivation. History shows that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." The real quality of a man's or woman's dedication to Jesus Christ is often not shown in times of plenty, but in times of want.

One of the great examples of this is my dear friend, Bernard Muindi from Kenya. Some of you have met him, as he's preached here a couple of times, and I've preached for him on several occasions at churches he's served in Kenya. We met in 1962 at Princeton Theological Seminary. He'd received a scholarship from the then Board of Missions at the Presbyterian Church to do a degree at Princeton where, by the time he arrived, all he had was his tuition and housing. His source of funds for incidental expenses had dried up. He never said anything to anyone about that fact. Once I got to know him, I met with him in weekly prayer and began to realize that he had no cash for out-of-pocket expenses.

I took some of my tithe and helped him. I bought him a suit and gave him a little bit of money to send home to his wife and children in Kenya. I myself didn't have much, but I certainly had a lot more than Bernard. As we met for prayer every Friday morning, after our prayer time, he would tell me stories from his youth. Those were the days of revolution in Kenya. His tribe, the Kikuyus, were caught up in the Mau Mau terrorism, where blood oaths were taken to the tribe, and many Christians lost their lives, whose primary allegiance was to Jesus Christ.

Since Bernard went back to Kenya after graduation, we've stayed in touch. In the late 1960s, there was a resurgence of the oath-taking. Two of his elders were killed, and there were threats on his own life. Through all of this, he gave testimony to "the peace of God which passes all human understanding." Living on a pastor's salary of approximately fifty dollars a month, with forty percent of that going for school fees to enable his children to get an education, he emerged as one of the leaders in the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, becoming both moderator and stated clerk. He bore responsibility simultaneously for the church's life in three very different countries: socialistic Tanzania; Uganda, part of that time under the bloody dictatorship of Idi Amin; and more free enterprise Kenya, with the supposedly Christian president who became more and more oppressive, using his entrepreneurial gifts to benefit himself and his cronies. All through the varying circumstances of Bernard's life and ministry, he has evidenced, as much as anyone I know, this peace of God which passes all human understanding. Now, in his retirement years, living on a minimal pension, he continues to serve, not only several rural churches but has founded a ministry for street children that we here at St. Andrew's are supporting. I never receive a letter from him or have a visit with him but what I almost weep for joy to see how God has worked in the life of both Bernard and his wife Eunice, providing a peace that does pass all human understanding.

I could give case after case of men and women I've met throughout the world who faithfully serve the Lord in the most difficult of circumstances, yet clearly evidencing the same peace.

My father, as a young pastor in Boston in the 1940s and early fifties, had a radio broadcast each morning on WHDH called "Wings of the Morning." It was introduced as your "daily program of music, meditation and spiritual help." God gave him a vision to lead mission teams to Cuba. In the process, he met a great Cuban pastor by the name of B. G. Lavastida. Occasionally, the Lavastidas would visit us in Boston, so I got to know his son Elmer. Well, you know how, in the late fifties, Fidel Castro's revolution took over Cuba and the increased alienation that came with the United States. By then, my young friend Elmer was preparing for the ministry in Canada. He returned to Cuba. As he drove from Havana to Santa Clara, he observed a caravan of military vehicles coming the opposite direction back to Havana. His parents were overjoyed to see him come home to assist his father in ministry and to pastor a local church. Soon Castro operatives arrested him and threw him into a concentration camp along with other pastors, priests and homosexuals--three categories of undesirables. He was forced to work the sugar cane fields from the crack of dawn until the darkness of night. After some time, the authorities realized that, far from being a threat to the national government, he was simply a faithful pastor who wanted to share biblical teachings and lifestyle with his congregation. So he was finally released from prison. As you know, through the years, there has been an enormous exodus of Cubans to South Florida.

Elmer was trusted to leave the country to attend the Baptist World Alliance meetings. I arranged for him to attend the Billy Graham Congress on Evangelism in Amsterdam in the mid-eighties. You may remember, on one occasion, he came here to St. Andrew's in our early months in the new sanctuary and played the piano for us, a beautiful arrangement of "His Eye Is On the Sparrow." Each time, Elmer went back to Cuba. Many, given the freedom to travel, would declare political asylum here in the United States. He faithfully went back to the very austere conditions in which he continues to minister along with his wife Gisela, who now also is an ordained pastor, and observe his daughters grow up, get married and have their own families. In 1989, he arranged for me to do a ten-day preaching mission throughout Cuba. I invited my dad to return with me. We flew in an unmarked plane in middle of the night from Miami to Havana, allowed by the Castro government to visit, hosted by the Ministry of Ecumenical Affairs. We qualified as one of three categories the American government allowed to visit: news persons; close relatives; and approved clergy. Our government did not allow us to take in any money.

I watched Elmer minister in the most difficult of circumstances with a graciousness, a love, a peace of God that passes all human understanding. I can't describe to you adequately the primitive circumstances of an economy in which many of the cars are American built cars of the 1950s, held together miraculously by human ingenuity. The American boycott of Cuba continues to take its toll.

I announced to you last year that Elmer was going to be here and preach. Twice I announced it. In both cases, the American government refused to give him a visa, probably for fear that he might immigrate. Here's a man who could have jumped ship at any point in his previous travels and left Cuba. But, no, he says, "I am Cuban. I am called to serve my people no matter who is in government." And, in the process, he evidences the peace of God which passes all human understanding.

I could go on and on with stories of people I've known through the years who have demonstrated to me the peace of God which passes all human understanding. Many of them are long-haul veterans like Bernard Muindi and Elmer Lavastida, functioning in the most difficult of circumstances in other places in this world.

Many stories are right here in this sanctuary. I could pick out person after person, much to their embarrassment, and tell their story of how they are experiencing the peace of God in the most difficult of circumstances. That's unfair, because it is their testimony to tell. And, from time to time, we do hear those stories.

Just this week, I've been deeply touched, as I'm sure you have, by the story of Tiffany Johnson, that beautiful young, twenty-six-year-old woman who was killed by that sadly demented young gunman, Matthew Murray, at the Colorado Training Center for Youth With a Mission. Tears ran down my cheeks as I watched the CNN interview with her father who described the vivaciousness of her personality, the extent of her service projects for Christ around the world, her love of snowboarding and other outdoor sports, as well as her love and loyalty to her friends. You could see in the eyes of her father the sign of enormous loss that only a father who has lost a daughter can feel. But, at the same time, you could tell by the tone of his voice, his words spoken, and the countenance of his face that he had a deep sense of the peace of God which passes all human understanding. What I didn't know until yesterday was that relatives of Tiffany and the young man, Philip Crouse, who was killed, met this week with Matthew Murray's parents at the memorial service for the young missionaries. For one hour, the three families prayed together and wept together, as the Crouse and Johnson families offered the Murrays their love and their son, Matthew, their forgiveness. What an incredible example of the power of God's love and peace in the midst of the troubling and conflicting circumstances.

Then there's the story of Tony Snow, who just stepped down as President Bush's White House Press Secretary, as a result of his battle with colon cancer. In 2005, he'd announced his physical problems. On March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen, leading to surgery last April, followed by more chemotherapy. He returned to the White House Briefing Room in May but has since resigned. He's given his testimony of God's blessing in his life. Talk about God's peace. He says:

Blessings arrive in unexpected packages--in my case cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases--and there are millions in American today--find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence "What It All Means," Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

He goes on to say he doesn't know why he has cancer and expresses the reality that maladies do occur, we are imperfect and our bodies give out. And then he says:

But despite this--or because of it--God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

That's the peace of God which passes all understanding, isn't it?

And then this week, I received a beautiful letter from Greg Hughes, the senior pastor of the Malibu Presbyterian Church, expressing his appreciation to Jim Birchfield and me for our church's contribution to help with the rebuilding of their church. One paragraph of the letter reads:

Though our building is gone, and we grieve our loss, we are equally excited about what God is doing and where God is leading us. We appreciate your continued support, and we're confident God will be honored and glorified with all that rises out of these ashes.

What an expression of the peace of God which passes all human understanding, when one's church facility, personal sermon notes and manuscripts, library, correspondence have all gone up in smoke, and yet he's giving praise to God.

Let me conclude with one more case study out of American history, the story of God's Christmas gift of peace.

The great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was filled with sorrow at the tragic death of his wife in a fire in 1861. The Civil War broke out the same year, and it seemed that this was an additional punishment. Two years later, Longfellow was again saddened to hear his own son had been seriously wounded as a lieutenant in the Army of the Potomac.

Sitting down at his desk one Christmas Day, he heard the church bells ringing and ringing. It was in this setting that he wrote these words:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head

There is no peace on earth I said

For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,

God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.

In this Christmas season and every season of the year, whether you and I are in sorrow or in joy, you and I can know that God is not dead, nor does He sleep. He knows your every need. He longs to comfort you. He knows the circumstances of your life. He knows the result of that biopsy that puts a question mark over how long you will live. He knows the tearing of the fabric of your very being, as you watched your spouse leave you for another person. He knows the uncertainty you feel for your economic future, as, in this housing market downturn, you've lost your job and don't know where the next one is. He knows that your best efforts seem to be to no avail in keeping that child you love so much off drugs. He knows your own question marks about the faith. Is it possible that Jesus Christ is God, come to die for your sins, to really forgive you those things you've done you shouldn't have done and those things you've left undone you should have done. Or is it some kind of myth, all this Christmas/Easter talk?

You name it. God's been there before you in the Person of Jesus Christ, and He loves you with all of His heart. It doesn't mean that He's necessarily going to brush away the difficulties with a wave of His hand. In fact, He said, in this world, you and I will have trouble. But He also said, take courage "for I have overcome the world." And He's prepared to walk hand in hand with you in the most difficult circumstances, sustaining you with the peace of God which passes all human understanding!