Peace

This is a text version of the message I gave at the Bethany Evangelical Church Carol Service on 21st December 2025.

I enjoy the carol service every year. Candlelight and familiar songs seem like a great run-up to Christmas. And, I hope, we also enjoy the message in all this. In fact, if there wasn’t a clear message of hope here, all the other features would lose their sparkle. So we’ve also read again very familiar accounts of the announcement and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My message this year starts in the same place as last year’s, for similar reasons. For me, one word stands out in the carols and the readings. The word is, “Peace”.

Micah, prophesying about Bethlehem, ended with “...he will be their peace.”

Isaiah calls the Messiah “Prince of Peace”.

And the most obvious example in the readings was what the angels said to the shepherds:

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.”

I think we would all agree that “on earth”, peace is in short supply, and it’s something we feel a desperate need for. We may feel like asking, “What’s going on? Isn’t God’s announcement of peace working?”

The answer from the Bible is very clear. Peace starts in individuals. God wants to reveal the Saviour born at Bethlehem to each one of us and establish His peace in our hearts, then spread it out to those around us. If everyone received His peace, there really would be “peace on earth”.

That can sound like a cop-out. We might ask, “Why can’t God be more like Father Christmas? Keep a nice and a naughty list, and sort out the naughty ones?”

Well, in the Bible, “peace” is “shalom”; not just an absence of fighting or argument, but agreement, rightness, love, things being as they should be. Things being, in fact, as God says they should be.

Peace can’t be imposed from outside. To have peace, you have to have it in yourself, whether or not other people do the same. The fantastic good news is that God offers us all that peace.

How? Again, if peace is something that individuals have, the way for God to demonstrate it and bring it to us is to be a person among us. So the message of Christmas is that God has entered our world and become one of us; One who has peace and gives it to His followers.

The enormous miracle of Christmas isn’t just virgin birth, the appearance of angels or the fulfilment of prophecy; it’s God being in our world; God Incarnate. God living among us as one of us.

In John 14 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

The peace He gives starts with peace between us and God. Because of Jesus’ death, our sins are forgiven when we put our faith in Him. No matter what’s happened in our past, Jesus can make us righteous in the presence of His Father.

If you haven’t already, I urge you to make this new start of faith. If you want a truly meaningful Christmas, this is how. Receive the forgiveness that Jesus provided by His death and have peace with God. It’s freely available to everyone.

Once we’ve received it, as the book of Romans says, “we have an obligation”: to act it out and spread it to others. Our witness, our demonstration of the love of God in big or little things, will do this. We need to be changed first, then God will use us to change others.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Now all this would still be a cop-out and not answer the whole earth’s problems if that was as far as it went. But in God’s purposes, this is just the start. Christ is the “Prince of Peace” in Isaiah chapter 9. He has promised that He will establish His reign.

Under His rule, wars will end, and the problems between nations which no-one can now solve will be solved.

Just before that popular Christmas reading, verse 5 says: “Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.”

Now, we reluctantly spend a percentage of GDP on military equipment because we know the need for it. Under Christ’s reign it will become unwanted rubbish.

As Christians, that’s what we hope for, and because of the coming of “The Prince of Peace” which we’ve been reading and singing of, it’s what we can look forward to.

Well, until then, God’s peace is in us to share with others. This is a great thing to have in mind at Christmas. It’s rightly called a season of “peace and goodwill”. Here and now we’re celebrating God’s gift of His Son to the world, which enables us to receive His peace.

Let’s be clear that that’s what we’re celebrating on Christmas Day too, and let’s try to spread that peace among friends, family and maybe further afield, as He enables us.