It is a good thing that peace is not identified as a place or we would be on a lifetime journey searching for the elusive mountaintop where it might be found.
Peace can’t be that perfect vacation moment when we stood on the lake shore and heard the loons calling just as the sun was setting and we thought about what our land meant to us. We think of peace, but peace lies uneasy beneath that golden swath of sunset water. Other people are calling “This is our land” through flowing blood, sweat and tears.
When we plead with God for peace, God points out a person sent into this world as angel voices were ringing through the heavens. “Peace on earth,” God’s messengers sang, and what are we to say to that?
God has given us the earth and we have polluted and destroyed it, and we have let our brothers and sisters die hungry. Will we ever learn to embrace our brothers and sisters?
The song was peace, and the shepherds rushed to see it. We are in that group, too. Peace rests among us in the person of Jesus.
This message was adapted from “Song of Peace” written by Marj Leegard that first appeared in the April 2008 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.