Adventist World Podcasts

It’s a tough time to be selling “Peace on Earth.” In the Christmas Shoppe at the megastore, elves and reindeer move briskly out the door. Nativity scenes in warm pastels are inner-lit with bulbs and cheer. Miles and miles of twinkling lights unwind from endless shelves. But who is buying “Peace on Earth?” At first, it seems a quaint anachronism, harking back to simpler times and well-tuned carolers. But now, we fear our neighbors will think us terribly insensitive to be flaunting anything of peace when kids are dying in Kfar Aza, in Gaza, in Kharkiv. How can the gospel still proclaim a peace on earth that is so rarely lived or loved? The night sky circling Bethlehem 2000 years ago did not proclaim the end of wars or banish human savagery. What angels sang—and shepherds hoped, and wise men followed, and a weary couple trusted—was that heaven is fully on our side. There was no war—there is no war—between the heart of God and those He calls His sons and daughters. “For this is how God loved the world: He gave Hi