Peace is not luck.

Peace is not chance.

Peace comes about, not by slogans, legislation or force.

Peace is born.

And today, we celebrate the birth of One, herald by the ancients, as the Prince of Peace.  

This story of Jesus’ birth glosses over details: and scholars: theologians and historians have scoured sources and surviving documents to research the story.  Professor Emeritus at LaTrobe University,  in his book “Beyond Literal Belief”, helps us birth the Christmas Story so that we don’t have to cut off our intellect. 

In this post modern world in which we are living, ways of knowing are narrowing.  Taking ancient writing and subjecting it to empirical measurement or scientific analysis can be fascinating: and can add to the text we read.  Maybe the star was Hayley’s Comet?  But often these insights might enrich our idea of history: but at the same time, can reduce the meaning or truth claim of the story.  In some areas of knowledge, we are re-discovering again that there are other ways of knowing that hold insight and truth. Not everything can be captured in dot points on a powerpoint: or summarised for ease on AI.  In the great race, to where ever we are going, song, art, poetry, light, silence, rhythm, flavour, scent each have their own information that textures our meaning making.

I think of the Uluru Statement from the Heart: and reducing it to the words only.  That document is also surrounded in art and signatures.  Each signature tells another part of the story missing from the words.  And the art… it speaks, resonates, invites, and tells yet another aspect which cannot be captured in words printed.

Former catholic priest and theologian, Eugen Drewermann says that “Whenever we suppose to take [Bible stories] “literally” we misunderstand them.  And whenever we try to read them as “symbolically”, we risk deflating the seriousness of their claims on us and flattening their unconditional validity into something arbitrary and aesthetic.”Eugen Drewermann cries out into academia: “Is there nothing beyond the Enlightenment dichotomy between myth and history?”

So too, when we enter into today’s Christmas story… against our circumstances of the pain in the Land for the First Peoples: the pain of the Jewish community after Bondi: and the dysfunction we see in youths rioting in supermarkets, home invasions and political point scoring at a place of National Grief: what do we find?

Jesus was born in less than ideal circumstances.

He was born under Roman occupation of Jewish territory.

He was born under religious/political expectation that a Messiah would emerge as a political leader able to overcome and quash the oppression inflicted by the Roman Empire.

And instead of all that: the idea of God was about your heart and mine.

Peace is not luck.

Peace is not chance.

Peace comes about, not by slogans, legislation or force.

Peace is born.

What’s the posture we take around a baby?  Could this be something that is missing amid all the pain and grief?  Where solutions are being sort before the grieving has even begun?  Where solutions in anger are rushed through before we have any idea if they’ll work or not?

Peace was born when Ahmed al-Ahmed took away a weapon and saved so many lives: his actions were not brought about by legislation.  His actions came from a posture that says “not this way”.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, there was luck: there was chance: but more than that: there was born in him a risk and actions, so that life was preserved.

Peace is born.

And today this Christmas day, we celebrate the birth of One, herald by the ancients, as the Prince of Peace.  

Let us fully engage with this story on all levels:

• let its Historicity meet your curiosity
• let its symbolism speak to the non-left brain words
• let its literal image of husband, wife, journey, no AirBnB, strange visitors  of shepherds and sheep and wise folk from the East, animals and mangers: wondrous stars inform our shared human vulnerability and interconnectedness

And let’s enable its Spiritual resonances to touch you.  Let’s allow it to inform our way of being in the world. 

For God knows we need peace on earth: and goodwill to all.