This is the text from our free study guide to our free booklet, Peace: The Second Sunday of Advent.
The beloved Christmas song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, repeats the refrain “peace on earth, good will to men” even when, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes, “There is no peace on earth…for hate is strong, and mocks the song.” Given the hate, division, violence and strife we see throughout the world, what does it mean to proclaim peace and good will?
Scripture clearly states that Christ is “the Lord of peace” who gives us “peace at all times in all ways” (2 Thess 3:16, NRSVue). This peace “surpasses all understanding” (Phil 4:7, NRSVue), guarding our hearts and minds and giving us comfort (Isa 26:3). All this means, Augustine says, that Christ not only gives peace but is peace, and we become more rooted in and formed by this peace as we draw closer to him.
Thomas à Kempis explains that drawing close to Christ means giving attention to God and ignoring matters that do not concern us—particularly sound advice in a culture in which people engage in incessant rancorous debate about anything and everything! If we can do this, he says, we “shalt be able to enjoy much peace.”
Notice another important point: this peace is not for individual Christians alone — it is for all people, bring us together as one (Col 3:15). Peace, John Chrysostom says, prepares the way for love, and Christians therefore should strive for “good order, and harmony, and peace.” He continues with an astonishing claim: “So great a good is peace, as that the makers and producers of it are called the sons of God, with reason; because the Son of God for this cause came upon the earth, to set at peace the things in the earth, and those in the heavens.” This enriches our understanding of the Litany of Peace in eastern Christian services: the peace for which we pray is a synergistic work of God and humanity.
Clement of Alexandria gives a particularly vivid image of how this works. In a world of turmoil and strife, we must become soldiers…of peace. We wear armor, but it is “the whole armor of God:” truth, righteousness, faith and salvation (Eph 6:13–17). In opening ourselves to God and imitating him, Clement writes, we will assist the souls of people we meet in being ignited by “the spark of true goodness” and “burst(ing) forth into flame.”
How, exactly, do we do this? The Prayer of St. Francis (actually a 20th-century writing) gives a well-known list of responses to sin and suffering. When we encounter such things as hatred, despair and sadness, we selflessly respond with love, hope and joy. In other words, when we respond to the problems of the world with the focus of three of the Sundays of Advent, we play a vital role in God bringing about the fourth focus: true peace.
And then, as we sing in Longfellow’s words, “Till, ringing, singing on its way / The world revolved from night to day / A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, / Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
