The Season Of Peace

The Prophet Isaiah, by the inspiration of God, fortold the virgin birth of Jesus Christ nearly 600 years before the event. It would bring shepherds from out of their fields, bring wise men from the east, and would split time itself in half. In the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 9:6, the prophet reveals several titles of this newborn King, the last of which is the Prince of Peace.

If you follow the Gospels, you will discover that except the incident in the temple, and the crucifixion, Christ’s ministry was a peaceful one. He may have been annoyed at the religious rulers of that day, and even at his own disciples from time to time, but we never really saw him get angry until he saw scam artists in the temple, fraudulently changing money and selling doves to the ones who could barely afford it. He overturned their tables and actually drove them from the temple, stating that His Father’s house is to be a house of prayer, but they have made it a den of thieves. Most would agree that his anger was justified. Think in today’s equivalent of a church and if someone would set up a scam within the house of God. But his anger was much more personal. This was His Father’s house, his Dad’s house, if you please.

All that know me would probably say I am a peaceful person, even when I was a police officer. However, you mess with a member of my family, you will see a more volitle side of me few have ever seen. I would trust you would be the same.

Which brings me to the message I would like to give you on Christmas Eve 2022. It is about family. One would think or hope that a police officer’s tour of duty on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be a quiet (sorry guys in blue, I said the “q” word) one. Yet what has benchmarked this holiday through the years as I have worked most of the Christmas days in my career, these days are anything but quiet. There are actually quite active, I’m afraid. The offense usually committed on these days is, sadly, domestic violence.

You see, family members from around the nation may descend upon your home in an attempt to make reconnection, make sweet memories, and overall to have a good time. Yet, in many cases, old arguments resurface from the last year’s holiday, grudges emerge, then add some alcohol to the mix, bickering escalates to fisticuffs. Then that is when we get the call to invade this family’s festivities and cart one of the family members to jail. Yeah, we end up the bad guy in some of their minds. Maybe not the adults, since they may have been the ones to call, but someone’s father and mother was arrested and taken away on Christmas day. It is the children that suffer from this violence. They could have 17 great Christmas memories in their childhood, but all of them are overshadowed when their father one year got a little tipsy and argumentative, and then punched Uncle Afred in the jaw. Then their father is taken away on the one day that all of the family should be together.

Just the one take away from this–if you are blessed to the point that you are having family members come and spend this season of Peace with you these next few days, determine it will actually be peaceful. If you know you get argumentative with a couple of glasses of wine in you, lay off the booze this year and drink sparkling cider instead. If you have an issue with a family member that will be there, get on the phone and sort this out with them before they arrive. If not for yourself, think of the children that will be in attendance. Don’t ruin their memories of what should be the happiest day of the year for them. After all, this is the hope the angels told the shepherds over 2000 years ago, which should be our hope as well:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14 KJV)

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