What did the angels sing?
Does it
mean that if you had a big fight with your spouse on the way here and you’re
feeling far from peaceful that you’re NOT one of those God favors; or that
people living in Juba, the capital of South Sudan where civil war is
threatening to break out, are clearly not God’s favorites? That the way to know
if God likes you is to see how peace-filled your life is?
I don’t
think so. We’re not here to celebrate the Prince of Peace who brings peace to
those he particularly likes. We’re here to celebrate Emmanuel – God with us –
God with all of us, no exceptions.
So did
the angelic choir mess up, sing the wrong notes, get the words wrong?
I took a
look at the original Greek and found that this phrase is not easy to translate
directly into English. As you know, that sometimes happens with languages,
words don’t map exactly one to another. Like when you say “I’m sorry” in Spanish:
lo siento doesn’t translate directly
as the English “I’m sorry” – it’s more literally “I feel it.”
In the
same way the angel’s chorus doesn’t make good English, “Glory in highest and on
earth peace to humans with whom he is well pleased.” It’s a little difficult to
tell whether the Greek means “peace to those few humans who God likes” or
“peace to humans who are all favored by God.”
I think
we have to decide how to read it by considering what else we know about the
character of God. Is God more likely to have a few favorites or more likely to
favor humans as a species? I’m going
for humans as a species because there is abundant evidence in the scriptures
that God loves all beings and has given humanity a special role to play in the
salvation history of the cosmos. To be sure there is also some exclusionary
language but the broad sweep of the Gospel message us that God loves all of us,
every one. So, we can translate it, “Peace on earth to humans whom God is just
crazy about.”
We’ve
been hearing this for years. Perhaps you haven’t heard it every Christmas of
your life as I have. But you’ve heard it enough times. You know what the angels
sing; “Peace on earth goodwill to man.”
Yet the
funny thing is, that most of us go on behaving as though it applies to someone
else. Most of us go on living as if God is mad at us. As if the people whom God
favors are someplace else, or are better than us in some way.
And let’s
face it, there are Christians who behave like that’s the truth, like God only
likes a limited selection of people, specifically the ones who think like them.
And they think that if we understand how mad God is at the rest of us that
we’ll choose to be like them too. But
that’s not what the Gospel says. God breaks through the God-human barrier. God
incarnates in baby-flesh and the first thing She says to us is “Peace.” “Peace,
to all of you earth-beings whom I love to pieces.”
What a
difference it might make in our lives if we really believed that - if we really
believed that God loves each one of us absolutely and completely, and longs for
us to be friends with God and with each other. How differently might we treat
one another if we truly saw each other as God’s beloved. How differently would
we respond to our inner voices of anger, contempt, and self-criticism if we
knew that God loves us more than we love or have ever loved anyone or anything.
God comes
to us and says “Peace”. More than two thousand years ago in earth time, and we
still haven’t got the message. We still make anxiety and fear, criticism and
division, fighting and war. We still “kill people who are killing people to
show that killing people is wrong.” We still cause suffering among both humans
and animals in order to have inexpensive gourmet food. Anxiety disorders are
the most common form of mental illness in this country, effecting almost 1 in 5
people.[1]
More than 30,000 Americans die each year as a result of gun violence alone.
God comes
to us and says, “Peace.” The love of God is like a great safety net which will
never leave us or desert us. With that safety net under us we no longer need to
be afraid. We no longer need to worry. It doesn’t mean that everything will be
hunky-dory. That’s just not the way of this world. There will be times of pain
and suffering. Times of confusion and times when everything falls apart. But
underneath there is always God’s voice saying “Peace.”
The
shepherds were not the only ones in Bethlehem that night. Yet it seems that
they were the only ones who were still enough to hear the angels singing. God’s
voice is often a quiet one because God never forces himself on us. We have to
listen under the noise and the fear of our world to hear that gentle loving
voice saying “Peace - peace to you whom I love to pieces.” And when we take the
time to listen for it, when we take the time to allow that peace and love to
transform our own lives, then it becomes a gift which we too share with our
world. Then we can take the risk to say no to escalating conflict with our
neighbors, our friends and our family and we can send love and peace through
prayer to the situations and places where peace is fragile.
For God’s
peace is never fragile. It is the strongest thing there is.
Remember the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am
bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a
sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a
manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly
host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on
earth peace to humans whom God is just crazy about!"posted by Caroline Hall at
10:36 AM
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