Every year I am asked what I would like for Christmas. Each year my reply is “Peace on Earth”.

I understand peace to mean not merely the absence of conflict, but also a wholeness to creation. Each Christmas Eve I believe that you can both sense the expectation that people have for such peace, and for a moment or two a sense of the peace that God spreads upon the Earth.

It is fleeting, but it’s real. I also believe that I cannot fully know such peace until all humanity knows this peace.

A prayer for this time of year suggests that we pray for the needs of the whole world, for peace and justice on Earth.

And because Jesus particularly loves them, the poor and helpless, the hungry, the oppressed, the sick and those who mourn, the lonely and unloved, the aged and little children, as well as those who do not know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Christmas is the story of God’s loving purpose that heals all these things by his holy Child Jesus.

Part of the Christmas story we skip over is the account of the Holy Family (La Sagrada Familia) fleeing to Egypt because Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.

I am more aware of this part of Christmas this year because I see it being played out yet again. They were migrants, seeking political asylum and running for their lives; but, more importantly, they were seeking how to dwell among us. God is on the move, joining us in our plight. Being the Word that becomes flesh will dwell among us.

God wanders wherever we wander. And so, peace is possible. Both the receiving of peace, but just as importantly, the giving of peace.

-Rev. Ronald D. Larson, Mt. Morris