in heavenly peace

I've been thinking about peace this last wee while. So many Christmas songs are full of poetic lines expressing the beauty of the moment the Prince of Peace entered the chaos that is our world:

Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Peace on earth, good will toward men

Now the reality of these songs sometimes seems a bit dodgy; we know Jesus wasn't really born in the middle of a snowstorm and the night was most likely full of noise. But I think there's something very important about the reality behind the imagery.

God had become man. The all-encompassing one had stepped into the finite product of his own creative word. And so whether or not the earth really did stand still in awe and recognition of that moment, whether or not Mary cried out with the pain of her labour, whether or not baby Jesus cried when the lowing cattle woke him up, the deep, dear silence of God Almighty broke into the piercing, anguished clatter of our world and everything changed in an instant.

Jesus, please come and be born in me today. Bring your peace into my hurriedness. Bring your stillness into my noise. Bring your calm into my anxiousness. Teach me how to rest in your heavenly peace...