Dec. 6 "Behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy"

Tuesday, December 6 | Luke 1:57-79

One summer, when I was barely a teenager, I started reading through Jesse Lyman Hurlbut’s The Story of the Bible. My family was staying with my grandparents, who did not have a television and whose library was meager at best. I had read through my grandfather’s collection of Horatio Alger novels and other assorted boyhood books whose heroes had adventures that would be forever beyond me, and all that was left was the aforementioned Hurlbut and a few decades’ worth of National Geographic that as far as I could tell had never been opened. So I went with Hurlbut.

I’d like to say that it changed my life. I don’t think it did. But I liked all the battles and fights in the Old Testament; the New seemed pale and dull by comparison. War, I thought, was much more interesting than sermons on mountains.

That was childish, but I was a child. Now, sixty years later, I find peace much more interesting than war—much more interesting and much more elusive. There seem to always be wars. Peace is harder to come by. So I find Zechariah’s prophecy a source of comfort and hope: “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1: 78-79).

Human beings do not seem to have much difficulty in finding ways to justify war. Peace is more difficult. It seems that we have to be taught. We need a guide—a guide which God has provided. So even when the night seems darkest, with violence and strife all around, the promised dawn is coming, and we can wait in hope.

– Rev. Dr. David W. Johnson Associate Professor Emeritus of Church History and Christian Spirituality