But why had there not been peace in the world before the birth of Jesus, and why not since then?  Today, he world is poised for war against terrorism.  We continue to live in fear everyday since September 11, 2001, of a possible repeat in any big city of our country.  Poverty meets our eyes everywhere.  And suffering still remains a mystery , which the wisdom of man has not been able to solve over these two thousand years.

Two thousand years prior to Jesus, God had offered the world the terms for reconciliation and peace in The Ten Commandments, when he came to free Israel from slavery.  God on that occasion chose Israel as His people to carry the message to the world.  But the message did not go beyond her own people, because Israel grew rich and powerful and forgot God who made her a nation.  She neglected her poor and sufferers and became a segregationalist.  Jesus now came to correct these evils.  He became man and called every man and woman his brother and sister; he called God his father and suggested that they, too, call Him their Father.  But the world failed to get the message - that mankind is a family in the fatherhood of God - because the very people God had made his own, had Jesus killed for preaching this message.

However, even death could not hold Jesus down.  A new life appeared on Earth with his resurrection.  People now realized who it was that had brought the message of brotherhood of man to the world.  The Spirit of the Lord came over them and they became believers in the brotherhood Christ preached.  They also undertook carrying out the commission given to them by their brother, Jesus.  Today, because of them, the world has come to know Christ.  However, it fails to recognize His messengers because we believe in division, dissecting his person and his message.  Knowing full well what would happen, Jesus prayed for unity as his dying wish at the Last Supper.  He said to His Father: "They may be one as we are one... so that the world may know that you sent me..."  As long as we remain divided, the world knows we are Christians because we celebrate Christmas and Holy Week.  But the world is confused about what Christ did while on Earth, because we are divided.  And what has resulted from our division?  The world has not become a better and peaceful place to live.  Poverty and suffering stare us in the face.  They remain as much a challenge to peace as to our Christian love.

Today, Christ has given us a wake-up call, as his Father did to the Jews by letting calamites shake-up their pride.  It is not the end of our story.  On the contrary, it should act as the beginning of our realization that there is more to Christianity than the celebration of Jesus' birth and death to resurrection.  The heaven's peace, announced on the first Christmas night, will then become our abiding virtue.  For the time-honored saying, "Out of evil cometh forth good" has not lost anything of its practical value.