- by Carrie Shaw
- on March 17, 2026
“Peace on earth, goodwill toward men” – the benediction of that first Christmas still echoes around the world today, but it sounds less like lived experience and more like a desperate plea.
Ongoing wars and disruption highlight the sobering truth that peace is, in fact, a fragile reality, hard-won and easily lost.
Recent events on our own shores further dispel any notion that peace through tolerance and polite pluralism can restrain evil; it cannot. On Sunday 14 December 2025, a mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney left fifteen people dead and many more wounded.
The events shocked a nation that prides itself on things no more complicated than snags at Bunnings on Saturday morning, and she’ll-be-right-mate beers on Friday arv, a country that still thinks that kind of horror happens somewhere else.
But evil festers everywhere, and no postcode is immune. The reality is that evil lies at the heart of the human condition, existing in every tribe and every nation.
Even as communities mourn and stand together, the grief and dismay bring urgent questions to the surface. But if we’re honest, we recognise that we don’t simply need better politics or tighter gun laws or stricter immigration policies, as important as some of these things may be.
We need something deeper than what only amounts to a fragile and impermanent ceasefire.
Because even if tolerance, restriction, inclusion or exclusion brought a semblance of peaceful coexistence, this is not the peace that humanity so desperately needs. No ceasefire between people would ever last long while the human heart remains unhealed and at war with God.
The Bible is unapologetically blunt about the source of our conflicts. James asks, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?” The question is rhetorical because the answer is obvious: “is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”
When we are disordered inside, we rupture the world outside. War between people is not an accident of history; it is a symptom of a deeper sickness within each one of us.
This is why the modern dream of “peace on earth, goodwill among men” so often disappoints. We keep trying to engineer peace without addressing what ruins it. We manage behaviours, we modify policies, we control optics, we hold vigils, we demand justice, and yet we’re somehow still shocked when evil continues to flourish.
We should grieve, and we should pray, and we should pursue justice and protection for the vulnerable. But we also shouldn’t pretend that society can finally mature beyond sin if we just find the right mix of education and tolerance.
Scripture says the real problem is not merely out there, it’s in here. Humanity’s core conflict is not first horizontal; it’s vertical.
We’re not morally neutral people who occasionally make mistakes. We’re image bearers who have rebelled against our Maker. And when a creature is at war with its Creator, it shouldn’t surprise us that creatures end up at war with each other.
So what is true peace?
In the Bible, peace isn’t simply the absence of conflict. It’s wholeness. It’s harmony. It’s a life set right under God.
Peace is what the world feels like when everything sits in its proper place: the human heart rightly ordered, neighbour love flowing freely, justice steady, truth honoured, worship aimed at the One who deserves it.
That’s why the Bible can speak about peace with God, not just peace between nations.
And here’s the radical claim at the heart of Christianity: God doesn’t merely command peace from a distance. He comes near to make it.
Two thousand years ago, the Prince of Peace arrived in a little town in Bethlehem. His arrival signalled a change in the situation for humanity, a pivotal point in history. Everything from that moment on would be reckoned by before and after.
He would be known as the One on whom the government would rest, a wonderful counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).
Notice what Isaiah ties together? Peace is not achieved by better management alone. It’s connected to a person and to his rule. The peace heaven announces is not first a program, it is a King.
This is where we can get a little confused about Christmas. We hear the angelic words and assume they mean, “God is cheering you on, keep trying, be nicer, the world will slowly improve.”
But the New Testament frames the story differently. Jesus comes because we cannot heal ourselves. He comes because our war runs deeper than social tension. He comes because sin is real, judgment is real, and reconciliation must be purchased, not merely wished into existence.
The Christian gospel says peace was made through the cross. We don’t drift into peace. We are brought into it. Jesus bears our guilt, breaks the power of sin, and reconciles sinners to God through his death and resurrection. That’s why Paul can say, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
Peace begins there, not in the streets, but in the soul.
And once peace is made with God, it starts spilling outward. A person who has been forgiven learns to forgive. A person reconciled to God is called to be reconciled to others. A heart no longer ruled by fear and pride begins, slowly and imperfectly, to reflect the character of Christ.
This is also why Christian peace is not thin tolerance. Tolerance can mean I’ll put up with you. Christ-shaped peace means I will love you, because you bear God’s image, because mercy has been shown to me, and because the King I serve commands neighbour love, even for enemies.
That kind of peace is more powerful than feelings, tribal affiliations, and cultural trends.
It also guards us from two equal and opposite errors. One error is despair, as if evil proves peace is impossible. The other is naivety, as if peace is inevitable.
Christianity rejects both. It tells the truth about humanity, and it tells the truth about God.
Is Peace Even Possible?
Yes, but not on our terms.
Peace is possible now because the Prince of Peace offers peace with God to all who repent and believe.
That offer is not reserved for the strong, the educated, the respectable, or the morally tidy. It’s for sinners, which means it’s for all of us.
If you want peace that doesn’t shatter the moment life turns violent – peace that passes understanding – you don’t begin with self-improvement. You begin with surrender.
You lay down your arms against God.
And peace is possible finally, because the Bible promises a future where Jesus’ reign is not contested, and his justice is not delayed. The prophets envision a day when nations “beat their swords into ploughshares” and learn war no more (Isaiah 2:4).
Further, the Bible promises that Jesus will judge rightly between the nations, exposing lies, ending oppression, and setting all things right.
That image is not vapid sentimentally. It is concrete reality – a firm promise that runs the entire length of Scripture. It’s about weapons laid down because the reasons for violence have been dealt with at the root.
If Christianity means anything at all, it means this: Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, first between humanity and God, then between people, peace spilling over from brother to brother.
When he comes, the King will finally and ultimately judge evil. Death will be completely undone. Creation will be fully renewed. God will dwell with His people. This is peace in its fullest sense.
The first Christmas was not a celebration of human potential; it was the exposure of human need and the arrival of divine help.
And every Christmas since then hasn’t asked us to pretend the world is fine. It acknowledges that it’s not. But in that acknowledgment, it also reassures us that God has entered the mess, and He will not leave it unresolved.
As we grieve the headlines, including the horrors that have touched Sydney so recently, we pray for the families and the injured, and we pray for justice and protection over this great Southland of the Holy Spirit. And we refute the lie that peace can be built while the human heart remains at war with the God who made it.
“Peace on earth” isn’t just wishful thinking, nor is it out of reach. It is anchored in Jesus Christ.
The question is not whether peace is possible. The question is whether we will come to the Prince of Peace?
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” | Revelation 7:9-10
