Peace on Earth

Forty years ago, almost to the day we saw our home planet Earth, from another world – the Moon – for the first time. It hung in the blackness of space a brilliant blue and white jewel. The men in the Apollo spacecraft who saw and photographed it cried out in wonder at the beauty of the sight of their home. The seas and continents were clearly delineated, but there was no sign at that distance of human habitation. There were no visible borders between countries, the differences of colour and ethnicity invisible, no indication of the diversity of human and animal life or any sign of the conflicts being waged across its surface. It looked, deceptively, a world at peace. Today it would look the same as it did forty years ago. The polar ice-fields may seem a little smaller perhaps, but the illusion of peace is still in place.

The harder realities may have been invisible to the astronauts but they are all too visible to us, and the perfect jewel when viewed from a distance is shown to be deeply flawed the closer you look. Flawed, but good in parts. On this day also within our country and around the world Christians are celebrating Christmas, and countless millions will come together for prayers and celebration. This festival at year’s end is older than all of the religions practiced today and we now know that prehistoric communities had feast-days at this time of year as well.

They celebrated at the solstice as we do and looked forward to the longer days and the sowing and growing of spring and summer. For us on this day of celebration and worship in 2008 we look forward through clouds of uncertainty – multiple conflicts, the poverty of billions, crime and disease. Yet on this day we can and should set aside whatever differences may separate us and join together in a festival of kindness, conciliation and the joy of sharing. Such sentiments are invisible from outer space and will be for the rest of time, but we say to you on this day let there be peace on Earth and goodwill to all men. Invisible the sentiments may be, but they have a value beyond every jewel there is in our jewel of a world.