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“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, among people of goodwill(en anthropois evdokias)!’” (Lk 2:13-14)
The final few words of the above-quoted angelic praise, revealed to the shepherds on occasion of the birth of Christ, are usually translated inaccurately; for example, as ‘goodwill toward men.’ Setting aside the gender-specific aspect of this English translation, the bigger problem with it is that it distorts what the angels are saying about ‘peace’ on earth. They are not proclaiming that the birth of Christ inaugurates peace on earth for all people or for all men. For Herod and those with him, for example, the birth of Christ did not bring peace, but the desire to kill the Baby; actually, to kill lots of babies.
What the angels are saying here is that the ‘peace’ and ‘goodwill’ of God is being revealed among those people on earth who are or will be ‘of’ His goodwill; who are, or will be, open to embracing the ‘ peace from above,’ from ‘ God in the highest,’ Who has sent down to us His only-begotten Son, in the flesh. God’s people will disturb the ‘peace’ and status quo of the Herods; they will either be forced to flee from the disturbed Herods, as did the Most Blessed Virgin, her Child and Joseph to Egypt, or they will suffer for their testimony to God’s goodwill and peace before godless authorities, religious and/or political authorities, as eventually did Jesus Christ. People like the God-Man will be seen as divisive, as threats to the ‘peace’ and security of the Empire-builders and Empire-supporters of their time.
In our time, when contemporary Empire-builders talk a lot about ‘peace,’ engaging in ‘peace negotiations’ while engaging in violence against the innocent (as Putin relentlessly does in Ukraine), let’s note that the Empire-builders portray their victims as the war-mongers or disrupters of the status quo, which the Empire-builders want to enforce. But let’s not confuse the ‘peace’ of the Herods with the ‘peace among people of goodwill.’ The latter cannot possibly sign on to the ‘peace’ of the Herods, nor can or should they win the ‘goodwill’ of the Herods. Also in our personal lives, we as Christians do not enjoy the ‘peace’ or ‘goodwill’ of those hostile to the peace and goodwill of God. As we approach Bethlehem, “ For the peace from above and the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord!”
