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Kids start learning long division in 4th-5th grade. This is also around the same time many of them will learn about even longer divisions that apply to our world. Maybe that’s when they realize that not all clothes are equally fashionable or that not all jobs pay equally well.
Maybe that’s when they become aware of racial divisions, political divisions, even religious and denominational divisions.
Kids have been learning division since way before us. Even the Christmas story is set against a backdrop of divisions. The first couple chapters in Luke’s Gospel mention groups in bitter rivalry: the humble servant and the proud ruler (1:51-52), the hungry and the rich (1:53), the conquered nation and the conquering empire (2:1-3), Israel’s North-South rivalry of Galilee and Judea (2:4), the temple authorities and the religious outsiders (shepherds).
Into this darkness and division exploded a terrifying burst of light. It turns out it was just one angel. Soon, the entire sky lit up with a whole army of them—what the Bible calls a “heavenly host.” Suddenly, Rome versus Israel and Judea versus Galilee must have felt as unimportant as Packers versus Bears, the moment you realize the nation is under nuclear attack. Those prior divisions would have fled from mind as the onlookers realized they were witnessing an angelic invasion from an infinitely more powerful dimension.
Yet the heavenly army came announcing—not war—but peace! “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14, NIV).
Whatever our visions of progress and versions of paradise, the highest heaven was offering us peace.
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