Week Two - Day Six

At the time of Christmas, we often imagine peace as a quiet snow-covered street, perhaps the hymn, “Silent Night” is playing in the background as the fireplace crackles while we settle in for a warm and calm evening. Yet in South Asia, peace can look very different. The streets are crowded with honking rickshaws, vendors calling out to customers, and whole neighbourhoods going about their business as if nothing special was happening. Peace here is not the absence of noise or hardship, but the presence of God in the midst of it all.

Scripture tells us that Jesus came as the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). His peace is called shalom - a Hebrew word that encompasses wholeness, flourishing, and right relationships with God and one another. In South Asia, this shalom is glimpsed in small but powerful ways: when a family shares a simple meal even in poverty; when Hindus, Muslims, and Christians sit together in friendship; when women stitch saris side by side as their laughter rises above the sound of sewing machines.

This peace is fragile in a region marked by poverty, division and pressure. Yet Advent reminds us that Christ entered a noisy, occupied and divided land too. His peace was not escapism but reconciliation - God dwelling among us, binding our wounds, and calling lost strangers into one family.

To embody peace in South Asia means overcoming ethnic divisions, offering hospitality, forgiving offenses, and working for justice in everyday life. It means trusting that Christ’s kingdom is breaking in, even through small acts of love.

This Advent, may we seek not just quietness, but Christ’s living peace - shalom in our neighborhoods and within our hearts.