Welcome, Christmas Eve! I’ll keep today’s devotion brief, because so many have a busy day and evening ahead.

My favorite line of a Christmas verse comes from Edward Sears’s fourth stanza of the familiar carol “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” where Sears wrote, “Hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing!”

Truly, life is too short to endure men of strife.

But, ouch! I am a man of strife! By choice or by circumstance, strife is the lot of man and his struggle in this fallen world. I feel it every time I turn on the 10:00 news.

So in the contentious climate of this terror-ridden age, when the 10:00 news would fill our ears with tumultuous racket, let’s summon the resolve to tune out the noisy discord and tune in the angelic proclamation: “Peace on earth, good will to man.”

Its ringing has persisted since the shepherds first heard its peaceful promise, if we will but hush to hear the hopeful strains.

Merry Christmas!