Family Devotional: Peace

Family Devotional:  Peace

Fourth Sunday in Advent

Have those around you offer a definition of peace.  It can be a place they like to go where they feel peaceful...a time of the day when things get quiet.

Light all the three candles previously lit.  As you light the forth candle say, "we light this candle for peace."

Read Luke 14: 27

We often think about peace according to what is going on around us.  If our day is a good one we had peace.  If not we wonder where the peace went.  Jesus did not have a lot of peaceful circumstances surrounding him even at the time of his birth.  King Herod wanted him found and dead.  Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to protect him.  Most of what you read in the scriptures about Jesus doesn't seem very peaceful.

Today's scripture reminds us that the peace of Christ is not about what is going on around us.  We will not find it in quiet places or a day off.  We only find peace as a gift given by Jesus.

The words of today's verse end, "So don't be troubled or afraid." 

Give each person at your table a small piece of paper.  Ask then to write or draw something that troubles them or causes fear in their lives.  Now ask them to draw on top of that thing a gift with a bow on top.

Prayer:  Have the oldest at the table pray for those things written or drawn and then give thanks for Jesus' gift of peace.