Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will

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Yeah, but spending some time this past week thinking about how I was going to deliver a message for Christmas this year and batting things around. And I decided to pull the usual Markowski. I’m going to upset the apple cart. I’m going to disrupt things. I’m going to do what I normally do here on the program. Peace on earth and goodwill toward men. A lot of Christmas cards.

Christmas songs, Christmas shows. They talk about this and I’m here to tell you that it’s wrong.

It’s wrong. That’s not accurate. That’s not the correct translation of what’s in the Bible. The scripture actually states, and what the angels proclaimed, peace on earth to men of goodwill. Big difference. Ah, you’re parsing words, Markowski, you’re parsing. No, no, I’m not parsing words here. Laurie McNichol had a great column.

I’m going to talk a little bit about it. Both statements are completely different. Peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Wrong, it’s actually peace on earth to men of goodwill. Again, they look and they sound similar, but peace on earth and goodwill toward men is just, it’s a statement. It’s a statement, it’s a declaration.

of peace and goodwill to men. That’s what it is, right? How many of us out there throughout our lives, again, prayed for peace in the Middle East, prayed for peace here, prayed for peace there. But the actual scripture states, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men of goodwill. Very, very different.

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What it says is that peace is going to come to men of goodwill. It’s not wishing peace and goodwill to everyone and everything out there. Again, many of our Christmas cards, our Christmas poems, our songs, they get it wrong. Okay. Again, it’s like…

Laurie and her piece says, it speaks to the heart of the thing that beauty contestants hope and wish for. World peace! What do you want? I want world peace! Yeah. Again, it’s true. Again, peace on earth, it’s not something that’s going to exist in the temporal time and on earth. It’s just not.

And it isn’t what this scripture verse is promising or announcing. What it talks about is the kind of peace that transcends any kind of earthly peace we seek. It is the peace of Christ within our hearts and souls. It’s an announcement to those who seek Him and to those who then go and seek Him.

Lori writes, it’s an answer to the longing in our hearts that only Christ can give us. And it only comes to the heart who knows and seeks goodwill of Christ himself. It is a kind of peace that most reject. Why? Well, what it entitles people is you have to give things up. You have to surrender. You have to surrender your will. What is goodwill? It is serving and willing the good.

of the other. And how do you do this? You do this through sacrifice, just as Jesus did and does each and every day. This is where you find peace. Peace in your hearts that comes with being a person of goodwill. It’s not a promise of peace and goodwill to all, or in any way, it’s not a promise, this peace to those who reject the goodwill and surrender it requires. Again, very-

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very different. And I wanna share with everybody a story of an individual. This guy is a millionaire, hundreds of times over. Hundreds of time over, he’s on trial right now in Hong Kong. It’s on trial in Hong Kong. I’ve talked about him before here on the program. His name is Jimmy Lai. Jimmy Lai.

was born in China. He snuck out of China and moved to Hong Kong and worked for, I think what they said was like $8 a month or something like that in a Hong Kong factory. Worked his way up to manager, invested in the stock market, opened up a global clothing line, it was called GRDino. Then went on, I mean, you can go take a look. You can see all of the things that this guy has done.

You know, he snuck out of China, Hong Kong. He’s a UK citizen. And he was arrested about three years. He’s been in jail for almost three years. And this trial has now started this past Monday. And his godfather, godfather who writes a column from time to time for the Wall Street Journal, his name is Bill McGurn, wrote an interesting piece about this that goes along with peace on earth.

men of goodwill. Again, Jimmy Lai, he had a paper, it was called the Apple Daily. He was also involved in the media as well, that was very much advocating for democracy in China and in Hong Kong. We all know that Hong Kong was turned over back to China, brought the Brits back in 1997, and it’s slowly gone the way of a more totalitarian spot.

One of the things about Jimmy is he, right before he went into prison, he converted to Christianity, Catholicism. He wasn’t jailed because his faith was against the law, but what he did was he freely accepted handcuffs and prison bars because of his faith, talking about that surrender of will. Now, this is a guy, he didn’t have to go to jail. He could have

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He’s got a home in Tokyo, he’s got a home in Paris, got a home in, he can go wherever he wants, he could have gotten out, but he didn’t. Jimmy wasn’t always a believer, this is Bill McGurn writing about him. In 1997, a week after Hong Kong was handed back to China, he was received into the Catholic Church. He was baptized by his good friend, Cardinal Joseph Zen, who’s another gentleman that’s also done some prison time.

It was in basically Cardinal Zen was actually in court to show support. Since Jimmy’s arrest, Cardinal Zen has visited him as often as he can. It isn’t well known, but several of those jailed in Hong Kong for pro-democracy activities have been baptized. These days, Jimmy spends much of his time cultivating his new vocation as a Christian artist. It’s pretty good, too, even limited to drawing and pencil on regular lined paper.

Over time, the authorities came to see this as a threat and no longer allow him to share his prison artwork with visitors and correspondents. Most of all, Jimmy is blessed to have a wife. Teresa, every bit as strong as he. Teresa told Jimmy when he was arrested that she knew that moment might come the day she married him. Her message? Jimmy, I am your wife and I will walk this journey with you every step of the way, but you must pick up your cross and embrace it.

Amazing thing is that this proud man has done just that. In an extraordinary podcast he did with former Soviet refuse Nick, Nate and Sharansky, not familiar with Nate and Sharansky, Google him. This guy is an absolute genius. It spent a lot of time and a Russian Gulag. Basically, Jimmy was stealing himself for his own imprisonment, but by going on this podcast.

He observed that Mr. Sharansky drew strength for his resistance from two blessings the men share, a religious faith and the unbendable love of a good woman. They discussed how important it is to never back down and to live as a free man, even in prison, by rejecting the lies the government pushes. Mr. Sharansky wished Jimmy strength and will in the trials ahead.

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He advised him to regard the burden laid on him as a blessing. And if you were chosen by the faith, by God, by your people to lead, to be the example of this moment, it’s a great responsibility, but it’s also a great joy. So enjoy it. Nobody enjoys prison. Not Jimmy, and not his wife and children. But Mr. Sharansky was on to something. Witness without cost is virtue signaling.

Man, do we get a lot of that in our society today, do we not? Congressman with, you know, pins on their lapels and people posting things on social media. Yeah, I’m down for the struggle, right. Witness without cost is virtue signaling. Jimmy’s wife and children, by contrast, see their family being redeemed by suffering, even if the world doesn’t understand. And many don’t, many don’t.

A lot of Jimmy’s friends and acquaintances, they were baffled. Baffled that a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars could have gone, like I said, could have gone to Tokyo, could have gone to Paris, would exchange that life of comfort for solitary confinement in a prison cell. And many of his former associates have abandoned him. Yet through all this, Jimmy radiates a piece that for all of his riches, he never had before.

He has written that Stanley prison isn’t so bad because the British built it and the Chinese haven’t gotten around to screwing it up yet. And he has one message for those who have turned on him. What do you think that is? What’s that message? Forgiveness. On the day of Jimmy’s baptism, this is kind of special here, 25 years ago, I confess, this is his Godfather, I looked at him and I wondered how much he believed.

There were so many social reasons for him to convert. Many of his friends were Catholic. Even as a non-believer, he admired religions for the good they contributed to society. And his wife, a cradle Catholic, was thrilled by his conversion. Today, Bill McGurn, his godfather, said, I’m ashamed of those doubts. With this trial, Jimmy will finally get his opportunity to speak. He would leave prison in a heartbeat and go home to his loving wife and children if he could.

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but not at the cost of truth. The Bible tells us that love endures all things, which creates a dilemma for China and Hong Kong with this trial. The more suffering they inflict, the more powerful Jimmy Lai’s witness grows. Anyway, again, I had to do Christmas message, I guess, my way. Peace on earth to men of goodwill. Merry Christmas to all. God bless.