I JUST FINISHED watching the movie "American History X" with Edward Norton. Man. What a powerful, powerful movie. What a statement of the wrongness, absurdity, and waste of racism and hate. At the end of the movie a statement is made. "Hate is baggage." How true. Hate does no one any good. Not the one who is hated. Not the one who hates.

Hate is something that ranges from the smallest thought of vengeful anger to the out and out slaughter of multitudes. It is all of the same essence, issues forth from the same foul source. Whether I only dwell on the imaginations of plunging a knife into a man's chest or actually carry out the deed, they are the same in their basic nature.

Why do we hate? What is this phenomenon? In our bosoms is the potential to destroy, deface, murder. Why? Where did this come from? Is it not true that each one of us has harbored and even delighted in thoughts of anger and hate? Left to run their natural course, these thoughts would surely bring us all to the act of murder, the culmination of hatred.

Tough words, yes. Yet I believe them to be true words.

Each individual person's proneness to anger and hatred is the very thing that prevents true peace in the world. The key to world peace does not rest with government leaders, political agendas, UN proclamations. The real issue of world peace is the state of the heart of every individual on the planet. Roadmaps to peace, conventions, treaties, compromises do not change the hearts of men on a fundamental level and in a significant way. Certainly these things may prevent further atrocities, death and suffering. But they only treat the symptoms. They do not cure the disease.

What is Christmas all about? Sure, I realize it was most likely an ancient pagan celebration that the church "Christianized" somewhere along the way. Since they brought Jesus into the issue and since most people associate Christmas with Jesus in varying degrees, I ask the question. What is Christmas about?

One night, long ago, did not an angel announce, "Peace on earth?" Was that some kind of joke? What peace on earth? For the past two thousand years, has our world been characterized by peace on earth? Certainly not. Has humankind progressed and evolved to a higher level of peace since the night the angel made that proclamation? No.

So what? Throw our Bibles away? Give up on any hope for change in this world? Kill ourselves out of despair?

Maybe we missed the point.

We who are Christians believe that the prophet Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he called the Messiah the "Prince of Peace." If this is true, what are the implications? Does not the term "prince" imply that there is some type of rulership involved? Does not a prince have authority and power over some body of people?

Jesus himself said that the Kingdom of God is not something that is seen with the eyes. Rather it is something in the hearts of human beings. The great travesty of the ages is that people have looked for it in external things at the expense of the state of the hearts of people. The issue of the heart is addressed to some degree. But never to the extent that it needs to be, not to the depth that it should be in order to change a person's heart.

Yet who has the key to changing a person's heart on such a fundamental level that they no longer live with anger and hate in their heart but rather peace and love? Who has the plan for that? Who can devise a roadmap for peace on that level? What ruler of what nation can present an effective plan to cure the angry, hateful, warlike tendencies of the human heart?

To me, this is what Christmas should be about. It is what the birth of Christ is about. "Unto you is born this day a Savior in the City of David." Somebody came with a plan to change the hearts of men. No other plan for peace will work without this primary and fundamental plan.

Am I preaching at you? I hope it doesn't sound that way. I am the last one qualified to do that. Even this week I was the one with the imaginations of plunging a knife into the chest of another. I am happy that I recognize that as the problem though. and I'm just "thinking" outloud in this entry. I know that many of the people who read my site do not hold these same views. For me, on Christmas Eve, it feels like an appropriate time to think such thoughts.

May there be peace on earth, peace in our hearts.