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Good morning. There is a painful irony in the fact that the scene of the shocking events in Strasbourg on Tuesday night was a Christmas market. Visiting violence on innocent civilians is always a terrible thing, but it seems all the more discordant that terror should be unleashed against those who were engaged in preparing for the celebration of the birth of the baby whom Christians hail as the Prince of Peace. When you stop and think about it however, the original nativity is itself painfully juxtaposed with, indeed framed by, coercion, force and violence. Jesus’s parents undertake their journey to Bethlehem at the behest of a great and grand colonial power, Rome, intent on registering and taxing a subject people. And no sooner is the baby born than Herod - a client of that superpower and jealous of his own status and authority - has the male infants of Bethlehem murdered on the basis of a rumour, while Jesus and his parents flee into exile. We are in the midst of the nativity play season – I saw my four year old in one yesterday afternoon – and wonderful though these plays often are, they tend to overlook the fact that on either side of the lovely bit in the middle of the Christmas story, regular human motives of greed, ambition and fear frame the story. In the full story we are left wondering what will become of the child and the peace on earth he is prophesied to bring. Amongst those who determine the fact of peace on earth in our day are politicians who are, after all, only regular human beings – indeed sometimes they can seem all too human, allowing individual ambitions and rivalries to get the better of their duty to a higher good. And states and powers, governed by these politicians, may themselves act for motives which are no more exalted. Peace on earth is thus a fragile thing, subject on the one hand to the assaults and affronts of which the events in Strasbourg are sadly simply a current, but far from uncommon, reminder, while on the other its well being is in the hands of those who may show more concern for personal than public interest. Politicians in this country face a season of momentous decisions – and the name of the occupant of No 10 makes no difference to that. The future path of our nation, the shape of our relationship with our neighbours, the prosperity of current and future generations, are all at stake. It would be too much to expect that our politicians should be, like the players who so delight us in nativity plays, very visions of purity and innocence. But we surely should expect that as they weigh the decisions they face, they should rise above desire for personal or even party advantage, conscious of the solemn responsibility which lies with government – that of serving and trying to secure peace on earth, in a world in which peace is at once precarious and yet infinitely precious.