It isn’t, by any obvious measure lyrically, a Christmas song. It never mentions the day itself, nor does it touch on themes that have become rather synonymous with the season in modern times. There are no jingle bells rocking, no sleighs dashing through snow, no halls decked with boughs of holly.
But in its own way, the inspirational 1955 Harlene Wood and Sy Miller standard “Let There Be Peace on Earth” has become a staple of the season. Disney World’s EPCOT Center attraction closed out its fireworks shows during the Christmas season with an emotional rendition of the song, and several popular music stars — crooner Harry Connick Jr. and country’s Vince Gill, to name a couple — included their versions of it on their own acclaimed Christmas albums.
The Rev. Paul McDonnell thinks often of that song, too. Especially at this time of year. Even more so, this year in particular.
Father Paul McDonnell poses for a photograph behind the pulpit at Divine Mercy Parish in Scranton Monday, December 22, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The pastor at Divine Mercy Parish on Davis Street in Scranton, McDonnell said the last line of the anthem making a plea for harmony among God’s creatures is one that always tends to stand out in his mind.
“Let there be peace on Earth…,” the old song goes, “and let it begin with me.”
The theme is not likely foreign to congregants at Divine Mercy the last few weeks. The line is at the heart of McDonnell’s message this Christmas season, a plea to a fractured world struggling to overcome frustrations ranging from road rage to fracturing within families. To those struggling to overcome long-standing grudges or get past perceived ones, he said, the story of Jesus Christ’s humble birth still should stand as an example of God’s gift in the lives of man.
“In light of events that have occurred in the last 12 months throughout 2025, there have been a lot of reasons to be down, to be in despair, to doubt ourselves and our faith,” McDonnell said. “It can feel like, ‘God, where are you?’ But this is the time of year to remember what it’s all about. We can experience a loving and merciful God through our experiences with each other.
“It is a source of comfort, but also a challenge for all of us, to live the Christmas message every day and just make the world a better place.”
This time of year is, by its very nature, a time of tradition. One of the biggest traditions in places of worship around the region can be found with the increase in people hoping to be inspired spiritually. That makes messages like McDonnell’s especially important for those hoping to spread the word.
No matter the location, or the denomination, or the religion for that matter, the content of those messages doesn’t diverge all that much.
Most can be found within the realities of a modern world that can be challenging for those trying to do the best they can with limited resources, for those who feel excluded.
The spirit of the messages lies in reminders that the stories of the season provide blueprints that can ease those difficulties and eliminate those challenges.
Pastor Chris Stark poses for a photograph in his office at the Rock Church Worship Center in Scranton Friday, December 19, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Power of hope
A few miles away from McDonnell’s Minooka parish, the Rev. Chris Stark prayed for guidance on the message he wanted to convey from the pulpit to those in the pews at Rock Church, a nondenominational, Bible-based church on Scranton’s Morgan Highway.
As he tends to do when the words are of particular importance, Stark felt God pull him away from his own more tried-and-true messages from Christmases past.
“I just believe that the message of hope needs to be brought out more and more, and looking back at previous messages during the Christmas season, I’ve never talked specifically about hope,” he said. “But we’re living in a time where hopelessness is at a high level.”
Sermons are often centered on the significance of important events and typically are reflective of the struggles congregants face, and inspiration for them can be found even from a years-old study.
The Centers for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey released in 2023 found that 40% of high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. The results have stuck in Stark’s mind since he read them.
As Christian’s celebrate Christ’s birth, Stark’s message doesn’t focus solely on the prophecies around it, but on promises Christ made himself. Stark cited the New Testament book of John, in which Christ said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” It is considered a key verse for Christians, who believe that following Jesus is the pathway to eternal life and understanding away from the darkness that can often be felt without him.
Pastor Chris Stark poses for a photograph in his office at the Rock Church Worship Center in Scranton Friday, December 19, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
“We have to understand, Jesus is the answer,” Stark said. “He isn’t a figment of our imagination. He is real. He was sent to the Earth to give us hope, to give us the light of life. As we follow him, because he rose from the dead on the third day (after his crucifixion), we have been given his free gift, that we can walk with him. This is not just a message for Christmas.”
Finding a path
The primary message of Christmas is one that will be the focus of many sermons and messages in churches throughout the area, of course, and it endures because for those delivering it, it is a central theme of the faith: God’s love for mankind is unfailing, especially in the most difficult of times.
The Rev. Mark DeSilva of the Living Hope Bible Church on Carey Avenue in Wilkes-Barre pointed out that most of the year, preachers talk about what Christians can do to seek out God. The magic of the Christmas story, he said, is God reaching down to man with the offer of salvation and eternal life. It is about mankind being valued.
That’s why those who heard DeSilva’s message this month heard about gifts — just not ones that can be found under the Christmas tree. He said his messages imparted the four gifts Christ brought to mankind upon his birth: God’s love, hope, peace and joy.
“He came to seek and save that which is lost,” DeSilva said. “It’s the glad message of Christmas, that God humbled himself, and came down to Earth to seek us out.”
Patience and kindness
At Scranton’s Temple Hesed, those who gather to listen to Rabbi Daniel Swartz’s message celebrated a different holiday, but hearing similar themes.
Hannukah ended at sundown on Monday, three days before Christmas Day, but Swartz’s central message of patience and understanding is not unlike those being preached at churches throughout the community.
He said that message came in two forms. One, that while there are many reasons to be nervous or even afraid to share your beliefs, there is value in being proud of who you are and what you believe, that standing out and being different is a good thing. In fact, it’s a key part of what makes society function.
“That,” Swartz said, “is a key part of Hannukah.”
The other side of that coin, though, is welcoming that same trait in others, even in a time when so many seem anxious to feel “triggered.”
“We owe each other a little bit of kindness and patience,” Swartz said. “(It’s about) recognizing that to be human is to be imperfect, and to try to extend some grace to each other. I don’t know everything going on in your world, and we’re all facing our own different kinds of difficulties. Pretty much, kindness is never the wrong response to anything.”
Do unto others
In his annual Christmas message, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, bishop of Scranton, prayed for peace — both in the world and in the hearts of the people who inhabit it.
It hasn’t been easy to obtain. Bambera quoted Pope Leo XIV’s message from the First Sunday of Advent, in which he said that followers who truly want to help people they meet must live their own faith consistently in charity.
“Sadly, however, while we are quick to embrace the hope that we are given through the birth of Jesus, we are often reluctant to heed his invitation to authentic discipleship,” Bambera wrote. “We fail to make as our own the message of salvation proclaimed throughout the ages by the life, love, mercy, and forgiveness of Jesus. We’re reluctant to heed Jesus’ invitation to walk in his footsteps. We wonder why we are unsettled, and peace in our lives, our homes and our world seem so elusive. We question why God can’t provide us with a way out of suffering and pain in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Nigeria, at our borders, in the lives of our immigrant sisters and brothers, in our neighborhoods, in our families and in our hearts. And we miss the treasure that has been given to each of us through faith.”
For McDonnell, it comes back to a similar theme born from the Christmas story itself: What are we willing to do to make others’ lives better? We might tell a stranger “Merry Christmas,” but what are we doing individually to make the “merry” part a reality?
“Look at the Christmas story of Jesus being born into poverty, with very simple, very humble parents,” McDonnell said. “All we revere now is opposite of that: wealth, prestige and power. But where do we find the spirit of God? In a cold, muddy, messy stable. There was no room at the inn, but we experience God in the messiness of our lives, and when things don’t go as planned.”