Peace on Earth.

It’s a lovely concept that we’ll hear about, pray about, even sing about over this long Christmas weekend.

Every year at this time, the angel’s words to the shepherds of Bethlehem ring out again, as well they should. God’s wish for our world to be at peace, and his messenger’s expression of God’s good will toward humanity are beautiful, reassuring statements of hope and love.

And for Christians, there is no greater illustration of God’s love for his creation than his willingness to be born as a man, to endure the trials and temptations of this world, and to suffer and die at our hands for our sins to ensure our salvation.

Jesus told his followers to imitate his example. People are supposed to be instruments of God’s peace. But since Day One, even when they’re at their very best, people have proven to be the bluntest of instruments.

We can’t all seem to get on the same page when it comes to peace. Somehow, we never all want it at once. Over and over again, personal disputes, family feuds, tribal conflicts and national wars hold peace at bay. The desire to exercise power over others too often proves irresistible.

If indeed there has ever been a period of peace on Earth, it was almost certainly a coincidence. And someone, somewhere undoubtedly was taking advantage of the lull to plan the next war. Taking advantage is a part of human nature.

That’s why peace on Earth remains only a lovely concept. At our best, we aspire to it. We should never give up on achieving it, and we should each do our part to bring it to reality.

But we have to do it right, which means we can’t simply declare it. We must earn it, and then we must maintain it.

We cannot delude ourselves that peace is possible without justice. Either the one complements and counterbalances the other, or each becomes an illusion.

If someone is robbing people in your neighborhood, you might find peace by buying an extra lock for your door and staying inside. That will work until the robber runs out of easy targets, at which point he may move on to destroy the peace of someone else’s neighborhood. Then again, he may choose to kick in your well-locked door.

Or you might try to find peace by giving him something he wants. Then he owns you. Your peace is merely rented, subject to cancellation without notice.

It takes wisdom to recognize a threat, courage to confront it and a firm resolve to prevail over it. And the longer it takes to recognize, confront and prevail over the threat, the greater the sacrifices required when we finally get around to doing justice.

American men and women – please don’t insult them by calling them boys, girls or kids – are working today in Afghanistan and Iraq to bring freedom to people long acquainted only with tyranny. What they are doing is the bloody and difficult work of justice, in the hope that peace will flower.

And as they do so, they stand between ordinary Americans and some extraordinarily dedicated and brutal enemies. They are a living statement of our resolve to help justice and peace prevail.

Over the last few years, whenever I write about the war in Iraq, I hear from people who just want us out of there. They tell me I’m a warmonger and say that I don’t care about the men and women of the U.S. military – the same men and women who they say “can’t win.” They tell me nothing in Iraq is worth the lives or the money we’re spending. They tell me they want peace.

Well, I want peace, too. But I’d like to see it last awhile. And while it lasts, I’d like it to be real – not the phony kind we’d get by buying an extra lock for the door while Islamofascism works its ravages on the global neighborhood.

This isn’t just about Iraq. This is about powerful ideological forces contending to see which will prevail. Peace on Earth isn’t in the short-term forecast.

Wishing for it will do us no good. We can hope to achieve real peace only through the strength and courage of men and women who are far from home this Christmas. No one wants it more than they do, but no one understands more clearly that it must be earned.

We owe them our gratitude. Far more important, we owe them our resolve.

We need to give them the leadership, the tools and the numbers to win.

Kevin O’Brien is deputy editorial director of The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. He can be contacted at [email protected]