Please note that due to the software, not everything recorded in this transcript will be accurate

Christmas Peace

John Dickson (Studio)

In Australia, many of us have a love–hate relationship with our letterbox at this time of year. Maybe it’s the same wherever you are …

You wander out to the front gate, open the letterbox, and often find a Christmas card from a friend you haven’t seen for ages or a distant relative. But you’re just as likely to discover the letterbox stuffed with advertising — even if you’ve got “no junk mail” written right there on the box. Shopping coupons, endless catalogues, the local bottle shop flyer, magnets for 24-hour plumbers, locksmiths, electricians … you know the drill. And then there’s that other thing you get in the letterbox this time of year. Promotions from local churches about their Christmas services or the carols-by-candlelight in the park (remember, it’s summer down there, so we do outdoor carols). I was a key culprit when I was a local clergyman. Our church — hey, St Andrew’s; miss you guys! — would letterbox-drop 5000 homes, letting people know about our services and our carols in the park. I imagine plenty of locals just scooped up the ads and filed them mentally as more junk mail. The supermarket is apparently running an “unmissable” special on lamb or prawns … and the churches are selling their wares as well — songs, Scripture, maybe a little baby in a manger. Some, though, were intrigued enough to turn up. We weren’t a big church and we still had well over a thousand locals join us every year for our carols in the park and our Christmas services. Others, no doubt, tossed the flyer away with a “why bother with all that mumbo-jumbo?” And still others — I like to imagine — stood there at the letterbox for a moment, read our headline (“Making Sense of the Silly Season” one year, “More to Life than Meets the Eye” another), and wondered for a moment: Why do they bother? What’s it all about?And then, I suppose, they threw it out. Well, I want to drop a little audio card into your letterbox this Christmas — it’s our attempt to make sense of the silly season, to explain why there really is “more to life”, and why the traditional Christmas story still holds the answers. No doubt some have already looked at the podcast title and tossed us in the bin. I’m just hoping others will check their letterbox and give this Christmas explainer a listen. I’m John Dickson, and this is Undeceptions.

Undeceptions theme

John Dickson (Studio)

This episode I’m talking to my mate, Doctor Doctor Sam Chan. We’ve had him on the show before. He’s the funniest big brain I know — he’s a doctor of medicine and he has a real doctorate (a PhD) in rhetoric and theology. He can diagnose what’s wrong with us on several levels at once. He’s written a new book for Christmas called The Missing Peace — that’s peace, p-e-a-c-e. So I kicked off our chat by asking him about our stresses at this time of year. 

John Dickson:
One of the interesting things you say is that Christmas, um, can amplify our, our anxieties instead of, you know, being a time of peace. Why is that?

Sam Chan:
For me, it’s an annual reminder that one year has gone by. I’m always shocked that the last Christmas is already 12 months ago because it only feels like one month ago, and Christmas comes at the end of the year and at the end of the year we always do a little checklist of how our life is going. It’s usually a chance  to also do the other checklists, like, did I get my car serviced? Have I vacuumed the house? Have I got my finances in order? But it’s also the stage where you look in the mirror and think, is my life in order? And usually you think, no, I’ve got room for improvement. I should exercise more, eat less, drink less, exercise more. I should have had the neighbors over for a barbecue like I promised, and I should have cleaned out the shed like I promised. And a whole year has gone by and it didn’t happen, and it makes you think, well, maybe based on that record, it’s not gonna happen next year or the year after that. I’m gonna be the same person I ever was for the rest of my life.

John Dickson:
I can’t resist asking you to tell the spider story that you open with.

Sam Chan:
So it was one night I was lying in bed, relaxing, just about to go to sleep, and there on the war, just above my face was a big hairy Australian spider. It’s our version of the tarantula. We all know it’s essentially harmless. Like if I bit you, you’re not gonna die. It would hurt, but you’re not gonna die. And I could not fall asleep while this spider was above my face. So I thought, I’ve gotta get out of bed and do something about it. And I know everyone thinks catch and release is the best option, but it’s impossible. These things are so fast. So I grabbed my slipper and I, I swung it as hard and fast as I could to kill it. I committed myself to the action, and boom, I missed, I missed a spider, so it slipped down the wall down the side of my matches, and I hurried under my bed. So that meant for the rest of the night I could not sleep. I had no peace because I worried that while I was asleep, the spider would crawl out and probably go on my face. Up my nostril in my mouth, maybe inside my ear. So there’s no way I could sleep. I could not relax. I had no peace that night.

John Dickson:
And this is your introduction

 Sam Chan:
The intro to the story.

John Dickson:
For peace. Um, I, you know, I, I mean, while we’re talking spiders, it’d be. Good to sort of freak our, um, American guests out a little bit more. Have you ever had, as buff and I have had, uh, where you’re driving along the freeway and you pull down the, the visor and there’s a big huntsman spider right there to be sitting there for the last a hundred kilometers, but as soon as you pull the visor down, he’s gone and you’re doing a hundred kilometers an hour and you dunno where the spider is and you dunno what to do.

Sam Chan:
That’s, that’s amazing. ’cause yes, that has happened to me. You pull the visor down. You see the big hairy spider, which we call huntsman drop on your lap. It actually fell on my lap and then it’s hung around, hurrying around inside my car and, and then you can’t drive well, you’re driving with a Huntsman inside your car. It is terrifying.

John Dickson:
Mate. Um, you argue, uh, moving back to our subject that in the West we’ve sort of mistakenly chosenhappiness. Can you just describe what you mean by the difference of those, those

Sam Chan:
Sure, and it’s fascinating because we all think the goal of life is to be happy. If you ask a parent to complete this sentence, I want my children to be blank. What is it? We say? Happy. The US Declaration of Independence is we have a right, an inalienable right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. But it’s only been a recent phenomenon. That’s what philosophers are now saying. It’s a recent western innovation that the goal of life is happiness. And now all these happiness experts from Jonathan Hitt and other people onwards are saying, actually, this is a fool game. You cannot find happiness. By looking for it. It’s like chasing the rainbow. It just moves further and further away from you. And there’s a whole variety of reasons why you cannot find happiness. They call it hedonic adaptation. They call it the hedonic fallacy. And so then you think, well, maybe the goal of life was never happiness. Maybe it was peace. And it’s interesting that ancient cultures all have a word for this. For the Middle Eastern cultures, it’s shalom. Salam, maybe for the Greeks, it was you ammonia. And it’s the idea that, no, it’s not the removal of pain, suffering or disease, but it’s a feeling of wholeness, completeness. You are where you should be. You are doing what you should be doing. Everything is in its right place.

 John Dickson:
Well, we need to talk about how Christmas relates to all of this being Christmas time. One of your big ideas is that we, we long for an umpire that we need an umpire. What do you mean by that? And where do you find that in the Christmas story?

 Sam Chan:
Yeah, so Western individualism says we need no umpires. In fact, umpires are the problem. External, traditional authorities. They are the problem. Really, we need to just look within. Decide what’s true, what’s good, and chase that and do whatever it takes to be happy. But then I just give examples of how when my wife and I were dating, it was so easy because we had so much in common. It was like, you like pizza? I like pizza. Look, we are perfect. But then once you get married and you had to share a life together, that’s when you realize you disagree on everything. And of course you disagree over the little things. How to stack a dishwasher and ugh. That moment when your wife sacks the dishwasher or how to hang the laundry. And my wife reh hangs the laundry after I’ve hung the laundry. And suddenly you realize, oh, we need an umpire, an external reference point. Someone who can tell us how to stack a dishwasher, how to hang the laundry. And then we would have peace because with no umpire, we have to argue, we have to fight. And it becomes a survival of the fitters. It becomes. Two birds fighting over a chip and whichever is the strongest, most stubborn bird will win the fight. But then I also. Think about how my boys all play sports on the weekend, and one of my boys, I remember, he had a game of football and they had to cancel the game of football because no umpire turned up. So you think you cannot play sport unless there is a third party external neutral reference point to call the game. Otherwise, without an umpire, the game will turn into bass and then a fight, and then a riot. So umpires, believe it or not, actually. Make peace possible. So without umpires, peace is impossible.

 John Dickson:
So where is the, um, umpire theme in the Christmas story?

Sam Chan:
Yeah. So hundreds of years before Jesus was born, God sent a prophet called Isaiah, and in the pages of the Bible, Isaiah promises that one day God will send an umpire. He talks about how to us a child is born…

Reading

Every warrior’s boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire,
For to us a child is born,
 to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.

Isaiah, Chapter 9

Sam Chan:
And he gives a whole list of names and titles to describe what this child will do when he comes. And one of those names is wonderful counselor, so he’s a counselor and he’s also a prince of peace, so in some way he will. Spring Peace he’ll adjudicate and he will make the call. He’ll be the umpire that we need.

John Dickson:
What does the Prince of Peace title mean? When it’s applied to Jesus I, is it just that he himself is a very peaceful character, or does he give us some kind of transcendental experience of peace? What do you mean?

Sam Chan:
Wow, there’s so many layers of meaning to that title, and we can unpeel and unpack it, but at one level, we gotta understand that this promise was made. At a historical moment in time to a real set of people in a, in a real place, and it was to the ancient kingdom of Israel, and there were these tiny. was a tiny nation in the middle of big nations, and they were always in the way of big nations. Big nations like Babylon, Egypt, and maybe later Assyria, Persia, and they were forever being trampled on. But the promise was that one day God would send this person who would become a prince of peace, who would set up. A new kingdom for ancient Israel, and everyone is invited to be part of this kingdom. And in this kingdom there will be peace. There’ll be no more wars. You’re not gonna be trotted on anymore. But most importantly, this ruler will rule with peace. And I think he makes peace possible because he’s loving, powerful and just, and up until then, and maybe even up until now, all our rulers of normal human kingdoms. You know, they, they promise power. They promise peace. They promise love. They promise justice, but they can never deliver. So it’s this idea that one day there will be a kingdom where there will be a benevolent ruler who will rule with justice, mercy, love, and therefore peace.

Reading

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew, Chapter 1

John Dickson:
You reflect a bit on his name. I mean, ’cause that’s a bit a big part of the Christmas story and you make much of the fact that he’s called Jesus. I mean, when people, you know, in Western culture give pe, you know, give babies their names, it’s normally just ’cause it sounds cool, right? Or there’s some actor, or in my case, I wanted to call my children Ryan after Ryan gigs from Manchester United. I, I didn’t get that, that wish. But why was Jesus called? Jesus?

Sam Chan:
Yeah, I love how you talk about that because in my book I say the same thing. I’ve got three boys, and the fun of being a parent is naming your kids. And my name Sam, has been a top 10 dog name in Australia for decades. So I thought my first boy is gonna get a dog name. So I went through the dog names of Australia and that year the number one dog name was Jack. But then we thought, we can’t call him Jackie Chan. So we went with Toby, which is another dog name, and of course my Asian relatives were horrified. They said, you can’t give your name, your kid a dog name because in Asian cultures names have a meaning. So basically, I’ve named my kid a dog, and in my book I say, well, God, may as well be Asian because just like the Asians, the Middle Eastern cultures names had a meaning. God chooses the name Jesus, which literally means the Lord God saves. And then in the Bible it expands that to say, well, what’s he saving us from? And it says, where the Lord will save his people from their sins. And so there already, we unpack the meaning of Prince of peace one layer deeper to say, well, the way he’s gonna bring peace is he is gonna save us from our sins.

John Dickson:
This ties into a, a theme. You spend quite a few pages unpacking the, the famous Zenni  quotation from the Gulag Archipelago.

Reading

It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an uprooted small corner of evil. Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety… So let the reader who expects this book to be a political exposé slam its covers shut right now. If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn’t change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil. Socrates taught us: Know thyself! Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the way things worked out that they were the executioners and we weren’t. From good to evil is one quaver, says the proverb. And correspondingly, from evil to good. The Gulag Archipelago

John Dickson:
Can you zero in on why you, you know, set that up and then uh, what you think it has to do with Christmas?

Sam Chan:
When we say we long for peace, the flip side is we acknowledge there is no peace in our world right now. Everything’s crazy. We have, we have political division. We can’t get along at family dinners. There’s a war going on right now between Ukraine and Russia, so it’s easy to point the finger outside that, well, other people are the problem. That’s why there’s no peace. It’s my family. That’s the problem. My neighbors are the problem. The politicians are the problems. The shock jocks are the problems. The influence are the problems. But then I turn around by thinking, well, what if I’m more so the problem? ’cause this world is only the sum of its parts. And I’m one of the parts that make up this world. And I talk about the Copernican Revolution. And the Copernican revolution is that famous moment where up until then we thought, ah, the, the sun revolves around the earth. That’s obvious. But then suddenly the Copernican revolution was, hang on, maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe we revolve around the sun and it’s the same. We keep pointing the finger outside. Other people are the problem. But maybe if we could have a Copernican Revolution and think, Hey, what if I’m also part of the problem? And that’s a Socha Nixon story. Up until then, it was easy to say, who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Socha Nixon. He, he’s a writer. He writes some things. And for that, the, the cruel dictator Stalin, the Russian dictator Stalin, put Sonis in in a Gulag, a Russian concentration camp. For political prisoners, and it’s obvious that prison guards are the bad guys and the prisoners are the good guys. But then such azen have this moment where he thinks, no, hang on. There’s a line that divines good and evil, and it goes through each and every human heart. And on the one hand, that means, well, bad people actually have some good in them, but also good people. Well, we’ve got a bit of evil in us as well.

John Dickson:
Now some people might be listening to this and think, uh, you know, I find Christmas full. Enough. Enough, just as it is because, you know, Christmas concentrates all the good things, uh, family, friends, the sun. In the case of Australians, uh, food, wine presents time off. Can’t that be fulfilling enough?

Sam Chan:
And those things are so fulfilling and I, and I love them and in Australia for. The non Australian listeners, Christmas gets even better because it’s followed by the next day called Boxing Day, and Christmas was lots of fun with family. Now imagine doing that with the friends you did want to invite on Christmas Day and that’s Boxing Day and you’re just eating all the leftovers, playing with the presents you got, and there’s just sports on TV and it’s great. So I totally agree with that sentiment. Christmas is fulfilling, but he, and he’s a big, but as I said, there’s also that pain point you if we are honest with ourselves when we look in the mirror. We know we should be better than who we are. And that’s a whole project of growth mindset that I need to grow and I’m not the person I am. And it’s a time to take stock, take calibration. And again, what does fulfillment mean? So fulfillment means we live according to our design and what is our design. And really we need a designer to know what our design is. Happiness. Then therefore, by itself, the happiness that comes from Christmas, uh, it, it fades so quickly and it, it’s never enough. And also, as someone said, there’s always suffering that’s just around the corner. And what is, what is the hope that’s gonna get me through that suffering?

 John Dickson:
Well, speaking of design, my final question is really where you land the book, and that is that human beings ultimately, uh, need to feel seen, loved. Safe. What do you mean by those three things? And then importantly, how does Christmas, in your view, help us feel, seen, loved, and safe?

Sam Chan:
Sure. So I have a friend in the USA called Skylar. He loves Tabasco sauce. I didn’t see what was special about Tabasco sauce, but one day I was in a cheap restaurant and they had Tabasco sauce bottles on the table. So I took a picture of a bottle, sent it to Skylar. He messaged back immediately, I feel seen, and I thought, huh, what does he mean by that? And then I was talking to a parenting expert and being a parent myself, I thought I should mansplain to her. You know the secrets of parenting, and I said, every kid needs to know that they’re loved and that they’re safe. But then she said, no, they also need to know that they’re seen. And I thought, huh, that’s a second time I’ve heard that expression. What does she mean by that? What does she mean by that? And then I watched the Netflix documentary on David Beckham, world famous soccer player, the Michael Jordan of soccer or football. He said before the most important game of his life, he had to look into the crowd to see if he could see his mom and dad watching him.

John Dickson:
1999 Champions League final. I watched it. I wept that day.

Sam Chan:
It was amazing. Thank you, John, for taking us back. Yeah, well, on that day, David Beckham was looking into the crowd to see if he could see. Victoria, you know, his wife and his mom and dad looking at him. He said, only until I felt seen did I know it was okay. And I thought, wow, that’s three times row Now I’ve heard that expression, seen.What does that mean? But this is what it means as a parent. We put our kids in. Weekend sports. It’s amazing ’cause as parents, we sign our kids up for sports and then the first thing we do is we hope it gets canceled. We think, please rain, please rain, please Rain. We are so busy, it’s the only thing we pay money for and we hope we don’t get our money’s worth. Please be canceled and worse. My boy plays cricket. Anything. Oh, as an Australian, anything. Anything but cricket. A, B, C, anything but cricket. Why can’t my son play basketball? Why can’t he do table tennis like all his Asian friends? He gets.

 John Dickson:
And the reason for that is it takes eight hours of your day.

 Sam Chan:
Eight hours day and nothing happens. Nothing ever happens, right? But when your kid goes out to bat, because it’s like baseball, when it’s your kid’s turn to bat, you need to drop everything because if your kid hits the ball, and then when he comes off the field, the first thing he says to you is, did you see me? And then if you say, no, I wasn’t watching, you can just see your child deflate. But if you say, yes, I saw you, you can see them validated. And I think being seen validates us just to know someone we love and who loves us delights in us. And that’s where we find our validation. And I think these are basic, primal needs that we look for. Our whole lives to know that we are seen, that someone delights in us, and that we’re validated and that we are loved, and also we’re secure in that love. So by security, I, I don’t mean physical safety, but relational safety, knowing that I’m always in the presence of this person who loves me and who delights in me. I remember my little child when he used to fall asleep, his arm would reach out. To try to touch me to make sure I was still there. And that’s how he knew he was loved and safe. And I think as human beings, we forever have that need. I think of Michael Jordan, who when I was young, was the greatest of all time basketball player. He won one championship, won another one. He won three championships. He had everything he needed. He had success, fame, and three championships. He retired. He didn’t find what he was looking for, so he came out of retirement, did it one more time. Won another championship. Won another championship. Won another championship. He had six championships now, so he retired, but he still didn’t have what he was looking for, so he came outta retirement. One more time. This time, no more championships, he retires again. I don’t think he ever found what he’s looking for. I think he was looking for. Validation. Someone will say, well done. I delight in you. And we can look for those in outside sources like our family, our friends, our hobbies. Those are good things, great things, but they don’t validate us. We look inside for validation, but we find that, well, we’re our own worst critics and we find that anti unfulfilling. So I think our basic primal need is to know we have a God who loves us. Who sees us, who delights in us, who validates us, and we know that we’re forever loved by him. And in him, we find out true security.

Reading

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke Chapter 2

John Dickson:
What tells you from the Christmas story that we’re seen, loved and secure?

Sam Chan:
So hundreds of years before Jesus is born. God plants his blessing in the early pages of the Bible and the blessing goes like this. May the Lord bless you. May the Lord keep you. May he may He make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he turn his face towards you and give you peace. As an Asian from a shame honor culture, I recognize that promise for what it it is. It’s a promise of face. Because in shame, honor, cultures shame and dishonor means to lose face. But if you can have face, then you have honor. And God says he’s gonna turn his face towards you, honor you, validate you. And so when Jesus is born and the angels appear to the shepherds. I think they pick up on that thread from that blessing, from from that promise, and they say, Hey, great news we bring to you today. A savior has been born peace  on earth. To those on whom God’s favor rests. So God has now turned his face towards you in Jesus. And that’s where we’re gonna find our peace.

John Dickson:
Sam Chan, thank you very much.

Sam Chan:
Thanks John.

Undeceptions theme

John Dickson (Studio)

Merry Christmas from the Undeceptions team — and thank you for listening throughout 2025. We’re prepping for Season 16 over the Christmas and January period, and there’s a lot to look forward to. We’re going to explore the influence of the Gutenberg Bible, the medieval fascination with vices and virtues (and why they might be worth recovering today), and the lifelong benefits of knowing the classics — Homer, Aristotle, Plutarch, Aristophanes. And we’re not shying away from the hard stuff next season either. We’ll look at evolution — and why it isn’t “case closed” — and we’ll tackle the Child Sexual Abuse scandal in the church. That one is going to be tough. As a friend of the podcast and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat once put it: “No atheist or anticlericalist — no Voltaire, Ingersoll, or Twain — could have invented a story so perfectly calculated to discredit the message of the Gospel … no external enemy of the faith could have sown so much confusion and dismay among the faithful.” That – and lots more – is coming up on Undeceptions. See ya.

CREDITS

Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed by Mark Hadley. 

Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher.

Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership. 

Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. 

Lyndie Leviston remains my wonderful assistant. 

Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. 

Editing by Richard Hamwi.

Our voice actors today were the Undeceptions Team – wishing you a happy Christmas!

Special thanks to our series sponsor Zondervan for making this Undeception possible. 

Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com – letting the truth out.