Peace is the first thing the angels sang.

The line invokes the Nativity scene in Luke 2, where angels announce Christ’s birth with a hymn of “peace.” By calling peace “the first thing” they sang, the saying elevates peace from a later moral aspiration to Christianity’s inaugural note: the Incarnation is framed as God’s reconciling act, meant to still hostility between God and humanity and, by extension, among people. The phrasing also suggests a hierarchy of values—peace as the precondition for worship, community, and holy living—implying that Christian speech and action should echo the angels’ priority rather than begin with triumph, power, or judgment.