Peace

With the hippy dippy and flower children movements of the sixties and more recent anti-war demonstrations, we naturally associate the idea of “peace”, as the absence of war or a lack of conflict.  This is one of its primary meanings in both English and the Biblical languages.  However, the Hebrew word shalom which we translate as peace has a broader meaning than we typically imply when we use this term.  Shalom in the Old Testament also described wholeness and well-being.  Not just the absence of conflict, but the enjoyment and the fullness of God’s blessing.


Ezekiel 34:25-31 gives us a good example of what peace, or shalom looks like.  In this passage, YHWH, through the prophet Ezekiel paints a picture of what it is to live in peace when he describes his people’s future under a new covenant.  “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild animals from the land, so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely.  I will make them and the region around my hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.  The trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase.  They shall be secure on their soil; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke, and save them from the hands of those who enslaved them.  They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor shall the animals of the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no one shall make them afraid.  I will provide for them a splendid vegetation so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the insults of the nations.  They shall know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God.  You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture and I am your God, says the Lord God.”


What a beautiful image of what it is to live in peace!  In John 20:19-23, in the midst of his disciples’ fear, Jesus comes to them and offers them his peace.  Let’s read the passage.  “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” 


Because Jesus is risen from the dead, the disciples can be sure that their future will be a future of peace.  There’s will be a future of wholeness and of well-being.  One day, they will enjoy life eternal - life as it was always meant to be in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  But even in this life, they will have peace, because they’ve encountered the risen Jesus.  But this peace isn’t the kind of peace that often gets marketed as the “health and wealth” or “prosperity” gospel.  No, this is a peace, not rooted in fantasy, but in reality – in the nitty gritty of real life and real community. 

In his farewell discourse in John 15, Jesus had warned his followers that the world would hate them and that just as many had persecuted Jesus, so many would persecute them.  But in that same discourse, Jesus promised his disciples peace.  He said this in John 16:33, “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace.  In the world you face persecution.  But take courage; I have conquered the world!” 



The kind of peace that Jesus gave his disciples on that Sunday morning wasn’t the kind of peace that spares a person from the strife of this life, but a peace that gave them wholeness and wellbeing in the middle of the storm. 
It’s the kind of peace that takes one through the fire.  The fire that would destroy those not in Christ, serves to refine, redeem, and renew those in him.  

And this is the kind of peace that we need.  It’s the kind of peace that this world needs.  A peace that passes all understanding.  A peace that can face the chaos of life, and make sense of this world, knowing that there’s life beyond the present form of this world.  Our fears can be overcome by the peace that Jesus gives.  As Julian of Norwich once wrote, “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”.  With this peace, we can pass through the storms of life with Jesus by our side.  But like Jesus, we will acquire scars along the way. - Shay