True Peace
Beloved in the Lord, do you know what true peace is? I recently did a internet research and came across a forum that asked the question: “Who or what brings you peace?” The answers varied and it was interesting to see who or what brought people peace. One individual answered: “Only myself. In the absence of conflict, struggle, and fighting…there is peace.” Another individual writes: “You get peace by knowing the fact that you are a human being. You can experience things that no other creature is capable of doing. Look where you have reached on the chain of evolution. See how you cannot only feel emotions, you can express them. There are so many things to be grateful for and barely anything to waste your peace on. You have a reservoir of peace inside of you. You just need to let it flow freely. Do not judge, never stop learning, and change the filters of your eyes to see beauty instead of pain and hurt. You will notice that after dusting out all the stuff that you don’t need, you are only left with peace.”
There were many other individual responses to this question. Each one with various aspects of who or what brought the individual peace. So let me now ask you, who or what brings you peace? If we are truly honest with ourselves, we probably named a few things in our mind that help to bring about peace in our lives. If we are really being honest with ourselves, Jesus was not our first answer and He wasn’t at the top of the list. The reality is, like some of the answers to the question shared above, we often to look to ourselves, someone else, or something in this world to give us peace. Yet, time and time again we are let down. If you noticed, the responses that I shared from the forum all focused around peace being brought about or experienced because of what the individual did. They were looking to themselves to find peace in their lives.
However, there is One who does bring us true peace in our lives. As we here in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,” Jesus says. What exactly is this peace that Jesus leaves with us? Beloved, it is reconciliation with God, secured through Christ’s death and resurrection. It’s not an external peace that is politically and militarily maintained. But it is an eternal peace. It is a peace that is found in Christ being crucified for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins. Beloved, the words of John 14:27 are, without a doubt, an invitation to an objective reality. That is, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, offering Himself to us as our peace, a loving embrace for our troubled hearts. Not only that, but this verse has two parts. An offering and an invitation.
The offering is the peace Jesus offers to leave us. A peace He specifies is not like the more familiar notions of peace we hear about in the world. And the invitation is to let our hearts enter into His peace. You see, we live in a sinful world, a broken world, a world filled with worries and anxiety, sickness, pain, and sorrow. Yet Jesus comes and offers a unique peace while we live in this sinful and broken world. The peace that He offers is the peace of the Gospel. The Gospel which gives to us the confident assurance that as Baptized children of God, our lives are caught up in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The peace which Jesus gives, ensures us that our sins are forgiven and that we are adopted into His family so that we are never left as orphans struggling with our problems all alone. Beloved, this Gospel peace speaks to our hearts where the winds of our trials and anxieties shake and moan. The peace that Jesus gives, is the strength of endurance and prosperity. This Gospel peace that Jesus gives is a word of promise. For the peace of Jesus gives us Jesus who, despite His fears, willingly and obediently went to the cross for all of the rest of us who would have never done so.
The peace that Jesus offers us is peace within a war. Every single one of us is fighting a battle of some kind in our lives. Whether it is anxiety, addiction, poverty, sickness ,disability, loneliness, rejection, etc., we are all fighting a battle in our lives. Therefore, Jesus gives us this invitation to “let our hearts not be troubled.” He doesn’t invite us to let our hearts be troubled. He invites us to let our hearts NOT be troubled. It is a call to hear and to attend to what Christ is doing. It’s a call to hear what Jesus is saying.
Dear friends in Christ, when our anxiety gets the best of us, it is easy to want to dismiss Jesus’ words and promises to us as empty. However, Jesus’ words are not barren for they are filled with Himself. Jesus offers to the anxious soul the one thing it wants; certainty of the good. The more that vision of certainty is held before our hearts, the more they can participate, turbulent or not, in the promised and lasting peace of Christ Jesus. Beloved, Jesus is the one who went the way of the cross for our salvation and for the forgiveness of our sins. He did so in order to bring about true peace in our lives. A peace that this world cannot give.
Not only do we have the peace of reconciliation with God, secured through Christ’s death and resurrection, but we also receive that peace each and every week in the means of grace. For it is in God’s means of grace (baptism, absolution, Sacrament of the Altar), that we receive the peace of Christ. For in these means of God’s grace is the forgiveness of our sins, life, and salvation. Rest in this peace. The true peace that only Jesus can give. A true peace which this world cannot give. “Let not your hearts be troubled and let them not be afraid.” For Jesus is with you always. What joy, comfort, and peace that brings to our troubled and anxious hearts as we navigate this sinful and broken world.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen!