Year C / Eastertide / Week 6 / Sunday
Readings: Acts 15.1-2,22-29/ Psalm 66.2-3,5,6,8 (R/v 4) / Revelation 21.10-14,22-23 / John 14.23-29
Sisters and brothers, have you ever read a sentence in a book or article that touched you deeply and transformed how you live?
When I taught English Literature, I would instruct students to pay attention to grammatically correct, eloquently expressive and purposefully meaningful sentences. In particular, they were to find that one sentence that would make them marvel at the goodness of life and help them savour it well.
I think these words in today’s gospel invite us to do the same: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you”.
As Christians, we should definitely marvel at and savour them very well. We should because they speak of our deep human longing for peace and where we will find its fulfillment — in Jesus.
Our gospel reading is from Jesus’ farewell at the Last Supper. It anticipates the unimaginable trauma and loss the disciples will face when Jesus is arrested and put to death later.
Like them, we too face harm and suffering in our lives. Short-lived relationships hurt us or leave us lonely. Broken marriages end with angry spouses and bitter children. Unexpected misfortune or death drowns us in wretched disappointment and inconsolable grief.
In such moments, we struggle to find a way to continue living even if it seems impossible to. We want to survive. How can we?
Our world offers us simple blessings to get on with life: a rainbow after a storm; a friend’s embrace in our disappointment; a home-cooked meal with the family at day’s end.
But this same world also troubles us when innocent people suffer through famine and die in terrorist attacks. It disappoints us because narrow-mindedness, discrimination, and hatred still prevail. It pains us when many well-meaning efforts to mend and improve come to naught. And it saddens us when beloved family and friends fall into addictions, succumb to violence, or slip away in death.
In such moments we are confused, lost, and pained. It is easy to feel helpless and give up.
We believe Jesus knows our struggles when he looks at us. He certainly did when he looked at his disciples at the Last Supper and what awaited them. Because he was one like us, Jesus knows that we have heartaches and struggles, face oppression and injustice, fear darkness and despair.
He responds by giving us peace. “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid”.
Is Jesus’ peace good enough for us to survive and, more so, to continue living, breathing and flourishing as God created us for — to have life to the full?
For many, peace is a very personal matter. I will be “at peace with myself” when I say sorry. I will meditate to find inner peace when the pressure mounts. I will sit by the sea and be at peace when I need to retreat. All of these are good.
But they are not the kind of peace Jesus speaks of. In John’s gospel peace means eirene in Greek. Eirene is peace between people, peace within a community, peace that knows no rage or havoc of war.
After this moment, Jesus tells his disciples, "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world." Here Jesus speaks of a peace that encourages us to "take heart", which is tharseo in Greek, meaning” “have courage”.
Peace is eirene. When everything is good and right. When everyone is in communion though different. When all bring what they have, share in common, and multiply these in the love of God
Peace is tharseo. When everything is in its place and we are assured. When God's light and goodness safeguards and protects us from sin and evil.
Peace as eirene; peace as tharseo. Such peace is God’s shalom, and in Jesus we know how true and good and beautiful it is.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He walks on water and clams the storm, and the disciples are at peace He fills water jars to the brim with the finest of wines and the bridegroom is at peace. His peace knows no bounds: it comes as sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and mobility for the lame to get up and go home.
Yes, the shalom of God is truly the peace that can enter the tomb on Good Friday only to render it empty on Easter morning.
This is the kind of peace Jesus wants us to have. Peace that encourages us to fear nothing. Peace that heals the wounds of sickness, the pain of hatred and the wrong of sin. Peace that comes when friends forgive and families reconcile. Peace that uplifts the burdened and suffering. Peace that renews our hearts and frees us for life.
Jesus does not give us this peace for ourselves or to shelter us from the world. No, his peace is to empower us to enter more deeply into the world and to do what he did: to love and save.
Indeed, it is Jesus’ peace that gives us the courage to live more fully and boldly as his disciples. Jesus commanded them to go into the world and make disciples of the nations. This world, however, persecuted Christians.
Today, Jesus gives us this same peace so that we can depart from this sacred space, return into our less than perfect world and simply love our neighbors, just as Jesus loved us.
Love all by being at peace with them — eirene. Love all by giving them peace to take heart and carry on — tharseo. Indeed the peace Jesus gives allows us to have faith when the world denies God. This same peace empowers us to live and serve like Jesus who loved all in a world lacking mercy and compassion.
When we live in Jesus’ peace and share his peace, these words from John’s gospel come alive in our midst: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” to save us (John 1:14).
This is why we must take Jesus’ teaching today seriously and live them: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).
If we dare do this, then the promise our second reading presents can come true: that holy city Jerusalem will down out of heaven. Yes, with peace, heaven can reign on earth.
Our readings proclaim that God labours to enter into our world and to dwell with us. This is what Jesus did. He entered our world, loved it, served it and saved all, no matter how spoilt, soiled and stained it was. Yes, he came so that God’s peace will reign in our hearts and on earth.
Don’t we still have a long way to go and much to do to make God’s peace real for many, even ourselves? So what are we going to do about this?
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you”. These are words worth marveling at and savouring. They are life-giving words. They are Jesus’ words.
We should ponder on them by following Mary’s example of prayerfully reflecting on God in her heart. We would be wise to do this because here is Jesus teaching us God’s wisdom to enjoy life to the full. It is so when we are at peace with one another, with ourselves and with God.
So, let us not only marvel at and savour Jesus’ gift of peace in our lives.
Let us make Jesus’ peace our own peace, and go forth from here to share this peace — a peace that surpasses all understanding — with one and all.
Isn’t this how we can work with Jesus so on earth God's peace reigns and goodwill is ours toward all peoples (Luke 2.14)?
Sisters and brothers, what are we waiting for?
Sisters and brothers, what are we waiting for?
Preached at the Church of the Transfiguration and St Ignatius Church
photo: www.desiringgod.org
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