“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.” Jesus was speaking peace into reality when he spoke these words into his disciples ears. It was not the peace that nations understand – the peace of stand-off or mutually assured destruction. No – Jesus was speaking the God peace of calm and quiet, of acceptance and mutuality, of love as a verb and not a noun, Love as what we do and not what we feel. Maybe we would better understand if we called this ‘serenity’ rather than ‘peace’: the calm in any situation that knows its well being resides elsewhere. . . it is the calm of a Peter or a Paul who could face their own death with the assurance of Christ’s own witness from the cross. To quote the hymn written by Horatio Spafford, this peace, this serenity, can proclaim with assurance, “whatere may befall, thou hast taught me to say, even so, it is well with my soul.” For those in Aurora, Colorado and all over the world suffering the effects of violence today, may such peace, such serenity, pervade their and our souls. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment