The peace Christ gives

Acts 151-2, 22-29 ‘It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements

Revelation 21.10-14,22-23 ‘He showed me the holy city coming down out of heaven’

John 14.23-29 ‘The Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.’

 

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.

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In today’s gospel Jesus promises three things.

First, he promises that God, will dwell in the person who loves him, Jesus, and keeps his word.

What a promise! God finds a home in your body, in your life.

Secondly, flowing from that, he promises that he will send a Helper, the Holy Spirit, God, the love that flows between Father and Son, who will complete that presence within you.

What a promise! God doesn’t simply find a home within you, but will teach you and will bring all his words and deeds to your remembrance.

In other words, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ will be more alive to you than you can possibly imagine, and will form and shape you more deeply in God’s image, so that your life looks more like Christ’s.

That’s the goal of the Christian life, right there!

And when we hear Jesus say that the Holy Spirit will bring all his words ‘to remembrance’, it is impossible not to recall his words at the Last Supper, ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’

Those words accompany the taking, consecrating and sharing of his body and blood in the Eucharist.

Jesus Christ, whose Spirit is invoked over the gifts of bread and wine, is made present to us afresh: he is brought to remembrance.

That is the sacramental way in which Jesus dwells in us and we in him.

Those two promises – God coming home to you, his Spirit teaching and making him present to you – are made to the baptised, and today to Marlie who is presented for baptism.

Those two promises are sealed when we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation, when we are fully ready to receive Christ’s body and blood into our own body and blood.

All of which leads us to the third promise, Christ’s promised gift of peace.

The world into which Marlie, and all of us, has been born and which we have to navigate, is a world marred by turmoil, unrest, war: the very opposite of peace.

In such a world to be promised peace, as a gift to us - peace that is not yet known or understood by the world – is a gift to our troubled and fearful hearts: we yearn for peace and tranquillity, ‘give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give’ (Book of Common Prayer, 1662, 2^nd Collect at Evening Prayer)

St Augustine’s words ring true to human experience, some 1600 years after they were first uttered: ‘Lord, You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.’ (Confessions)

Augustine articulates our restlessness and longing for peace: and the way to peace through Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit and by us allowing God to be the guiding presence in our lives.

So let’s consider this gift of peace.

What is this peace that Jesus gives us? How is it his peace and not the sort of the peace the world gives?

For a start the word ‘peace’ is really important in the Bible.

In Hebrew there is the beautiful word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) and in the Greek New Testament the word ειρήνη (eirene).

But when we say the word ‘peace’ we can mean different things and the Great Tradition explores this.

For example, St Thomas Aquinas teaches that there exist four types of peace: 1) concord; 2) apparent or false peace; 3) true but imperfect peace; and 4) perfect peace.

‘Concord’, literally meaning ‘of one heart’, is simple agreement among the wills of different people concerning one thing.

That is a good thing when people are of one mind and not disputing.

But there‘s a danger because we can all be of one mind about something bad.

That can happen in families, nations and globally: just because everyone agrees doesn’t make something beautiful, good or true.

It’s what Aquinas calls ‘the peace of the wicked’, what we might call today ‘groupthink’.

It’s a false peace, as the prophet Jeremiah says:

They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace, when there is no peace’. (Jeremiah 6.14 and 8.11)

That is the peace the world gives.

We’re onto it when we say ‘peace is not an absence of war’: there’s more to peace than not fighting and there’s more to peace than just agreeing.

True, but imperfect, peace is when the guns fall silent, when killing ends and calm returns, but it is imperfect.

If in peace our aim is not to kill each other it is a short-sighted aim, and is always susceptible to breakdown.

And that is where perfect peace is the peace offered by Christ, ‘my peace I give you, not as the world gives you.’

This peace we receive when ‘the chief movement of the soul finds rest in God.’

And this brings us back to the first two promises.

True peace - shalom, eirene –comes when we seek not our own ends but God’s.

True peace comes when we direct our appetite and passions towards what is truly good, when we can say ‘Christ is our peace.’

When we can say that, then we are ready to allow Christ to be at the centre of our lives, and he makes his home in us and we have welcomed him, for then our lives are ordered in harmony, tranquillity and unity with God’s purposes, the storm is stilled, and we ourselves become channels of peace.

This harmonious, tranquil ordering of our lives spills out into the harmonious, creative, fruitful ordering of the city, and of the world.

‘Let there be peace on earth,’ says the children’s song, ‘and let it begin with me.’

Let there be Christ’s peace on earth, the peace which passes all understanding, and let it find a place in my restless heart. Amen.