The Peace of Christ

Every week after the welcome and call to worship, we all get up and move about the sanctuary to greet one another, we exchange hugs, handshakes, and well wishes. We call this “the passing of the peace”, and greet one another by saying ‘The peace of Christ’, but what is this peace that Christ gives us? Is it the same idea of peace we have when we think about the world at large? That is the subject for today’s message, and I pray that by this short exposition that the Spirit of God illuminates something today for you, that He would through His Word shed some light on the difference between the two for us, and that He would increase our understanding, and show us what difference there is between the Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the sort of Peace it is that the world offers to us. Amen. The text today comes from what is called the ‘upper room, or farewell discourses’ as recorded in the Gospel of John. Today’s verse comes from Chapter 14, and is part of the continuation of the Farewell Discourse which begins in John 13:31. The overall theme of the discourse is the departure and return of Jesus. The discussion is advanced through the questions of various disciples: Peter at 13:36, Thomas 14:5, Philip 14:8, and Judas, at 14:22 the response of which is our focus for today. The disciples’ questions are literary devices here, which push the discussion along, while raising important themes and moving the chapter onward to its climax. Verse 27, where we will focus on, is Christ’s final and closing remark to the discourse that follows His response to the question posed by His disciple Judas. Judas’s question was on the nature of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, but the ministry of the Spirit is a whole other lesson in itself. For now, let’s stick to the subject of peace, and focus in on that for today’s text. John 14:27 The Peace of Christ. 27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. One verse, but He said a mouthful. Let’s break this down. 1. Taking it from the top, “Peace I leave with you,” The Peace of Christ is a gift, given unto us and left with us, out of His loving and compassionate will for us as His people. We did not earn this, nor do we now contribute to its coming upon us or its development within us. Gifts are given freely, without any exchange for something of equal value. 2. Who’s peace? “my peace I give unto you:” This is Christs peace, it is His peace, that comes from participation in the abundant immutable and unsearchable divine Life as is experienced by the Holy Trinity. This is the single-minded peace, a state of being in one accord, the very same security and tranquility that is beyond our understanding, and is shared between the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and by the Spirit with us. Again, it is a gift, this is His possession, and He offers it so that we may share in it with Him. Our God is The God of Peace, Rom. 15:33; 16:20; Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 13:20; 1 Cor. 14:33; 2 Cor. 13:11, and He wants to share that peace with us, this is profoundly comforting to me, and should be for most of us as His followers. The Greek word used in verse 27 for peace is: eirene (εἰρήνη) and is the same word used in each of the books of the NT to describe harmonious relationships between one another, between nations, to describe friendliness, freedom and order. The peace of Christ is a harmonized relationship between God and man. It is the reconciliation between the corrupt and the pure, and it is relational. The internal peace that we experience is a product of the Holy Spirit taking up residence in the temple of the body, and is solely the result of His regenerative work. This regenerative and life renewing faith, and the indwelling of God and the peace that comes along with it, comes by way of hearing the gospel and is relational, I know I’ve said this a few times, but it bears repeating, it is a gift, part of the package of salvation and rebirth. It is given in abundance, and it only gives and grows, it builds and contributes, it comforts and protects and strengthens an on and on. The Peace that Christ gives, is of and from God, and is good for everyone. So what about the peace the world gives? Let’s move on now to the third point. Going back to the text: 27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: But, “not as the world giveth” Here our Lord draws a line, there are different forms of ‘peace’ and the kind of peace that the world gives is not the same thing. So, what’s the difference? The Roman orator, lawyer and author, Cicero, once said that, “Peace is liberty in tranquility.” In the time of Cicero, around 60 AD, (Thirty years after after the ascension and prior to the fall of Jerusalem in AD70) Judea was Roman occupied territory. And the idea of peace was a relative one. Roman peace, or ‘Pax Romana’ as it was called, is peace at the tip of the sword and was rooted in oppression, subjection and threats of violence. Walking softly and carrying a big stick is one thing, but in those days, the only one with a stick, relatively speaking, was Rome. So there was no walking softly, with a big enough stick, you can walk however you want. So that’s what Rome did, and it’s the same thing happening in the world now. The peace we know today in the world is the same exact thing. This relative peace is counterfeit; it is ‘Pax Americana’, a thinly veiled construct. Peace, as we know it, is a false sense of stability manufactured from a position of unassailable strength, and is maintained by threats and acts of violence. It is stolen, not so much from other rulers or principalities, but from the people who once lived under their rule. Where are the nations we have spent the last fifteen years building? All I see are war scarred streets and pictures of children who have gone too numb to cry anymore. How many ruined lives does it take to build a nation? Why must our peace and stability be a system that passes suffering on tho the lesser among us? Its people who suffer for these things, not nameless and faceless entities, there is a victim, and it isn’t armies and governments. These are normal people just like you and I, and they are trapped. This is how national interests are secured, and it’s an ugly reality. This “peace” is the same as the Roman peace, and is transactional, not relational; it is ‘quid pro quo’. It used to belong to someone else. This ‘peace’ is a balancing act on the edge of chaos, and violence has become our hedge. The powers that be know this full well and have capitalized on it. They know and understand that the further away we are kept from the ugliness of policy in action, the violence, the death, and the victims, the more securely we will hold on to our perception of peace. They maintain this illusion by quietly hiding away the violence by which our peace is procured, it is kept well out of earshot and sight, and far away from our daily lives for good reason. The public could not stomach it, as it would cause the hardest of hearts to cry out in conviction. This is not the peace Christ gives; this peace is not peace at all. It consumes lives, it destroys futures, it is a murderer to hopes and dreams, and is an insidious, lying imposter. It is sick, and the world is sick, as the renowned Indian philosopher and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti once wrote: "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." The world only offers a fallen perversion, a transactional peace, and on one end or the other, it visits upon us more and more of the same, on one end or the other, there is always death, destruction, sin and suffering. But there is something better, a cure to the brokenness of the world system, but its ‘who’ and not a ‘what’. It is Christ. And it is in the Word of God, and in what Christ taught, in the way He walked, the way He took on problems, settled conflict, and dealt with confrontation. His way was and is VERY different, as it was and is Holy. He introduced a new way of conquering and it isn’t what we expected, the way of righteousness, of love and compassion, a way that works for good, without violence, or destruction but instead does just the opposite, and it all comes from a position of love and relationship and of ultimate cosmic authority. This is why Jesus says: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” at the end of the discourse, because Jesus knows that in Him, we truly have nothing at all to fear. And so, just as He lives in us, this is the approach we must take, the high road less travelled, by walking the narrow path. And it starts in your own mind, being renewed by the spirit of God and quickened, and it builds through relationships from there on out. Get the relationship in focus, and it won’t be long before you start seeing other things coming into line. Life in Christ is unending, and it starts here and now, today potentially, in this same life we live now. Christ offers His divine and relational peace, not a transaction; it is a healing, reconciling relational way of truly knowing one another as God would have us know one another. The peace offered in Christ is what it will take to bring lasting healing to this broken world. And though we can rest assured it will come, we cannot rest while we wait, as we are the bearers of it, our duty becomes simply to let it show, shine the light, to plant and sow righteousness, and goodness watering, and tending, being good stewards, all of us temples of the Living God, with His Kingdom within us.