What Price Peace - Even a Little

What Price Peace – Even a Little Two years ago I wrote a book entitled What Price Peace – Even a Little. I even had it copyrighted. Then I sat on it for these last two years, tweaking it here and there, and finally being satisfied this winter that it was okay to send to a publisher. I’m still waiting on a response. I wanted to share just a short portion of it with you tonight that is at the heart of the question: What price peace – even a little? The answer is, Peace Comes Loving. The book begins with this prologue: A lone person steps into the night and looks up beholding the stars and the expanse of the heavens and cries out, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” (Habakkuk 1:2). The scriptures are replete with variations of this cry and with an answer from on high. Psalm 13 has verse after verse of “How longs…” with pleas for a response and an affirmation of faith to quiet the troubled soul, that in spite of it all, “I trust in Your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord for He has been good to me” (Psalm 13:5-6). The quest and possession for peace within is as universal as any desire of the heart. What price peace – even a little? Think about that phrase for a moment. What are we willing to pay or do to have peace in our lives? What are countries willing to do to have peace – even a little? What are neighborhoods, torn by strife and racism and violence, willing to do to bring about a peaceful coexistence? What are parents willing to do to have peace with their child(ren)? What is a friend in a relationship or couples in a marriage willing to compromise, give up or stand their ground about to have peace together or peace alone? I was listening to a parent about their troubles with a disorderly child. The child wanted something and wasn’t given it immediately, so they went into a fit. So the parent acquiesced and let them have their way. So I asked myself, “What price peace – even a little?” What was the cost? A lot, on so many levels. In 10-15 years, the child is now a young adult in their latter teens, early twenties and still angry and throwing temper tantrums and living an undisciplined, unstructured life, now with a gun in their hands. In a fit of rage or payback, they go on a shooting spree. We’ve seen this scene far too many times in the news. Now the price of peace has become the cost of a life or two or twenty… What price peace – even a little? It’s gone from ill-advised permission to prevent a child’s fit, to priceless, in the loss of life. The point is, peace can be cheap, as in giving in too soon and easily; or peace can be expensive, as in the loss of one’s self-esteem being paid by giving in too easily; or peace can be priceless, in the expression of an undisciplined life taking another. 2 We’ve all had difficult times through which we have had to pass through. I’ve sure had mine and I have sought that peace that calms a troubled soul from time to time. And I have found it! On occasion. Then another troubling time arrives, and in we go again for another bout of life. Sound familiar? Paul talks about “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, that will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). It may pass our full understanding, but it doesn’t have to pass experiencing. I have known it and I want it at all times and in all places and under all circumstances. Don’t you? I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m working on it. Well, the gateway for that peace is, for some, through prayer and scripture or sharing with a friend or going for a walk or listening to some heart-warming music or chopping up a tree, or living a goodly and generous and gracious life, to begin with. But talking about it and actually having it needs a bridge. I have found that bridge is: Peace --- Comes --- Loving Losses in life, love dying, loved ones walking away, brokenness and despair; shame, embarrassment, career threatened, recovery — it’s kind of stressful. Peace – nowhere to be found. Having the joy of the Lord, what was that? One must make a choice: be depressed and forlorn, or seek peace and pursue it. What did Jesus do when He was scorned and rejected by the very people He came to save? How did He get through it? Jesus’ most crucial moment in His life, save on the cross, was at the Garden on the Mount of Olives where He “fell on His face and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt’” (Matthew 26:39). Question: What was that cup, especially as we consider it in the context of the four cups they had just taken during the Passover feast an hour earlier? This was another cup, not of the Passover. The four cups or promises of Passover based on the promises of Exodus 6:6-7 are:  The Cup of Sanctification - I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will deliver you from Egyptian domination. I will bless you.  The Cup of Deliverance - I will set you free, I will rescue you, deliver you from your bondage.  The Cup of Redemption - I will redeem you with an outstretched arm. This is also the cup whereby Jesus says, “This is My blood given for you…” Shortly thereafter, His arms would indeed be outstretched. 3  The Cup of Praise - I will take you, acquire you, embrace you as My people, My nation, even as My bride. I will be your God and you will be My people. When Jesus and the disciples went to the Mount of Olives after the Passover, He went a little distance away to pray. There He was to plead, “If it is possible, let this cup pass away from Me” (Matthew 26:39). What was this cup? The cup that Jesus was to receive that night was the cup of God’s wrath for all our sin. Jesus, faithful to the end, drank the cup that we deserve. God is righteous and cannot tolerate sin’s corrupting influence: the suffering, decay and destruction in the world God made. But God is merciful to His creation, so in His plan to redeem His people from bondage to sin, He offered His sinless Son, Jesus, to drink the cup of His wrath, His anger toward sin and so satisfy the imbalance of His creation, with peace reestablished. You likely have heard the old phrase, “hellfire and damnation.” It’s an old preaching tactic to put the fear of God in people’s hearts. It warned of the misery that an unrepentant sinner faces in hell and that they had better prepare themselves for hellfire and damnation after death. We don’t use that anymore; we’d rather have people come to God by means of grace and through the love of Jesus. I want to take a moment, though, to appreciate this damnation concept of God upon the sin of the world. Might I humbly suggest, what we consider a horrible profanity, could be, in a reverent usage, a prayer, even a summa prioris, of the highest priority, saying, “God, damn sin and all its bearing upon the relationship You have with Your creation and Your children.” In three little words, we casually take the name of the Lord in utmost vanity, by directing God to damn something or someone, to cause them to fail, even to condemn them to hell. Who do we think we are to pass such judgment, a judgment only God is in a position to do? By saying it…, we put ourselves in the place of God; that is the profane vanity. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death…” That is God’s damnation, God’s judgment upon sin. Now, imagine for a moment this scene in heaven, prior to Jesus coming to earth. You have God the Son and God the Father having a conversation about the plight of humankind and the sin they have wrought upon themselves. They draw near to one another, hands upon each other’s shoulders; they bend their foreheads toward one another and touch. Jesus says, “Abba Father, I know what must be done.” The Father responds, “My Son, I love You so much, and yes, I, too, know what must be done to save humankind.” 4 “Father, this is going to be tough, but it’s all right. I know You love me and that You love them. The Spirit we share will strengthen Me. We have to do this. I’ll take the hit. I know You have to damn sin and destroy its consequences, even death itself. Let Me take the fall for humankind. I trust You. We can do this.” With that, Jesus is born in Bethlehem to begin the journey to the cross. Jesus would come to say, “Take this cup from Me, but not as I will, Thy will be done.” Now imagine God seeing Jesus on the cross, carrying the sins of the world. Now was the time, this was the moment when the cup of God’s wrath would be wrought. No wonder Jesus said on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” There and then the weight of sin was being laid upon His heart. There and then was the damning – and the redeeming. God’s anger that would otherwise be “poured out” on sinners would be poured out on Jesus instead. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). So after the Passover Seder, the cup of God’s fury against sin was given not to sinful nations, or to brutal Roman overlords, or to scheming religious leaders or to you and me; it was given to Jesus. The cup over which He agonized on the Mount of Olives was His and His alone to drink. And alone on the cross, He drained every drop. He willingly “poured out His life unto death” (Isaiah 53:12), so that God could pour out His love on everyone who receives Jesus as Lord and Savior. The point of all this is to say — Peace, the peace of the world, the peace we so desperately seek for ourselves, comes to us and can abide in us, through loving; God loving us - through Jesus, Jesus loving us Himself, our loving each other, above and beyond any human resources we can muster, but loving each other with a holy love, born in us as “new creations in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). PEACE – COMES – LOVING. Facing the inevitable, and ultimately resigning, even embracing the cross to come, the death to suffer, Jesus made a choice, and sided with doing the loving act, the most loving act ever to have been given to humanity. He chose to love and with that choice, made peace with Himself, peace with creation, peace with humanity and its sin, peace for you and me with ourselves and each other. Through His choosing and acting in love, Jesus provided forgiveness, healing and the reclaiming of paradise and the peaceful coexistence of God with His creation. Oh, we ain’t there yet, though we could be, but the stage is set, the war is won, the future is certain. Peace is secured. 5 Likewise, when we are at a crossroads, having to decide to either hold a grudge or forgive, be depressed or positive, be mean and selfish or nice and giving. We can choose love. Peace comes loving.