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| WE CHRISTIANS must be peacemakers. It is
God’s plan for us. Not makers of peace at any price, but bold, even
aggressive, makers of peace wherever we can do it. Jesus tells us, MT 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
Whenever I speak about peace, I have a problem. During the Anti Vietnam
War protests, someone wrote an amusing piece of graffiti in the
Devonshire Street Tunnel. It drew an interesting comparison between
peace and virginity, and protested about how stupid it is to fight for
peace. I'd really like to quote what it said. Unfortunately, it was not
the kind of thing you repeat in church, so I'll have to forget it. But
keep in mind that much of what our world does in its desire for peace
is not only futile, but totally illogical.for they will be called sons of God. I'll give you an illustration. You probably don't think of me as an expert animal handler, and that’s mainly because I am not. The only animals that get to be handled by me are the ones that really want to be handled. But I have one ability that you never expected. I can handle elephants. Well, I don't exactly handle elephants, but I am very good at keeping elephants away. What you have to do is make sure that you don't mow too frequently, and ensure that at least one unopened copy of the newspaper is left lying in the front yard. If you do that, elephants will keep well away. And I can prove that it works. In over 20 years of doing that in at least two locations, I have never once had an elephant in the yard. It’s not just that I’ve never seen one, I can also assure you that I have never seen any trace of an elephant’s having come into our yard. It works! I don’t need to tell you that that is nonsense. I could stand in the front yard every day with a tonne of elephant bait, and I’d never see an elephant. Whatever I do has no connexion with what elephants do. There are so few elephants in Marrickville, Channel 9 would bring a helicopter to get photos if one came within 10 km of our home. The Romans thought they had created peace because their soldiers weren’t busy every day killing off the local anti–Roman opposition. That’s peace of a kind, but it’s not much of a peace! The famous Pax Romana could only be held together by soldiers on every corner and no basic freedoms. In the Germanic languages, Frieden, or the Old English friþ, seem more connected with the idea of freedom than of restriction — the opposite to the Roman concept! I know a couple who apparently had a rather stormy relationship in their earlier years. Now they have a kind of peace, because she uses the front door, and he uses the back door, and they never meet, except when he comes in from the shed for a sandwich for lunch. They aren't about to kill each other, but they don’t have any great relationship either. So we can think about peace in many ways. Let’s think about it the Biblical way. PEACE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT We read that passage from Isaiah. It equates peace with righteousness. It implies that, if you have one, you get the other. It says that obedience to God’s commands brings peace. It tells us that peace is the basis for fruitfulness. It ties peace in with freedom. Isaiah 52:7 says, How beautiful on the mountains
Here, peace is tied in with salvation and the unopposed rule of God. If
God is in charge, who can stand against his people? That’s peace!are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” We can look in Isaiah 55, too: 12
You will go out in joy
Here, peace is tied in with joy and celebration. And Isaiah also sees
peace as having to do with a restored environment. Environmental
degradation is overturned in God’s shalom.and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 55:13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.” To the Jewish believer, peace is always more than absence of strife. That man and woman I mentioned have peace of a kind, but they don't have shalom. The Romans created peace of a kind, but not shalom. You can have peace when no one is pushing you around, but it is not shalom. Peace is a positive, of fruitfulness, restoration and joy. It only exists in an environment of righteous obedience to God. PEACE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Jesus saw himself and his band of disciples as bringers of the peace that the prophets had foretold centuries before. Whenever his disciples went into a village, they were there as bringers of peace, of shalom. The Lord told them, 13 If the home is deserving, let your
peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you.
When he healed that woman with the issue of blood, he said,34
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and
be freed from your suffering.”
His idea of peace extended beyond what the prophets taught. He was a
bringer of the Old Testament fruitfulness and a new kind of peace,
inner peace, the kind of satisfaction that comes about when we are in
harmony with our community and with our selves.After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and used the conventional greeting of the day: LK
24:36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood
among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
“shalom l'chem!” In earlier times, it was the traditional Christian
greeting. These days, the Muslims have taken over the Christian greeting and made it their own. When they meet, they greet. They say, “Salamat aleikum” It means the same. The Lord also spoke to his troubled disciples when they feared that Jesus would soon die, and the entire Jewish establishment was about to attack them. He said, 27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as
the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be
afraid.
Later, we find Paul talking about peace in another way again. He writes
to the Romans, RO
5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have
gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
Here, peace is not only fruitfulness and restoration, it is not only
freedom from distress and a new discovery of inner harmony, it is
personal and theological. It is God and you, together in harmony, no
longer enemies.The ancient Jews thought of their nation experiencing once again a peaceful relationship with God; Paul picks up what Jesus taught, and personalises it even further. If you trust Jesus, God is no longer pursuing you to bring you to justice. By faith in Jesus, you have peace with God; you are now one of his very own. Isn’t that a wonderful truth! PEACEMAKERS IN SOCIETY So, Jesus promises blessedness to the peacemakers, and our first role is to be peacemakers in our society. I am sorry, but many evangelical Christians have this entirely back to front. Our first priority is to establish Kingdom conditions. That means, justice, righteousness, peace, faithfulness to covenant. In fact our priority is to establish this among ourselves, so that the world can see that it works. Sometimes we look back nostalgically to the past and see the successes of the great Christian leaders. Whether you are thinking of John Chrysostomos, Savonarola, Luther, Knox, Sattler, Wesley or some other, you can see men who were very successful, not only at gaining converts, but at establishing transformed communities. Wesley was probably best at it. But Chrysostomos took on the might of the Eastern Empire, and wasn't afraid to name the Empress herself if she was wrong! People flocked to a man who preached righteousness and who encouraged everyone around him to live righteousness and establish peaceful and fruitful conditions. To take another example, Wesley is well–known for his preaching. But, if you read his sermons, they were not all that great. Where Wesley excelled was in building transformed communities. Even today, many Church growth experts say that you can’t look beyond John Wesley for models of fruitful cells of believers. To be an active Methodist, you had to be in a small group, you had to give account of your own life to the group, and the leader of the group had to give account of the entire group to Wesley himself. If that group wasn’t fruitful, it was reformed or removed; if you weren’t fruitful the same happened to you. And the Wesleyan classes, as they were called, brought shalom to England. Wherever Wesley went, Methodist classes were set up, and they began changing their society. Drunkenness declined, violence was restrained, piracy — a major issue in coastal villages — was brought under control, and they even affected how politics was conducted. Politicians began behaving ethically! In Europe, on the other hand, the Anabaptists, led by people like Sattler and Hutter in Germany and Menno Simon in Holland, fought a different battle. Europe was scarred by war. For 30 years, Catholics and Protestants had fought back and forth across central Europe and from Denmark to the Swiss border. But the Radicals, the Anabaptists, refused to fight. Even though the main Catholic and Protestant sides hated and persecuted them, they would not bear arms, they would not fight, they died rather than capitulate to the world’s way of doing things. A couple of years ago, one of the bigger Baptist churches had a major split, and half the members were about to walk out. Someone had an idea. “Let’s get a mediator in,” they said. The church looked around for a good Christian mediator. Guess who they found: the Mennonite pastor from Bondi. If you refuse to fight, you have to learn to negotiate, and many Mennonites are excellent negotiators. This pastor helped that church find shalom: peace between those who had been at war, and renewed fruitfulness. We might choose not to be strict pacifists. Baptists generally have been open to military service or pacifism. We are free before God to make up our minds in the light of his Word. But we have no choice about being peacemakers. Where there is a threat of war, we should always be in the forefront, urging the combatants to negotiate and reach a settlement. We should insist that all legal requirements are fulfilled. We should make peace our aim. One day, it will be a great day, and the righteous will be marching. Let’s get in practice today! Where people are locked in strife — it could be a marriage, it could be a business partnership, it could be a church, we should be among the first to seek peace–enhancing answers. We should be people of peace. One day, it will be a great day, when God wipes away every tear. Let’s take compassion into the places where Satan wants to tear apart. Where injustice robs people of peace, ours should be the first voices raised to call for justice and righteousness and peace. We wait for someone else to speak, but that’s not enough! One day it will be a great day and all shall stand before the judge, who rules in justice. Let’s establish justice by establishing shalom — in Jesus’ name! PEACEMAKERS AMONG INDIVIDUALS Finally, every heart needs peace: peace with self, peace with God. We are not people of a self–help book. We are people of the Bible. We are not about self-actualisation so much as about restoring a relationship between God and humanity. It’s not about feeling good, but about being right with God. If we neglect social peace, we easily begin thinking that we are here to help people feel better. We are not. But that can always be part of our message. We are about comprehensive peace. We are about peace that passes all understanding. We are about being peacemakers. I want to repeat what St Paul wrote, RO
5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have
gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
We can never bring peace to others if we haven’t begun to experience it
ourselves.If we have experienced it, we will know what we are talking about, and will have something good to share. Do you have peace with God? Has the blood of Jesus God’s son, touched your life? Do you trust the one who gave his entire self for you? If you can say yes to that, then get going — be a peacemaker, and reap the reward! And if you have to say, “Not yet,” then stop shillyshallying! You only have one guaranteed day to act, and that is today! As Jesus calls you, turn to him, and find life and peace and lasting joy! AMEN
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| © Peter R. Green 2003. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. | |
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