Five, do you hear me, FIVE mass shootings in one weekend!  Racism at the center of so much. A war that drives on and may drag the world into God-only-knows what kinds of horror. Inflation rates and gas prices the highest in decades. Not to mention incendiary voices in social media platforms and back streets raising the heat on all of it. Jesus, you talk of some kind of peace you give?

What do you really want here? A laying down of arms and everyone holding hands and singing, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love…?” Might make for a good video but don’t put your hope in that kind of faux security or escapism. We all know it doesn’t hold.

Just saying that for clarity’s sake. Life deserves more, and deeper work in it is what has to be brought to the table. This past weekend was a shocker even if we have seen it before. A consideration of Jesus’ peace is as necessary as it ever was.

Not Peace as the World Gives

Jesus’ peace is based in the concept of Shalom. Interestingly, he lived during a time of relative world peace known as Pax Romana. While the Jews knew full well it was maintained by systematic oppression, they had seen worse. Officially the world was not in war; all knew it’d never last.

Shalom is centered in wellness, a serenity of heart and mind resting in a confidence in one’s purpose of being and life. Even more so, it carries a deepness that desires it for others, for community. Thus, it is sometimes spoken as a greeting or farewell as a blessing to meet in relationship and hope despite eventual separation.

Jesus knew his best friends needed that. This was the last night he’d be with them. Soon they would witness his barbarous death and learn his betrayer was one of them. Only a strength beyond the circumstances in which they lived would sustain their souls.

Necessary Attachments

So how do you shake that when trials in life and undeserved pain smacks you? Where do you find your shalom, your peace then?

Better to learn it in the everyday rather than in the urgency of the moment. Jesus said, “All those who love me will keep my word.” Love is not an affection, a desire fueled by positive brain chemicals. Love is a calculated choice to live in attachment to another, to share and follow the principles of living dedicated to a lifestyle beyond oneself. That attachment produces a connection into the eternal. “My Father will love them, and we will…make our home with them.”

Activation

Those gathered around him that last night heard Jesus say this, but in truth, they were feeling abandoned. Without his presence daily before them, how could they carry on? Grief was beginning to settle in even now, and loss would consume them despite what the last three years had been in following him.

Grief needs to be met with an understanding that purpose in living continues and expands beyond what can be seen in the moment. As much as he ever did, Jesus understood. He met their lostness with an assurance that they would not be alone, that because of this love for him, God would provide a Counselor, an Advocate, a continuation in Spirit of who they knew Jesus to be as God.

Their Counselor would teach them, clarify for them what they had learned from Jesus. Beyond the teaching though, they would be reminded of even more, their understanding deepened of the extent of Jesus’ love in life, in dying, and in living again. All is made possible by the power of that Love desired for and given by the fullness of God as Creator, Son, and Spirit.

The Gift of Peace

Yes, the world is looking pretty bad. You can be swallowed by it into hopelessness. Circumstances though are not the end of the tale. Peace is not the end of conflict, peace, that is, centered in Shalom. Goodness for the sake of not annihilating one another is admirable but not enough.

The Spirit works in those who live in Jesus’ Love by demanding standards of goodness and justice even as whatever is wrong shouts all the louder. In caring for others, striving for a better world, an element of harmony sings a new song. Shalom invades the individual soul and unites the community beyond itself. It is the gift of Jesus’ peace.



“So don’t be troubled or afraid.” John 14:23-29