Psalm 13, 14
OT Reading: Exodus 6.1-13
NT Reading: Romans 5.1-11
Text: My peace I give to you (John 14.27)
As we pass through Lent, the main focus of our devotion is of course the Cross, the turning point in the history of our salvation. Next Sunday we shall immerse ourselves in the passion narrative, and in what it means for us, led by our choir as they sing Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Tonight our Old Testament reading, about the rescue of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, prefigures Christ’s own passing through death to new life. Our New Testament reading reminds us of the wonder of Christ’s sacrifice – the love which moved him to give his life for us while we were still sinners, without waiting for us to deserve rescuing.
But to-day is Refreshment Sunday, or Mothering Sunday, when we are allowed a little respite, so I’m going to pick up instead another theme that surfaces in our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans – God’s gift of peace. In Paul’s words: ‘since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom 5.1).
The longing for peace has deep roots in the Old Testament. At first it was simply a question of physical security, as the tribes of Israel battled to establish themselves in the promised land. We too have prayed this evening ‘for peace in our time’. But as the years passed, and particularly after the dream of a secure homeland faded with the subjugation of Israel and then Judah by the Assyrians, the prophets in exile began to associate peace with their vision of a more distant ideal future, a land where the leopard would lie down with the goat’s kid, a land where they would not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain (Isaiah 11.1-9). Such a land would be ruled by a descendant of Jesse – the royal house of David and Solomon – on whom the spirit of the Lord would rest, ‘the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might’ (Is 11.2). Under the authority of a child to be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, there would be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom (Is 9.6-7) with justice and righteousness.
The New Testament writers believed that these Messianic promises had found their fulfilment in Jesus, in the kingdom he had inaugurated, and in the church he had founded. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, sees a new dawn arising ‘to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. The angels welcome the birth of Christ with songs of glory to God and peace on earth. Simeon, who speaks the words of the Nunc Dimittis, is the first to experience that peace – Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace – as he recognises that he has seen in the baby Jesus the salvation of Israel. Jesus himself uses the words ‘Go in peace’ to complete the healing of troubled people, outcasts from society as a consequence of their medical condition or moral situation. When he sends the disciples out on a training mission, he instructs them to give the gift of peace to their hosts – saying ‘Peace to this house’ as they enter it for hospitality or overnight accommodation (Luke 10.51). At the last supper, as well as promising to send the Holy Spirit, he solemnly gives to the disciples the peace which has been his own: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’ (John 14.27). After the resurrection, when he comes to the disciples in the Upper Room, on each occasion he opens the conversation with the words; Peace be with you (John 20. 19,21, 26), words which we still echo at every celebration of the Holy Communion.
As is so often the case, Jesus just does it, and you may feel that is all we need to know, but St Paul begins to construct a theology of peace, an explanation if you like of that peace which was an integral part of Jesus character, and potentially of ours too. Clearly it had nothing to do with an absence of stress or conflict. Jesus was constantly under stress – from the expectations of the crowds, from the needs of individuals, from the growing opposition of his enemies, from the incomprehension of his family and friends. He was occasionally angry, for example when he threw the traders out of the temple courtyard. He experienced deep sorrow, for example when faced with the grief of Mary and Martha over the death of their brother Lazarus. He had to wrestle with working out his destiny, for example as he prepared for his public ministry by a period of fasting in the desert, and again as he prayed alone in the Garden of Gethsemane before facing the final climax of arrest, trial and execution. Amidst all this stress, Jesus never lost that inner peace at the still centre of his being, which drew its strength from the love by which he was bound to his Father and His Father to him – unless that too was withdrawn, or at least hidden, as he hung on the cross, crying: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Paul understood that Jesus could know such peace with His Father because there was no sin to trouble their relationship, nothing to get in the way of that reassuring love which is the secret of being at peace. Anyone who has ever comforted a small child understands that. Whatever the trouble may be, the frustration, the anger, the pain can usually be borne if we are safe within the arms of someone who loves us. But it’s harder for us to relax into a healing relationship like that with God our Father, when we know we have done things of which we are ashamed, things that would disappoint Him, things we would rather he didn’t ask about, things we don’t really want to think about ourselves, and until those issues have been sorted out, we just can’t get comfortable. We may even have persuaded ourselves that we don’t need to face them. They are just the product of an over-active conscience. We should shove them back into the box and move on.
God knows how difficult it is for us to admit that there is anything amiss, but he is very patient. He waited several generations before intervening with Moses to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, because they weren’t ready to be rescued. He waited again until it was the right time to send his Son to rescue us from the tyranny of sin. When that moment came, the love which Jesus had for his immediate circle of friends, and beyond them for you and me, cost him his life.
So we do come back after all to our Lenten focus on the Cross. That was what it took to break the vicious circle of sin and death, so that we could once more be fully open, as he was, to his Father’s love. In and through the love of Jesus for us, we are drawn into the love which bound him to His Father. Like the child who grows up in a loving family, we are enabled to flourish as the people God made us to be. In Paul’s words, that is the grace to which we have access through our Lord Jesus Christ, the grace in which we stand; and in that grace we have peace with God. It doesn’t solve all our problems, or remove us from stress and conflict. It doesn’t wipe away all our tears. But as Paul writes elsewhere (Phil 4.7), it does keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Christ Jesus our Lord. It is in that knowledge and in that love that we have peace.