John 14:27

December 14 2016 Sermon Midweek 3

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

From Heaven Above

Service Three: The Gift of Peace

"My peace I give to you." John 14:27

"I just need a little peace!" How often have you heard those words or said them yourself?

U-2's song, "Peace on Earth," has the lyric, "Heaven on Earth/We need it now/I'm sick of all of this/Hanging around/Sick of sorrow/Sick of pain/Sick of hearing again and again/That there's gonna be/Peace on Earth." Since the angels sang of peace over Bethlehem's fields, peace has been elusive for many. It can seem to be a promise unkept, a dream never realized.

Maybe, just maybe, though, we don't see peace on earth because we don't understand it. When Jesus says, "Peace I give to you," He also makes it clear that His peace is different from the world's peace. The peace Jesus gives us is "beyond human understanding" (Philippians 4:7). His gift of peace, in other words, is always a bit more than its recipients can grasp. It is a product of neither our wisdom nor our culture. "Not as the world gives do I give to you" (John 14:27), Jesus says.

Yet the peace Jesus gives is a gift. The peace Jesus offers is not won by our diplomacy or hard-fought battles. His peace is a matter of grace. It is to be received like a gift. Grace and peace are often partners in the Bible. They frequently show up in the same sentence. There is no real peace without grace. In the early days of the church a common greeting among Greek-speaking people was "Charis," or "Grace." Among Hebrew-speaking folks the greeting was "Shalom," or "Peace." Amazingly in Christ, Gentile and Jew came together, and the greeting, "Grace and peace to you," used by the apostle Paul, was evidence of their reconciliation in Christ.

It's difficult to define peace, but we know it when Jesus gives it. He doesn't give it once or twice but again and again, and each time we receive it, our hearts are warmed, and we are thankful, and the world looks more promising, and our heads, once throbbing with anxiety, are stilled and rebooted to focus on Him. The peace Jesus gives is like an exquisite painting or piece of music — you know its beauty when it comes. It is like the feeling we have when we receive a gift that is exactly what we need at this time.

This doesn't mean, though, that the peace Jesus gives is the absence of trouble. This heart-warming, mind-rebooting gift often comes in the middle of trouble, not at the end of it. The peace Jesus gives doesn't make the pain or the crisis go away. Rather it is what gets us through the storm. I remember a young woman dying of cancer, surrounded by her husband and three young children, saying just a few days before she died, "I want you all to know. I have this amazing sense of peace. Thank you, Jesus."

To say that Jesus gives us peace is also to say that His peace is a matter of relationship. The New Testament describes Jesus Himself as "our peace" (Ephesians 2:14). In other words, the peace we have comes to us in a person. Jesus is our peace, because He has reconciled us to God. His sacrificial death and His victorious resurrection have made us right with God. Paul simply exalts in this peace as he writes, "For in (Christ) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:19-20).

The one and only thing that robs us of peace is sin. Our own personal sin, and the sins of others who create trouble in the world. For this sin of ours God has condemned us to death and declared his wrath against you. But, Jesus took our sin and the sin of all people into his own flesh and by his brutal suffering, his death on the cross and by receiving our punishment in hell as our substitute, he has paid for that sin, yours and all people's. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and by atoning for your sins he set aside the wrath of God toward you. That is true peace, that you have been justified by faith and now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).

The same is true in our relationship with others. Just as Jesus reconciles us to God, He gives us the Holy Spirit to work forgiveness in our hearts and to reconcile us with others. For Christians, peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), cultivated by our relationship with Christ. Jesus, who is our peace with God, makes peacemakers of us all. This no doubt is why Paul encourages us in Colossians 3:15 to "let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." Knowing peace with Christ makes peace with others possible.

On Christmas Eve, 1914, German, French, English, and Belgian troops began singing Christmas carols across No Man's Land. Eventually they would step out of their trenches on the Western Front of WW I and greet their enemies. Corroborated in many soldiers' diaries, the Christmas Truce of 1914 brought shared meals, impromptu soccer games, and the burial of fallen comrades. Though it only lasted for a few days, it has become a symbol of our deep, deep need for peace in the midst of turmoil. It also shows how peace on earth begins with Christ and just a few who know its power. Years later, a British veteran of that silent night said in 1930, "I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired."

Such is the power of the one Isaiah called the Prince of Peace. Such is the promise of the angels who sang, "Glory to God in the highest, and earth peace" (Luke 2:14). Amen.