“Finding peace” (Full Service)
Sermon starts at 28:35
"Finding peace"
Where in the world can you find peace? These days it's pretty hard to suggest an answer to that question, because peace is in very short supply. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now entered its third year. And it has now been six months since Hamas attacked Israel, precipitating a crisis which is still going on. Haiti is being overwhelmed with gang violence as that society collapses. And now things between Iran, the US and Israel have escalated significantly. In the world as it is today, peace is a commodity that can be very hard to find.
So, if peace can't be found in the world, then where can it be found? Some people, I think, still hope it can be found in the church. They come to the church – perhaps especially to a place like St. Andrew’s, an oasis in the city -- hoping to find a place of stability, a place of tranquillity, a place where they can leave this troubled world at the door…
Unfortunately, though, as soon as you open that door to let people inside, you inevitably let the world inside as well. And that's because the church is made up of human beings -- human beings who come to the church, just as they are – and therefore not as saints, as most people use that word, but as sinners -- human beings who are not perfect, but have problems just like everyone else.
I've been in the church all my life. And while I've sometimes experienced the most wonderful sense of community that I've experienced anywhere within the church, I've also witnessed plenty of church discord as well. Because the church is made up of human beings, it's inevitable that, at times, different priorities will emerge, feelings may be hurt, people will let you down – they may even retire! In Chuck Colson’s book, The Body, he has one chapter about congregational conflict which he entitled “Extending the Right Fist of Fellowship”. Because all of us are still so human, the church itself cannot promise peace -- and anyone who tells you it can is feeding you a line.
So, if peace can't be found in the world, or in the church, maybe we have to go deeper. Maybe peace has to be found within the self. Certainly, that's where a lot of people have gone looking for it. They try some kind of meditation, or they run off to retreat centres, or monasteries, or even the cottage dock. But all of those things are really just ways of trying to isolate yourself from the world – to shut the world out for a while. And for a while that approach might work...
But there are two fundamental problems with all of that. The first is that you and I are a part of this world, whether we want to be or not. As Christians, God hasn't given us permission to hide ourselves away -- to let the world around us go its way while we go ours. He calls us to be involved, in the world, confronting its problems, shouldering its hurt, pointing it to God. The second major problem with looking for peace within is that, given our own turbulent inner natures, our own inner conflicts, our struggles, our failures, even our fears, chances are that after a while we won't even be able to stand being alone with ourselves. And loneliness can't do much to help your sense of inner peace... So, isolation isn't the answer either.
So, peace isn't something that we're likely to find in the world, or in the church, or even deep within ourselves. On the contrary, what God shows us in Scripture is that the peace we need -- the peace that we're often so desperately looking for -- is something that only comes to us through knowing Jesus...
In John's gospel, the word “peace” gets used just five times -- and two of those occur in our passage for this morning. But in every one of those five instances, that peace is presented as something that's offered by Jesus. "Peace be with you," Jesus says. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives..." "I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace..."
So Jesus points to himself as the source of peace – as the bringer of peace. Not a peace that will necessarily be external. In fact, chances are good that it won't be. You see, what happens between you and Jesus isn't going to make the difficulties of this world disappear. In fact, Jesus himself, in one of those very passages where he offers peace to his own, also says that in this world you and I will have tribulation. We’ll face opposition. We’ll experience persecution. We’ll know heart-ache. In other words, just because Jesus is involved in our lives doesn’t mean that life is going to be easy.
Rather, the peace that Jesus offers is the kind of peace that we see in Jesus himself -- a peace that allows us to be of good cheer even in the face of that tribulation -- a peace that allows us to face life's ordeals with the same kind of serenity that we witness in Jesus himself. Jesus wasn't rattled by the opposition that he encountered. He wasn't shaken by the desertion of his friends. As Billy Graham once wrote: "In Christ we are... at peace in the midst of the confusion, bewilderments, and perplexities of this life. The storms rage, but our hearts are at rest."
So, this peace is an internal peace, yes -- but it's a peace that Jesus himself puts within us. And he does so in three very important ways, all of which are found in our scripture for this morning.
In that passage for John, the very first thing that Jesus does after speaking those words of peace to his disciples is he shows them his hands and his side. He shows them the marks of the cross -- the marks of his woundedness. On Good Friday we often talk about the humanness of Christ -- about his willingness to endure everything that we endure and more. The marks on Jesus hands, and the wound in his side, are proof that here is someone who has shared our pain – someone "who can sympathize with us in all our weaknesses," is the way that the author of the Hebrews puts it. The marks of the cross that Jesus bears are God's clear witness that he knows precisely how we feel...
But Jesus' wounds are more than that. They're more than just marks of shared pain. They're also marks of victory. Marks that identify him as the Saviour. Those marks are the proof to his disciples that the one standing before them truly is Jesus -- Jesus alive. Jesus resurrected. The Jesus who had finished the work that his Father gave him to do -- so that now the mercy of God has been proven, and the power of God has been displayed, and the promise of God has been fulfilled. Salvation is at hand. The arms of God are open. Every barrier has been removed. The burden of our sin has been shouldered by someone capable of shouldering it. And Death's supposed victory has been shown to be empty and void...
That's what those marks mean. And that's what those marks prove. And it's only in that instant, John says, as the disciples see the ghastly marks in his hands and his side, that they truly recognize who it is who's standing in their midst -- and they rejoice. Real peace -- genuine peace -- the peace we all need comes from knowing that Jesus is alive, and has rendered our greatest enemies – our own sin, and the death that springs from it -- helpless. That’s the first way in which Jesus offers us peace.
And then Jesus again speaks his words of peace. But this time, instead of showing the disciples something, he tells them something. He actually gives them a commission. And this is the second way that Jesus offers us peace in the midst of life – he commissions us: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
If you were to ask people where they thought Jesus' own sense of peace came from, they'd probably offer you a lot of very different answers. But I suspect that, at the root of most of them, you'd find the fact that Jesus knew precisely what his life was about. He knew for a certainty who had sent him -- "As the Father has sent me..." I'm convinced that it was this sense of being sent by the Father -- of being about the Father's business -- that gave Jesus such incredible courage and such an amazing sense of calm about things -- even in the face of the worst that this world had to throw at him...
And you see it very early on in his ministry. In John 4, we hear Jesus say, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me..." Within his own mind, Jesus was very clear that he was here to do the will of God. And as the gospel unfolds, Jesus repeatedly lets us know that the work he would do, the words he would speak, the truth he'd reveal, even the path that he would follow all the way to the cross -- none of these were simply his own, but had their origins in the heart of the Father himself...
And that is what sustained him. That is what nourished him. That is what kept him going -- that he knew he was doing the will of "him who sent me."
And that is the second source of the peace that Jesus wants us to experience as well: we know that what we do is the will of the Father -- that we are fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives… Because, when you have that sense that you've been sent by the Father, first of all, you have total confidence in what you're doing. And, when you're sent by the Father, you also have the security of knowing that your life has real meaning -- that, as the apostle Paul put it in his great chapter on the resurrection, our work for the Lord is never in vain. And when you're sent by the Father, you know that the end result is never in question. And, finally, when you're sent by the Father, you know that you never have to do anything alone.
And because Jesus wants us to know the very same kind of peace that he knew, he sends us out in the very same way -- "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." He sends us out to do what he did -- to proclaim salvation, to minister grace, to announce the possibility of a fresh start, to lead people to the throne of heaven, to embody the love of God. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." In this broken world, real peace comes from following in the steps of Christ.
But there's one more thing that Jesus does in this upper-room encounter with his fearful disciples. And that's that he breathes on them. He gives them his own breath -- in both Hebrew and Greek, his own Spirit -- the Holy Spirit. He puts that Spirit inside them. He gives them a new "beath of life"…
And it's the Holy Spirit that seals the deal. It's the Holy Spirit that changes everything. Within weeks, the disciples fear would be gone. Within weeks, they'd be confronting those who'd crucified Jesus with the same audacious calm that Jesus had displayed himself. Jesus gives them his peace by giving them the Holy Spirit...
You see, according to Scripture, the Holy Spirit is given as our counsellor, yes, but also as our comforter. It's the Holy Spirit, Paul says, that bears witness within us that we are children of God. It's the Holy Spirit who, when we turn to Jesus, takes up residence within us. It's the Holy Spirit who is God's antidote to fear... And, as we see in this passage, it's the Holy Spirit who equips those whom Jesus sends… Sends out into a world where there is so little peace -- with his own peace powerfully at work inside them...
Never underestimate the power of that peace. Never underestimate the potential of what the Spirit of God can do through you. Sometimes all it takes is for one person to say, "I'm going to trust Jesus on this one." Sometimes all it takes is for one person to ask, "But what would God want us to do?" Sometimes all it takes is for one person to keep his or her cool when everyone else is losing theirs. Sometimes all it takes is for one person to not give in to fear...
Peace be with you. That's not just Jesus' greeting; it's Jesus’ prayer – his prayers for his own. And it’s a prayer that Jesus himself can answer. For you. For me. For all of us. Amen.