Peace to the World
By Tatjana Mayer
1. Where is the Peace which Jesus Promises?
We live in a time
of war. According to The United Nations there are as many as eight major wars
waged across the globe[1],
such as
There have been
wars for thousands of years and yet, generally wouldn’t you say that people
want peace? People want peace and Jesus, the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6) brought
us peace on earth. That is the Christmas message. In Luke
But when Jesus came Roman oppression did not stop. In fact, things got
worse. In the mid first century (64 AD) the emperor Nero begins to persecute
Christians. Christians were being burned to death, crucified, fed to the lions
and systematically murdered. After Nero a whole list of emperors continue with
the persecutions, and then persecution and wars continue until today. Doesn’t that
make us wonder? Where is that peace that Jesus promised? Did Jesus not hold
true to his promise? Or did Jesus bring peace but we humans messed it up? Or we
misunderstand and did he just mean an inner peace? But then, can we be peaceful
inside when we have a fall out with our dad or brother and haven’t spoken to
them in weeks? Or when we are in the middle of a divorce or when we never know,
if our children will survive the day, because we live in a war zone? If that’s
the peace the Bible is talking about it is not all that satisfying!
2. The Peace of the Bible
So what is the Bible talking
about? The Greek word used for peace here in Luke
Peace between nations, no gang
wars on the streets, no crimes, stable relationships among family and friends,
a safe future for our children, etc.
Yes, we want a
peace that is inside us and around us. And we work towards that peace. Immanuel Kant said: "Perpetual
peace is no empty idea, but a practical thing which, through its gradual
solution, is coming always nearer its final realization...".
The great thinker and philosopher thought this
peace is achievable when we get practical, when we set ourselves the goal to gain
peace in the
And isn’t that what we are trying to do? We negotiate peace between nations, we
have charity functions to raise money for Aids Victims or the hungry in
Romans 5:12 gives
us an indication why we are not getting anywhere: “…Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,
and in this way death came to all men, because all have sinned..”. War and
death and disunity are the result of the sin which came into the world through
Adam and broke our relationship with God. We are not getting great results for
peace because we are dealing with the symptoms of a disease and not the cause. These
are the facts and despite our best efforts there is not much we can do about
it. We can try and get along with each other, sure, go to a marriage counsellor,
attempt to fix up our marriage, but we can’t heal all broken relationships in
this world. And as long as there is sin, as long as we are at war with God, there
will be brokenness in the world. Dealing with the cause of all that is bad in
the world means, we need to make peace with God.
The peace of the
Bible, means more than peace among people on earth. Peace
describes a wholeness that comes to our lives through Christ as the mediator of
peace. It describes that inner peace which we have when we are reconciled to
the person who made us and who holds our lives in his hands, Romans 5:1 states:
“Therefore, since we have been justified
through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peace with God. Let’s not fall into the trap
of hearing this as a nice church phrase leaving church and putting all this at
the back of our minds reassured and without thinking about it anymore. Do we really
and truly realize what having peace with God means for us personally?
Listen to the testimony of the
evangelist Carmelo Brenes who died in an accident in 1982:
I had an accident in which I died. In the moment that
all my existence ended, I felt everything become dark, and I began to walk
through a dark tunnel. I saw a being that was taking me and began to hear
screams and moans. I understood that my life had been taken from me; I ceased
to live on the earth. But the most terrible thing was that as we were going
through the tunnel, the fear inside of me was increasing more and more. I knew
that, although my body was already dead, I was alive in some place.
We walked for a while inside that tunnel. Suddenly, I heard groans and moans
that I had never heard before. As we continued walking inside that cold and
dark tunnel, I began to see big, gigantic snakes that moved from one place to
another and to hear different moans and groans. There was something very
peculiar about that place: almost all the people in that place had something in
common. They were all thinking about and crying out for water at that moment. I
began to cry out with terror and beg God for mercy …As we approached a door, I
shouted, "Have mercy on me my Lord; have mercy on me! I beg you to help
me! Help me Lord!!"
Suddenly there was a silence, and I heard a voice
saying, "Stop!" Because of that voice, all of hell shook…I heard that
voice once more that said, "I am not the God of adulterers, I am not the
God of fornicators, I am not the God of liars. Why do you call me Lord if I am
not a God of those who boast and are proud?" I felt for a moment that my
whole being was going to be destroyed.
Please listen to me carefully. I was an Evangelical
Christian. I converted to Jesus; I prayed for the sick and God healed them, I
prayed for the lame and God raised them up. I cast out demons and spoke in new
tongues, but in my life had entered a spirit of pride. In my pride, I thought
that I was someone. In my own understanding, I was a super-gifted man or
someone special. I could not understand that it was the mercy of God that was
in my life, until I arrived at the place and God told me, "I am not the
God of people with pride in their hearts."
The opportunity to repent is while you are alive on
earth. When I remember all that pain [of hell], I still feel all the pain and
terror in my soul.
He who can save your soul, Jesus of
Do we realize how much there is at stake for us? Peace
first of all is about where we are at in our relationship with God and where we
will spend our eternal lives.
Carmelo Brenes talks about
some of the things he sees happen in hell and I left out the gory details but
the Bible makes it clear, Luk 16:23: “In
the afterlife where he was in constant torture, he …shouted, 'Have mercy on me!
Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and to cool off my tongue,
because I am suffering in this fire.'” Mat 25:41 "Then
he will say to those on his left, 'Get away from me, you who are accursed, into
the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels!”
As I was writing this message, there was a
movie on TV in the next room. It was one of these mysteries with some gory bits
in them. I went and watched some of the parts of the movie and all of a sudden
it struck me that all those gruesome details and the terror and helplessness
that people feel in that kind of situation, are in fact what I had just read.
That terror and that helpless subjection to someone’s sadistic entertainment is
reality for those who experience hell.
Now do we realize what is at
stake for each one of us?
Carmelo Brenes did God’s work
to a greater extent than most of us, he healed and concerted people, and he
thought that he was a righteous man in God’s eyes. But God sees into our
hearts. Yes, we are saved by Christ’s blood alone but God is also interested if
we take our relationship with Jesus seriously and rely on Jesus alone in all
things. Carmelo’s experience of hell made him recognize that only Jesus and not
our own effort brings us eternal peace with God. And only Jesus can affect how
we live our lives on earth in peace.
3. Christ is the Mediator of Peace
This is good
news. Peace is a gift. All our efforts for peace on earth may be well intended
but will not achieve permanent results, if they are not based on what Jesus did
for us. Acts
Once we have our relationship
right with God, Christ can work his peace in our lives on earth. Eph
Jesus reconciles
us to God and to each other. He brings enemies together and joins them as
friends in Christ.
Some weeks ago we
had Toni and Dave, two former members of rival bikie gangs, hug each other in
church as brothers and friends. Before Jesus took over their lives they were
enemies.
Wherever there is
renewal, people and even entire cities are transformed. For example the cities
of Almolonga in
Christ brings peace to our relationship with God
and turns enemies into friends. His peace can eradicate evil and change entire
towns. Isn’t this what we want for our city? A drop in the crime rate of
Toowoomba, no more child abuse, prostitution or adult entertainment. And it
sounds easy enough. Turn to Christ and everything will change from then on. Yes,
but it is not that straight forward. There are many churches and committed
Christians in Toowoomba and yet Toowoomba still has one of the highest rates of
child abuse and there are divorce, abortions and broken families.
What
does this mean practically for us? How do we get there? How do we allow for
God’s peace to change relationships among us, change families and even change
our city?
Jesus says in Mat
Jesus continues
in this passage, “Do not suppose that I
have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a
sword. For I have come to turn a
man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law – a man’s enemies will be the members of his own
household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me.”
Jesus brings peace, but first he requires us to be honest about our
allegiance to him and to put him first in our life. And that may come at a
price. Mentioning that you are a Christian can make things even less peaceful
and set people off. My dad is not a Christian, he is a deist, that is he
believes in some sort of higher power and that all religions lead us to this
one God. But challenge that by mentioning Jesus and he can get quite upset. Not
peaceful at all. Maybe you have had a similar experience with a family member
or friend or co-worker. The name of Jesus brings out different opinions in
people about who Jesus really is, his name separates. But only when we are
willing to accept that his name may separate us from activities and from
people, his peace can begin to work in our lives.
Eph
Once we belong to
Christ, we are at war with the devil and it will show in our lives, in the
differences of values, principles and practices that we may hold and that the
world may hold, for instance what we believe about marriage and sexual
relations, the importance of money and status, the sanctity of life. It will
separate us from the things that are of the world. Christ brings peace but
also division from that which is not of him. Peace can only be where his
kingdom is established on this earth, that is peace can only manifest, where we
live according to his direction and his words.
In Cali God’s peace could not rule until 92 percent of the population
was born again and let go of the lives they had lived before, a life of drugs,
murder, rape, etc. Now the spiritual fight to maintain and expand that peace continues. 60,000 Christians
jam the town’s soccer stadium for all-night prayer vigils every 90 days. We
need to keep drawing from the source of all peace by spending time with God, by
coming together in prayer, by fasting and spending time in God’s presence. God’s
peace begins with us as a community of Christians and then flows out into the
wider community. Colossians
We can’t
manufacture peace in this world, but Christ, who is peace, can. Through him we
receive peace with God as a gift, an eternal relationship. And as we are linked
to Christ we can be peacemakers in this world. So let’s be bold and share Jesus
and be ambassador of God’s peace in this world. I close with God’s word to us, Jam 3:18: “And a harvest of righteousness is grown from
the seed of peace planted by peacemakers.”
Amen