IN HIS WILL IS OUR PEACE [JOHN 14:27-31]
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27 RSV).
What peace was yours, dear Jesus? You found no peace as the world gives even in the seclusion of Your small home town. Those who should have known You and loved You most personally turned against You; the mob tried to lynch You – to stone You and throw You headlong from a cliff near Your own home. You, the Prince of Peace, never experienced worldly peace.
How dare we ask You for this blessing? Only because You insisted that we share Your peace. What was Your peace – when You asked the Pharisees, “Why do you seek to kill Me?” What peace did You enjoy – as they picked up rocks to throw at You and You hid Yourself and left the temple? What peace di You feel – as You informed Your twelve closest friends that one of them was on the verge of betraying You? By what pact of peace had Your own chosen people rejected You? What peace comforted You – as You prophesied Your cruel sufferings and violent death?
The one peace which Your every word and action bespoke was the perfect peace of being one in purpose with Your heavenly Father. This was Your peace – not as the world gives it – the peace of a right conscience, the peace of unity with God’s will, the peace of an unsoiled love. We understand to some extent what You mean by Your peace, Jesus, when we speak of “making our peace with God.” By that we mean freeing ourselves from all selfish rebellion and restoring our errant wills to union with our Father’s will.
Yours is the only true peace, Lord Jesus, understood clearly by Dante when in his Paradiso he exclaimed, “In His Will is our peace.”
Jakarta, 20 May 2014
A Christian Pilgrim
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