Pray for Peace

Our scripture today comes from the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 27.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Most of us pray for peace at some point in our lives. The prayer for “peace on earth“ is one that we echo from what the angels sang at the birth of Christ. We wish the tribes and nations, including our own, would be more peaceful. We wish that armies would stop fighting each other.

In our political and social lives, most of us crave peace. We wish to see an end to the bickering, the backbiting, the fighting, and the constant divisions with which the news media bombard to us every day.

In our personal lives, we wish that family members, again, including ourselves, could just learn to get along. Family gatherings of any type should be a time of peace. All too often they are a time of conflict.

Jesus, in this verse, has promised his peace, and we want to cash in on that promise. We are likely to skip over the part where he says “my peace“ is what he is giving us. We tend not to think very deeply about the words “I do not give to you as the world gives.“

So what is it that Jesus is offering us? It certainly is not the peace of our definition, the “peace on earth“ that we so desperately seek at all levels. The peace of Jesus is something different, something else, something very special.

It is the peace of the Kingdom of Heaven, which Christ came to declare in his ministry on earth. It is the peace of knowing that whatever wars and conflicts are occurring around us, we can have the peace of Jesus with us to calm the storms, not on the outside of our lives, but those storms that are in our hearts.