Holy Wednesday: Peace

Peace, like love, is a word that has lost a lot of its potency in the English language. We have a watered down understanding of peace that robs it of its true efficacy.

According to the theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff, peace is really “a harmony and delight in all of one’s relationships - between us and God, us and others, us and creation, us and culture, and us and ourselves.” When we look at the world around us, we can see that most of the world is bereft of “harmony and delight” and is actually suffering under the scourge of “disunity and despair.” 

For this reason, our exhortation to live out our identities as “peacemakers” in Matthew 5:9 reveals the unique call on our lives to be superheroes in creating harmony and delight, wherever it is missing.

But this is not our tendency. The kryptonite that hinders the fruit of peace and peacemaking in our lives is our propensity to pursue “peacekeeping” instead. Peacekeeping is about working hard to protect ourselves and those we love from any form of harm or danger. Sometimes we rationalize this behavior as being wise and practical, but in actuality, we are shirking our responsibility to bring peace to a hurting world. Furthermore, we are not following the example of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

From the moment of His birth until the day that He died, Jesus was producing the fruit of peace. He restored sight and hearing to the blind and deaf. He healed the sick. He affirmed the dignity of women and of marginalized people. Those who were hungry He fed. He proclaimed a message that humans could have a relationship with God, and then, ultimately, He died to make that a guarantee. All of this came at a tremendous cost to Him personally.

For us, being a peacemaker means that we must cooperate with the Spirit in moving us from our peacekeeping comforts and transforming us to being peacemakers. The world is in dire need of peace, and this is a fruit that we can produce by the power of the Spirit.