Leadership Seeks Peace—Psalm 3; Matt. 26: 47-56
Seek peace. That kind of commandment seems a bit out of our reach these days, doesn’t it? We’re surrounded by a world of turmoil, of hostility, of volatility, of conspiracy theories, and of fighting. As we come back again to our series, Christian Leadership in Present Times, we encounter a rather abrupt stop today. When exactly was the last time we felt peaceful and at peace? There are actually two types of peace—and we see both in our song and scripture today. One type we will hear in our closing hymn, “Peace, peace, wonderful peace, coming down from the Father above.” Essentially, all is calm, and we are given God’s gift of peace in our lives. The other type we hear in the opening hymn, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” Here, peace is something we work for—instead of being at peace we make peace happen in a troubled world. Today, we need to consider both of these types of peace.
First, let’s consider what it means to be at peace. There are two very big reason why we have no peace in our lives: we feel unsafe, or we feel unloved. In our Psalm today, we hear a song of peace for someone who feels trouble and danger around them. There is fear that God will not rescue even as enemies rise against the Psalmist. But the writer says, “You, O Lord, are a shield around me: you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.” One of the biggest issues of the past year is the very powerful fear that we are not safe.
We have worried about becoming sick and dying from the virus. We have worried about our leadership in Washington. We have worried about church decline. We have felt that every institution in our life: health, good government, and faith is crumbling and falling apart around us. A year ago, the biggest worry was whether or not the church would sing the hymn I like. Now we have to worry when we can safely leave our houses to go to church and gather again. We may have different philosophies and politics, but we’re all united by our thinking of apocalyptic doom. I guess it’s different paths, same destination.
The Psalmist felt that same fear, begging for God’s rescue and safety from enemies. But there is a clear note of trust. We hear in verse 4, “I cried out to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy mountain.”. In verse 5 we read that the Psalmist sleeps well. In verse 6 we hear the resolution that the Psalmist is not afraid. And finally, in verse 8, the assurance that victory comes from the Lord. The Psalmist found peace because of that deep trust in the Lord.
Sometimes, too, we lose our peace because we feel unloved. Writer and missionary Elisabeth Elliot speaks to that, saying, “In my own life, I think I can honestly say that out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God.” The struggle in our lives can never be connected to the amount and depth of God’s love for us. God’s peace doesn’t necessarily provide you with the answer, expectation, or meaning you want for suffering. Instead God’s peace comes in the form of God’s presence and the reminder that in all situations God loves us even to the extent of the pain of the death and miracle of resurrection. To find peace, we must look for God’s presence and remember God’s unfailing love.
But we don’t just live our lives at peace, we also have to work for peace in this world. The story we read in Matthew usually comes close to the Easter season, but it speaks to us now of Christ making peace happen in the midst of turmoil. Jesus is confronted in the garden. The whole scene is tense—Jesus had been praying in earnest while the disciples slept. Judas had betrayed Jesus for some money. In perhaps one of the most gut-wrenching scenes prior to the crucifixion, Judas greets Jesus warmly, as a close friend, in an act of complete and evil betrayal. Jesus’s disciples prepare to fight, and at least one attacks wounding a servant of the high priest.
Jesus stopped his disciple before any more blood could be shed. Some gospels, including Luke and John, even say that Jesus healed the servant’s ear, and they identify Peter as the disciple so ready to fight. Jesus’s response to the fight is to say, “Put away your sword. Those who use the sword will die by the sword,” in verse 52. This is a really tough scripture for many of us. Jesus and the disciples would have been more than justified in fighting, in starting a revolution and going to war against the oppressive Pharisees and Sadducees. We could find any number of reasons to justify violence and defense here.
But Jesus lived the very lesson he taught—turn the other cheek, and blessed are you when you are persecuted, insulted, or have evil spoken against you from the Beatitudes. Jesus’s choice assured that he would be beaten and killed. But the whole way he lived in the very peace he taught, not lashing out, stopping the bloodshed, and condemning a life lived by the sword. Living at peace in this world does not mean beating everybody else into silence and submission. That’s called oppression. That’s what Rome did to make peace in the rebellious Judea. Jesus, instead, protected his very enemies in the garden from harm even as his very act of peace caused his own death to soon come.
Jesus was even at peace with his betrayer Judas. Now, as I am not like Jesus all the time, if Judas had come up to me and betrayed me with the warmest greeting possible between friends, I would have smacked the snot out of him. Jesus, however, addressed Judas as “my friend,” and simply tells him to do what he has come to do. Living at peace is so hard because it requires us to lay down our own swords and defenses and instead trust God’s infinite wisdom whether that keeps us safe as the Psalmist or leads to our suffering like Jesus.
Peace is often very difficult to find in life. If we are troubled, we sometimes have to trust in God to give us peace in spite of what is around us. That kind of peace can only come as a gift from God. If we see turmoil in the world around us, we must go out and teach that war, fighting, and tension are not the answer. Instead we must live in open communication and respect for one another. So today I pray that you find that peace which passes all understanding and is such a miraculous gift. But I also pray you set the example. Confront wounds, miscommunications, anger, and resentment. Do so gently and with love. Be peacemakers in our dysfunctional world who remind people that God loves them and will bring peace in our time.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/135230076517491/videos/2907654682826338