I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. [John 16:33 (NLT)]
Between demonstrations that turn into brawls or rioting, incidents of mask rage, shootings, negative and misleading political ads, quarrelsome legislators, nations accusing one another of espionage and fraud, and the assorted armed conflicts throughout the world, I wish we could purchase peace as easily as we can items from Key West’s Peace Store. Actually, given the anger and nastiness so prevalent in the world today, I’m afraid wearing one of their tee-shirts politely requesting “Peace Please” or a face mask with the peace symbol could cause conflict rather than promote peace! Real peace, however, is more than the absence of conflict and it’s not something that can be purchased in Key West or anywhere else.
The Greek word usually translated as peace in the New Testament is eirēnē. In classic Greek, it meant the absence of war but, when found in the New Testament, eirēnē has a far broader meaning. This expanded meaning is because Jesus didn’t speak Greek and the word He would have used was shalom, which meant well-being in the widest sense of the word. In the Hebrew Scriptures, along with the lack of conflict, shalom was used for prosperity, physical health, contentedness both when going to sleep and at death, good relationships between nations and people, and salvation. When Gideon built an altar to the Lord, he named it Yahweh-Shalom, which meant “the Lord is peace.” For a Jew, shalom was the sense of general well-being that came from God alone.
When Jesus promised us peace or shalom, along with absence of discord, He included a sense of wholeness, health, welfare, safety, rest, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, freedom from care, acceptance, and harmony. If we could purchase any or all of those at the Peace Store, their website would crash, the line out the door would be a mile long, and the store owners would be among the Fortune 500!
We can’t purchase peace because Jesus, the Prince of Peace, purchased it for us; shalom is ours simply for the asking. That peace doesn’t mean lack of hardship, sickness, death, grief, or difficulties. In fact, Jesus pretty much guaranteed we’d have those. He did, however, promise peace in every one of those situations.
If you’re ever in Key West, you can check out the Peace Store where they say, “Peace is always in fashion.” If, however, you’re looking for true peace, the kind of peace that far exceeds our understanding, you’ll find that only in a relationship with God. If we remain in Christ, keep the Holy Spirit within us, are obedient to His word, study and pray, serve and love, the shalom promised by the Prince of Peace will remain bright within our hearts and souls. Calling Key West “the gateway to paradise,” the Peace Store was wrong; the true path to paradise is found only in Jesus and His gospel of peace.
God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. [C.S. Lewis]
No one has remained untouched by the trials and misfortune of this challenging year. That’s why my friend admitted feeling uncomfortable when acknowledging that she’s come to enjoy the downtime and slow pace of sheltering in place and social distancing. I had to agree with her. You see, pre-pandemic, we’d been more like Martha than Mary and our lives were filled with activities and obligations. I never seemed to have quite enough time and often felt overwhelmed by obligations. In an odd way, we both feel blessed by the slower pace of this quieter time.
People often argue against God’s existence because of evil and suffering. With so much that is wrong in the world, they question how there could there be a god. Christian apologist C.S. Lewis was once an atheist who reasoned that such a cruel and unjust world proved the absence of God until he questioned where he got the idea of what was good or evil, just or unjust. He realized that something cannot be wrong or evil unless there is standard for what is right or good. In a universe with no God, there would be no standard for justice or injustice, good or evil, right or wrong: simply personal preferences. That standard, Lewis realized, is rooted in God. As a result, the very argument he used against God’s existence provided Lewis with proof of His presence!
“Once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes, I came to the chief of Kufah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience.” The Persian poet Sadi wrote those words in 1258 AD and his words are the source of the adage, “I was unhappy about having no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” When unsympathetic to what I considered my children’s trivial grievances, I often uttered those words or something similar.
Death is the consequence of sin—of living in a fallen world—but Jesus promised that all believers have eternal life. In the Apostles’ Creed, we affirm our belief in this “life everlasting.” Eternal life, life in perpetuity, life forever and ever: how can that be? For centuries thousands of inventors have attempted to make a perpetual motion machine that will run indefinitely with no input of energy and have failed every time. Apparently perpetual motion violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics. If perpetual motion is an impossibility, perpetual life seems improbable, as well. It seems to violate all sorts of natural laws let alone human logic. God, however, isn’t limited by thermodynamics, any other law of nature, or human understanding; after all, He’s the author of them all!
Devotions of the Heart 