WHAT HAPPENED TO PEACE?

The message of peace is at the heart of Jesus’s life and ministry. The angels announced it to the people: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rest.” (Luke 2:14). Jesus preached a message centered on peace—that wholeness of life that is found only in God. He likewise demonstrated it to people. He went around bringing peace to men and women. Thousands upon thousands gathered to listen to his words of peace. He taught people about God.  

Jesus was not an advocate of violence. Yes, he got angry in His temple in Jerusalem but he did so for the zeal of his house desecrated by the religious leaders who turned the house of prayer into dens of robbers. But beyond that Jesus was a man of peace. He never taught his disciples to raise arms against their enemies. He rebuked Peter for striking a man’s ear.

When arrested and tried, he never called on His angels to fight for him. He did not open his mouth. He willingly took all the injustices done to him. He took the pain brought upon His body. He was humiliated the worst possible way, but He took it all. All for the sake of peace. A peace that the world neither knows nor understand. For there at the cross, bearing the sins of men and women, He made peace with God.  He is our peace!

At His resurrection, Jesus never commanded his disciples to go and take vengeance. He asked them to preach forgiveness and to forgive people. Jesus was indeed a man of peace.

Today, the same Jesus calls His church to peace.  The ethics of the kingdom is non-retaliatory: “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn him the other also.” Jesus taught his disciples to love and not to hate. It is love that will mark them as Jesus’s true disciples. It is never about our fight for justice, nor our fight for equality or prosperity, but our love for one another and others that will tell the world who really are—Jesus’s disciples.

Yet we turn it into a fight for human causes—justice, equality, and prosperity. What happened to peace? Have we lost the message of peace? Are we to conquer the world by rallies and riots? Should we really go to Caesar’s palace and call for justice and peace? Can today’s Caesars give us what the kingdom of God offers? Isn’t our message of peace Jesus himself? Is he not our peace? Yes, He remains to be our peace! We know of no other peace but Jesus. Men and women will only have real peace when they come under the kingship of Jesus and the kingdom of peace. Peace is not the absence of troubles or pains, or sufferings, or injustices; it is wholeness, completeness of life without anything lacking. What is lacking in men and women is not really the things of this world or the quality of earthly living. Men and women lack God. Hence, we are not complete. Jesus is our peace. As Paul declares in Colossians 1:15-20 Jesus is the exact representation of God. In Him we experience God. He is our peace.