Peace, Persecution, and a Promise

I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!

—John 16:33

Jesus’ word to his disciples may seem like the very definition of a mixed blessing—peace, but with the addendum, you’re going to need it because the world is TERRIBLE! I think most of us just want the peace without the persecution. I imagine similar thoughts ran through the disciples’ minds, too. Yet, here is Jesus’ blessing, mixed as it is, so we better examine it and see what it means for us.

The truth of the matter is that this word really is a blessing. 

When Jesus offers peace, he always means the peace the Hebrews named shalom. Shalom is total peace, imagined fully by the priests who composed the Seventh Day of creation—the peace that is so complete that not even God has do anything! That truly is God’s hope for us and all the earth. As the book of Revelation comes to a close, we see how the Jesus community imagined the presence of shalom within the world—a new creation, one where all suffering is gone, where tears are unknown, and grief is gone forever (Rev. 21:1-5). In our lives, that sort of peace is the peace of freedom from all regrets, remorse, and repentance because, finally, our wills and imaginations are mistake proof. Imagine such a way of being—you never have to search for the right way to apologize; you never awaken in the middle of the night reliving a humiliation; you never avoid seeing somebody because all you see is the last argument—life free from the suffering of interaction. 

For most of us, imagining such a scenario or context is a daydream, flimsy as a fluff of milkweed. Our interactions with other people remain as messy as ever. The tensions, stress, and anxieties of life among others remain just as powerful and real as ever. We agree wholeheartedly with St. John that it will take a new creation for anything like shalom to be an actual experience.

Jesus knows that as well. So he points to a place where we should spend a great deal of contemplation—Easter. 

Easter is the rewriting of the narrative of creation. It is the First Day, the new beginning, and the great dawn of God. A man dead, murdered by those in power, rejected by the mob, and left to die in abject humiliation, rises. God resets the order and way of creation. Something brand new blossoms.

We need to fully consider and imagine the consequences of Easter, even here in a season far removed from the springtime. What does Easter mean? It means that even though we continue our way, walking among other people, remembering the adage—if there is more than one person in the room, there will be conflict (and a good many times, the second person is not required)—that there remains hope for peace, even peace like shalom.

But what does that look like? What does it feel like? How on earth do we experience it?

We experience it in keeping in mind that resurrection means there is always tomorrow. What that means is that no matter what happens today, today will pass, a new day will dawn, and there will always be a way to redeem whatever filled today. In short, second chances never run out. 

Consider an email from a friend—

We got home last night after choir, and I was getting things ready for today. My car would not lock, the lights were not working, and of course it would not start!  So, enter Plan B for this morning. 

Will call AAA shortly and try to get it started and out to the dealer. Not my original plan for today. It is a good thing I got all my work done yesterday! 

My brother-in-law got hit by a truck Monday night in Raleigh--driver ran a stop sign. He is not injured, except for some soreness, but car is in for a fairly major repair. He retired Wednesday--not the most auspicious way to begin retirement!  But he seems to be OK. 

What resurrection means is that all this suffering, irritation, and upset has its limits. God is already at work redeeming everyone involved. God is raising everyone from the wreckage, so to speak. Cars don’t work, but they can be fixed. Accidents happen, but so does recovery. Life stinks, but then it smells of roses!

Life as it is can feel like persecution—things don’t work they way we want them to; equipment we rely on falls; friends say stupid things at exactly the wrong moment—on it goes—and we begin to feel utterly beset by it all. 

It is this experience to which Jesus speaks—all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well, as St. Julian said. 

Shalom remains a real possibility as Christ dwells within us, through us, and with us. Diana Butler Bass remarks that the essence of our faith is prepositions (Christianity after Religion, p. )—it is in the connective tissue of our praxis—those ins, by’s, withs, throughs—that power of our praxis reveals itself. God is present. God is present in the presence of others around us. If God is present, then so are all the blessings of God—all the grace, all the mercy, all the hope—all the redemption—i.e., resurrection is there for every circumstance, context, or conflict. 

In other words, Jesus makes good on his promise—there will be peace, even peace everlasting. 

Trust him on this, it is our gospel for today.