The Sign Of Peace
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
On November 11, 1921, the body of an unknown soldier was brought back from France and was interred below a three-level marble tomb. We know that solemn location in Arlington National Cemetery as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This tomb is a monument dedicated to deceased U.S. service members whose remains have not been identified. Several decades have come and gone since America paused for a moment to bury that body. Lost and forgotten in life, this unknown man was to become in death a perpetual symbol of the world’s hope and a silent messenger of the world’s peace. Near his tomb was placed an eternal light so that his memory might live in the grateful hearts of his countrymen.
Today the grim shadow of irony surrounds that light. Certainly we do not live in a world of peace. Today, 99 years after the body of the Unknown Soldier found its last resting place, it looks to many as though he had died in vain. The world, as we know too painfully well, is haunted with fear and war and bloodshed.
But that is why it is vitally necessary for us to turn again and again to an old and yet ever new peace. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Peace I leave with you.” The word in Greek means quietness, rest, wholeness. This is what Christ wants us to have by His obedient life and atoning death.
Today we pause to inquire into the reasons for the world’s loss of God’s peace. Why do men hate one another? Why do men plan the killing of their fellow men? To answer these questions in terms of the demands for trade and territory, in terms of the personality of our leaders, in terms of the lust for power, does not strike at the heart of our problem, for there is no permanent hope in the things man can do. All the history of men and all the experience of the human heart are against it.
It is ridiculous to think that you can heal a cancer by covering it with bandages. It is ludicrous to assume that people can remove hate and fear and despair from the heart of the world by conducting summit conferences or simply calling for unity. You cannot bring true and lasting comfort to the hearts of hurting people by conducting joint worship services which at best blur the distinction between the true God and all other false ones. You may postpone the final result, but the realities are still here: the old envies, the old vanities, the old fears, the stark and grim reality of the sin-stricken heart of man – man who will hate and destroy and kill because there is no true and Godly peace in his own heart.
Our Lord therefore speaks this Lenten season with particular force to the heart of the modern world: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you.” There is the answer – the only answer – which can stand up in the light of eternity. This is the peace which our Lord fills with a heavenly meaning and power; it is His wholeness, quietness, and rest. This is the peace which we can see in its full glory only under the shadow of the Cross and in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the peace with God through the atonement of the Cross, peace wrought through the sanctifying power of God the Holy Spirit, peace in a world that is without peace.
This is the only answer to the world’s problems which can stand up in the light of eternity. Today it is time for more of us to see it clearly before it is too late. Much has happened in the world since the Unknown Soldier was laid to rest. But nothing has come over our days and our years which would shake the deep and consuming conviction that today, as seldom before, the world must wait, not for the man of the hour or the program of the moment, but for the God of eternity and the plan of the ages to come to full fruition.
We have looked around for help, but that has proven empty. Now it is time to look up. We have tried to plan a new world, and look where that has gotten us. Now it is time to plan a new life. We have asked ourselves what we want and focused on ourselves as if we were really in control. Now it is time to ask what God wants. Far more than pacts and treaties and fellowship agreements, today we need the new promise of an old peace – the voice of the Eternal Christ pouring Himself into the agony of life without Him – the last hope of a generation driven to its knees by the overwhelming realization that it has nowhere else to go: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you.”
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And the answer to this profound need lies in the simple words: “My peace I give unto you.” On these words rests all the hope and comfort which the world in which we live can never know of itself. This is the true peace of the child of God in the kingdom of God. Peace – the peace which the world cannot give, the peace which only comes from God-given faith in the atoning death of our Lord and Savior, the peace which passes the understanding of all men, the peace that comes and can come only from God.
It is the peace of Christ. It is His life for you – living in perfect obedience to the Law on our behalf. It is His suffering for you – taking all the pain and suffering and ridicule and hate that the world had to dole out. It is His dying for you – his last earthly breath and His giving up His Spirit to God the Father. And it is His resurrection for you – the death-defeating, devil-beating resurrection from the dead which gives to all His people the sure and certain hope of their own resurrection unto eternal life. All of that is wrapped up in Christ when He spoke to the sin-stricken, hateful hearts of men finally and forever: “My peace I give unto you.”
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow this was, is, and shall be the peace which men need more intensely than anything else – the peace of sins forgiven, the peace of a heart redeemed by the blood of the eternal Son of God, the peace which rests forever in the sure knowledge that without the fear of any law or command our hearts rest quiet, our hearts rest still in the God-given, spirit-filled faith which comes from the Prince of Peace, even Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Try as we might, we cannot remove hate and blood and fear from the world while our hearts are at war with God. We cannot stand united in anything unless and until we stand united in the blessed unity of heaven, the majestic company of the redeemed of God, bound together by a common hope, a common love, and a common faith, and a common confession of Him who loved us even when we were unlovable.
And this peace of the Cross is a very practical peace. While we may be concerned about the problems of the world – and God knows they are bad enough – we must be more immediately concerned about our own personal and individual problems. We cannot touch our world with the power of the conquering Christ unless we first see in ourselves the utter hopelessness of the human heart ravaged with sin. Then and only then can we begin to believe, by God-given faith, in the eternal and perfect remedy for our sins – Jesus Christ and Him crucified for us and for our salvation.
Whatever problems you may face, whatever difficulty you may endure, know that Christ suffered, died, and rose again for you in order to give you the peace that passes all understanding. It is delivered to you in the Gospel, it is delivered to you in the Sacramental gifts of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion. In those divine blessings you hear your Lord’s voice and receive His body and blood.
Here is the last and ultimate hope of the human heart, and it is the only hope we will every need: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.”
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
