Peace In Christ

Mark 4:35 – 5:1
On that day, when evening had come, Jesus said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." And leaving the crowd behind, they took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. Jesus said to his disciples, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.

Philippians 4:2 – 7
I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche (Sin’-ta-key) to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.


Today is the second Sunday of Advent – Peace Sunday. Out of all the Sundays of Advent I think this is the most challenging to wrap my mind around. Peace. What does peace mean? And what does it mean for us to have peace in Christ.

In the 10th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” But in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Jesus did not come to be the King who conquers enemies and to take over a region of land. Jesus does claim that his presence will divide households. There will be those who believe in him and those who don’t in one household. There will be some in one household who believe in Jesus one way and some who believe in Jesus in another. The incarnation of our Christ did not settle these kinds of disputes. We still have wars, fighting, factions, and oppression. Jesus did not rally an army. He rallied a band of healers and insisted that his followers need to lay down their lives for the oppressed.

This is a radical notion of love. It is a radical notion of peace. The way of Jesus is to create peace by not fighting. It is to love when you are hated. Being committed to this way of life ruffles feathers and can actually make people become violent against you. It is also a difficult life to sustain. We can get weary of well doing. Galatians 6 says, “8 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. 10 So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” Paul writes this to the Galatians probably because they are growing weary and they need to be reminded to not grow weary. It is so much easier to go along with the greed and violence of the world. Paul tells his people … and us … to continue sowing in the Spirit. Do not give up.

Sometimes we need to see something with our eyes to encourage us. In our reading in Mark we see the disciples with Jesus in a boat during a bad storm. Apparently Jesus is a sound sleeper but the disciples are preparing for their death. They wake Jesus and he calms the storm with his words, but before going back to sleep he chastises them. "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" This is one of the few times that Jesus makes circumstances more convenient. Usually he is willing to let the chips fall where they may. Maybe he is taking pity on his friends because he loves them. Or maybe he is just too tired to use this as an elaborate teaching moment. Either way, we see the power of Jesus, the kinds of miracles that he can perform, and the choice of miracle that he makes. He calls for peace. He commands stillness.

This voice of Jesus is one that I think we would do well to heed for our own internal storms. As we work for external peace in the radical way of Jesus, we also need to work on our internal peace. In fact, I think that the reason we often cannot sustain the work of being Jesus’ hands and feet and eyes and life here on this earth is because we have not taken the time and effort to let Jesus be our peace within.

Our reading from the letter to the Philippians could have been easily used next week when we celebrate Joy in Christ, but what caught my eye for this week was Paul’s instruction to not worry. Paul tells us that after we make supplication to God with thanksgiving we can find peace, a peace that passes our understanding – what I call a peace that doesn’t make sense.

Paul doesn’t say that we will have peace once God answers our prayers. It is in the turning over of our concerns to God that will result in peace. Not a peace of situation, but a peace that “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Rejoice in God. Celebrate God. Don’t give yourself to worry but instead pray. Do these things and you will experience a peace that your mind won’t understand. Don’t analyze this peace. Don’t deny yourself this peace because it is beyond your understanding … because it doesn’t make sense. Give yourself to it.

This is what Jesus was talking about in the Gospel of John when he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

When we look for peace that our minds can understand then we might miss the peace that Jesus has to offer us. It is a hard-fought peace. We have to recognize our fears, not pretend that we don’t have any. Once we recognize those fears we have to give ourselves to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, and then we have to look steely-eyed into our own internal storm and say with Jesus, “Peace. Be still.” I have found no other way to experience this “peace that doesn’t make sense.” It is part faith, part act-of-will and part surrender. It doesn’t happen all at once. This is a process that goes deeper and deeper all our lives.

The best metaphor that I have for this peace is in a story that my dad told me. I hope you aren’t getting tired of hearing my dad stories. My father was in the navy in WWII. He was an underwater bomb demolition expert; a strong fearless man who could hold his breath up to 3 minutes. The oxygen tanks that they had back then were clumsy so they routinely went down in relays. They were on a small ship. He says it was the kind that knocks your kidneys loose. Well, one day they got into a bad storm. Jesus was not laying on a cushion in the back of the ship. One after another the men on the ship were getting sick. My dad was one of the few left able to do anything so he took the helm. The wind was whipping them around something fierce. He had to head straight into the storm as it overtook them. He told me that he thought for sure they were all headed to Davy Jones's Locker. After a day and a half they got through the storm and he tells me the sea was as smooth as glass and that the wind was still. It was like a perfect day. And then they realized that what they were in was the eye of a hurricane. He knew that the other side of the hurricane was going to overtake them in a matter of time. He was at the helm for three days total not knowing if they were going to make it alive. But in the middle of it all there was a calm and a peace that he hadn’t know before and hasn’t known since. All around him a storm was raging, but in the eye of the hurricane you wouldn’t know it.

Once I asked him why they didn’t just stay there, in the eye, until the storm calmed and they could safely move on. He laughed and said that the storm was moving way to fast. They didn’t go through the storm. The storm went through them. He had no choice but to try to steer the ship as strategically as possible and then hang on.

People of God, I think the peace of Christ is like a hurricane. In the center of the raging storm you can find peace. It is hard-fought and you sometimes have to steer strategically to get there. But in the center of it all there is a peace that is beyond anything else you have experienced. Some people will think you are crazy because it doesn’t make sense. They are looking from the outside in and they see the raging wind and water. You will have been through all that storm and know the truth of it, but if you can find the center, unlike the hurricane my dad was in, I believe you can ride out the storm in Christ’s peace.

This is the second Sunday of Advent. Jesus is our Immanuel … God-With-Us … Our Prince of Peace.