"OUT OF THIS WORLD"
(God's Promises - 8)

02/20/05  The Rev. Bruce Silver

SERMON

When we hear the word "peace" there are many different images that come to mind. For some of us it's the benediction in the service when the minister charges us to "go in peace." For others, visions of bumper stickers that say to visualize world peace. Others of us remember peace marches and anti-war movements. Still others might have images of a past president who flashed the peace sign. We all have different images of what peace is and what it means to us. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines peace as: "a state of tranquility or quiet."
 
It's amazing when you take time to think about it, just how noisy our world had become. Yesterday I did a wedding here at the church and it has become a standard part of my welcome to the people in attendance to tell them to turn off their cell phones. I don't know if you heard about this but some churches are actually putting in devices, which jam cell phone reception so that they don't have to deal with the interruption of this "convenience." We have e-mail, instant messages and satellite radio so we never have to be interrupted by silence. We have become a society that is perpetually in motion. We uphold those who can get more and more work done. Rather than allow those who have accomplished what needs to get done in an allotted time the freedom that should come with this, we heap more tasks upon them and consider ourselves better off for it. If I told you that we were going to take the time left in today's sermon and sit in the peace of the silence of God's sanctuary, many of you would question whether or not I had done any sermon prep and was just looking for an easy way out. I know, at least for me, that silence can often be the most un-peaceful time I have. In the silence I have nothing distracting me from myself. I am forced to be confronted with my shortcoming and areas in which I miss the mark. My guess is that I am not alone.
 
But, what is this peace that Jesus gives to us in today's passage? Our English versions say, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you." Notice that it does not say, "Peace I am going to leave with you, my peace I'll give to you if you deserve it." In fact, in the Greek the verbs in this section are all present tense. That means that as soon as the words rolled off of Jesus' tongue the peace that he knew was transferred to his disciples. Jesus gives us instant peace. Talk about the concept of instant messaging! Jesus gives this as soon as he said it. What an incredible gift to receive in the midst of a discourse in which he was telling his disciples that he was going to die and that he was going to go be with his Father in heaven. And the good news for us here this morning is that in hearing these words we are able to be part of that promise; the promise that rings true the second the words are out of my mouth or they come to you off of the page. The peace that Jesus gives to us is an instant peace.
 
If the peace of Jesus is first and instant peace, how do we experience it? First, we need to look at how Jesus experienced the peace that he is passing on to us. We know that Jesus knew the code to peace. This is not like the code that is used to lock people out of our computers. It's more like knowing the area code we need to use in order to place a call to a person that we are trying to get in contact with. How did Jesus handle pressure? Where did Jesus find peace? More than once scripture tells us that Jesus withdrew to a quite place and entered into a time of prayer. All that means is that he left people in order to talk to God. He purposely left the hustle and bustle of the crowds and spent time in direct dialogue with his Father. How about us? How often do we purposely take time to withdraw from the pressures of the world and spend time with God? I don't mean saying grace at meal times or our goodnight prayers with our children. I mean quality time spent with the creator of the universe. God longs to be in an intimate relationship with the people his Son died for. Yet, we get caught up with the busyness of our lives and miss wonderful opportunities to talk with God. Why do you think that all committee meetings open with prayer? How many of you know that both the deacons and elders open their meetings by writing prayer requests on the board and praying prayers of petition and thanksgiving, adoration and intercession? The leaders of the church are trying to model the importance of taking time to come before God before we start the business of running God's church.
 
Jesus does indeed give us an instant peace. The peace that he gives us is something that we experience when we have an intimate relationship with the creator of peace. All of that only works if we take the time to hear the promise uttered by Jesus. We need to hear the peace of Jesus. As I have already mentioned we live in a noisy world. If you think that Satan does not know and enjoy this you are sadly mistaken. He is more than glad when the sounds and interruption of the world drown out the voice of Jesus, which promises us peace. Those other voices often try and drown out the voice of Jesus. A couple of weeks ago Alan talked about how sheep know the shepherd's voice. As those who are part of God's flock it's imperative that we know and listen to the voice of the great shepherd. We know that the shepherd wants what is good for us and yet we listen to those other voices that do not want what is best for us that, unfortunately includes our own voices. These are the voices that say we can't make a difference. That we had better not share the truth lest we bee seen as hypocrites or narrow-minded judgmental people. It's the voices that tell us to say "yes" to every good opportunity that comes our way. As Mike VanWinkle can testify to, sometimes we only find peace when we say no to a really good thing so that we may do another even better thing. I am very grateful for learning that lesson through my friend and colleague.
 
The peace that Jesus gives to us is instant but it is also there for the long haul. It is a peace that is there in bad times as well as good. Jesus brings us peace in the midst of pain. Imagine the pain that Jesus felt in the betrayal of Judas. People have hurt us all but I'm pretty sure that none of us will be sent to death because a friend of ours, an intimate companion, betrays us. Even though we will never know this type of pain we will all experience pain in one form or another. There is the pain of broken relationships, relationships between family members, spouses and friends. The pain of experiencing the death of a loved one. The pain of having our children move out. The pain of having our children move back in. The pain of failing health or that of one we love. It's in the midst of these times of pain that it can be awfully tough to feel the peace that Jesus promises us in today's passage. The good news is that even when we can't see Jesus because our vision is obscured by pain, his peace is still there. It is what wraps around us like a mother's comforting arms and cradles us when pain has left us speechless. The peace of Christ during times of pain is often seen best in hindsight. My mother would have been 66 today if she were still alive. Watching her body become overwhelmed by cancer was probably the most painful thing I have ever experienced. Yet, as I look back I can see the peace that Christ gave to all of us. It was there even when we had a hard time seeing it.
 
It's kind of funny how pain and fear are such close cousins. The peace that Jesus gives us has the power to turn fear into faith. This is not always easy. Remember Peter? He was with the other disciples in a boat in the middle of the night on windswept lake when Jesus approached walking on the water. What did Peter do? He asked Jesus if he could join him. Peter left the safety of the boat and climbed out to walk on the water. He succeeded too. I know he didn't succeed for the whole duration that he was out on the water but when we got in trouble, scripture tells us that immediately Jesus was there to save him. Peter, along with the other disciples, started out in fear. They thought they saw a ghost coming toward them over the water. When it turned out to be Jesus, and when Peter actually walked on the water with the Lord it turned that fear into faith.
 
I can remember when I was in college and we went on a rock-climbing trip with our church. We went out to Joshua Tree National Monument, which is a world-class rock-climbing destination. Somehow on the drive out to Joshua Tree we fell onto the motto that we were tough guys. I vaguely think it had something to do with the television show The Greatest American Hero. Anyway, as we got to the climbing part of our retreat we kept telling ourselves that we were "tough guys." I can remember the weekend of rock-climbing culminated with a 90 foot repel off of a cliff with an overhang for the last 30 feet of the decent. I remember my voice cracking as I stepped over the edge and tried to reassure myself by saying, "I'm a tough guy, I'm a tough guy." I can remember the exhilaration of touching the ground at the bottom. I can also remember the way that my fear had turned into faith. What had scared my greatly turned into an activity that I actively pursued for about five years. I got to the point where I even climbed without ropes over 100 feet off of the ground. God has a way of turning our fear into faith when we allow the peace that Jesus promises us to take hold of our lives.
 
There is something else that the peace of Christ gives us. Jesus gives us peace to reach the journey's end. The peace that Jesus gives us allows us to continue on even when the journey seems too hard and too long. I love road trips. My idea of a trip is to travel for as long as possible with as few stops as possible. I want a good average speed when I reach my destination and I want to get where I'm going often much more than I want to make the journey. My son Josh is my favorite traveling partner. He can go for hours without needing a bathroom break or stretching his legs. In fact, Josh is great at sleeping in the car. When we moved from Chicago to California Josh slept from one side of Arizona to the next. I think he slept for like six hours and when we arrived at our destination he said that it seemed like we had just started. Sometimes the journey seems too long and the burden too heavy. The good news is that the peace that Jesus gives us allows us to travel that journey and arrive at our destination much like Josh did on our trip. When we allow the peace that Jesus promises us to fully take over we make it to our destination without that much trouble.
 
A while back, one of the shows that seemed to be on television was endurance racing. These races where ones that the winners won with a time of 4 days 22 hours and 18 minutes. They had to hike over mountains, repel down cliffs, kayak whitewater, mountain bike and often paddle open stretches of ocean. I loved watching these races as the athletes took hour-long naps in the course of the race and continued on. There were checkpoints and a time limit that teams needed to meet in order to continue on the race. I could hardly leave the television when these shows were on. I set my VCR to tape the episodes I had to miss. Christi thought I was crazy to like these shows. What did I find appealing about this she asked me one day. I told her I was amazed by how far these people could push their bodies in these endurance races. I told here that I wondered how far I could go before my body gave out. She told me I was nuts and couldn't understand how I could think that such a thing might be fun. The reality is, life is an endurance race. Paul talked about running the good race. God gives us the peace we need to finish. The peace that Jesus promises gives us the ability to finish the race set before us and hear the loving words of God say, "Well done my good and faithful servant."
 
That's it. Jesus presents this promise of peace. It's something that we don't need to wait for. It's there for the taking and will see us through pain, fear and the journey that we have in this world. All we need to do is lay claim to it and it's ours for the taking. Look into the eyes of the one who promised it to us and receive your promise. You won't regret it.
 
Let's pray. Gracious God, we know that this world is scary. We also know that you can turn our fear into faith. God we come before you now and ask for your peace; peace which comes from you and not from this world. Give us that peace so we may look to you and know how much you love us. May we see in Christ's face the assurance of his peace, which he promises to give to us. It is in the name of the Prince of Peace that we pray.
 

amen

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