[Jesus, departing from earthly life, said to his terrified disciples these well-known, oft-quoted words, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, so give I it you. (Jn 14,27) In the sadness of his farewell, he comforts them with what he leaves them, with what he leaves them. The Lord speaks here almost as a dying father when he tells his frightened children, who are surrounding his sickbed, that they should fear nothing, he has taken good care of them. It is not for nothing that the Scriptures are called a Testament, a testament, because they are! It is indeed what the Lord of the world bequeaths to His heirs. Not money, not other goods: houses, land, precious treasures - and it is good that it is not such treasures, for God has shown us in our times the true value of such inheritance - but that which is worth more than all the above, a greater and more precious gift: peace! And not just any peace, but His own peace! The passage from the Gospel of John on this subject follows for today's feast of Pentecost. The testament to the peace of Christ is not alien to the message of the Feast of the Spirit, but is very much part of it, since one of the greatest results of the work of God's Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is the peace of which Jesus speaks here. So let us first see, what kind of peace is he talking about? What is this peace?Jesus defines the meaning of this peace in two ways: negative and positive. In a negative sense like this: "Not as the world gives will I give it to you." And this is especially comforting! For how does the world give peace, for example, to a man who is in a wave of pain, who is hit by one adversity after another, who is tormented by doubts? By trying to impose peace on such a person. He tries to escape from the tormenting thoughts and feelings by occupying himself with more work, or by seeking cheerful company, or by gritting his teeth and trying to bind the demons of suffering in his soul, like a biting dog tied in chains. Or when small sins of omission, greater or lesser, begin to disturb the peace of your conscience, you have the world's prescription for a remedy at hand: you tell yourself that others' lives are burdened by much greater sins, and you are still very high in comparison. And to make the apparent peace even more solid: you soothe your conscience by being even more arrogant, putting on an even bigger image, pretending that nothing is wrong. You are at peace, because you have succeeded in chaining your conscience. That's what it can give you. Suddenly, however, the memory of so many repressed sorrows, bitternesses, regrets, omissions, erupts with such elemental force that it overturns you and buries everything under you. Then the world can only give you a morphine injection or a heart-strengthening pill, and in the last resort, when everything has collapsed: a revolver bullet! I don't need to give you examples - life produces examples of it every day before our very eyes! How? By violence, by narcosis, by lies and self-deception! This peace is like a barrier behind which only unrest, a storm, is rising!
At its best, the world can give us what we call the peace and happiness of peaceful times: the peaceful union of loving hearts, the carefree hours of children's laughter, the cosy warmth of a family hearth. This peace is very precious, very worthwhile, but very precarious. For how long is it ours?! Until something bad happens: illness or death knocks on the door! It's like grass and flowers. But the grass withers and the flower falls when the wind of the Lord blows on it! Oh, how many a heart is troubled at the very loss of the peace thus built up!
How good that Jesus does not give his peace in this way. "Not as the world gives will I give it to you." But He does not limit the meaning of peace not only in this negative sense, but also in a positive sense. He says: "My peace I give unto you" - What is this peace of Jesus? It is the peace that Jesus Christ has established between heaven and earth, between God and man, through his redemptive work! We read in Corinthians, "It was God who in Christ reconciled the world to himself, not imputing their sins to them." (2 Cor 5:19) So God was the initiator of this great reconciliation, God who offered peace from heaven to the earth. All rebellion, all wickedness against heaven, all offences against heaven, all insults, all offences, all accusations of heavenly men against earthly men, are to be forgotten, buried, forgiven. And God will not even make the earth pay a war-scar, a reparation! All the price, all the cost, He Himself bears! So dear is this peace to Him that He sacrifices His only begotten Son for it! This is what the prophet says: "the chastisement of our peace is upon him" (Is 53:5), the Son, the Christ! This peace is nothing other than the reconciliation of the earth to heaven through the cross! When God looks at Christ's death on the cross, He takes it as if in Him all those who died in His place had suffered the punishment of damnation. This, then, is the peace of Christ, that God has reconciled me, God has made peace with me, because my Lord suffered in my place, made satisfaction, made reparation, paid the price!
There was great unrest, great unrest in the life of a sick woman. She was lying over the ruins of her life, sick. Once she was rich, beautiful, a celebrated noblewoman, healthy and young, now there was nothing left of all that! She had every reason to be restless. And one day someone brought him a message from the Lord, telling him what God had said through the prophet: "Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine! ... Because you are dear in my sight, you are precious and I love you." (Isa 43:1. 4.) The eyes of the sick man filled with tears, he shook his head. He could hardly understand: but this is the secret of salvation, that there before the cross of Christ it is true that God does not accuse! But you were his enemy, you had transgressed his law, you had broken his commandments! He will not vomit in your eyes that you have returned the invitation to his feast, or that you have excused yourself. He will not complain that you have committed the greatest offence against him: you have not trusted him, you have doubted his word, you have not listened to what he had to say. He points to the cross, the death of Christ, and says: Look, that explains everything! "I love you so much, you are so dear to me, you are so dear and precious in my eyes, that I was able to do this for you!
This is the peace that Christ gives! Oh, how often I have seen the pure serenity of this peace shine like a rainbow after rain on the face of a suffering, tormented person - most recently on the face of the sick woman I have just spoken of. Is it already shining on your face?! The great thing about this peace from Christ is that it lifts the soul high above the storm of earthly tempests. Beneath it are left the many anxieties, uncertainties, tumults and worries of life. I don't know what will happen to me, where my path will lead me, what pleasant or unpleasant surprises life has in store for me, but I do know one thing, the most important thing: that I remain a child of my heavenly Father, and that His invisible hand will hold me and guide me even through the darkness of death.
Someone might say now that all this could have been expressed more briefly, that it is not an external but an internal peace! Well, this is almost true, but only in the sense that the peace of Christ is not a force that acts from the outside, from ordered external circumstances, but vice versa: it is a force that acts from the inside outwards, but is actually active, that is, not only remaining within, lying deep within the soul, but also radiating the power of reconciliation outwards! So the peace of which we speak is not only eternal, but also temporal; not only other-worldly, but also worldly; not only spiritual, but also physical; not only internal, but also external - not a peace of details, but of the whole! Not just a certain invisible spirituality or idea, but an actual, productive force, a radiance - something like when Jesus rebuked the stormy wind and waves, they were calmed down because the peace that was really present in Jesus poured out on them, calmed the turmoil! Yes, the peace of Jesus does not want to hide there, hidden in the depths of the believer's soul like a secret beauty, but wants to penetrate into our earthly relationships, into the relationships of our personal, family, economic and political life, and there it wants to act as salt and blessing!
The believer must radiate the reassuring and reconciling radiance of the peace of Christ. The believer in Christ is himself a man who seeks peace, a man who works for peace! Tell me, my brother, does your being, your appearance, your word, radiate peace, or unrest? What is in you, what is in your heart, what is in your mouth, what is in your environment, what is in your work. The deepest cause of all kinds of unrest is unforgiven sin, a state of being unatoned with God!
Well then: Christ has bequeathed His peace to us in His will. Why, then, is it not still in our possession, and how can we at last get possession of it? Let me direct your attention to this statement of Jesus in the passage we have read: 'The prince of the world is coming, and in me he has nothing' (John 14:30). He has no foothold in the world. There is nothing in Jesus, no thought, no feeling, no desire, no secret that can draw him to Satan, that can serve Satan's interests, that Satan can cling to, that Satan can attach his temptation to, no so-called switch-point. There is nothing in Jesus that Satan can claim as his own, that Satan can secretly collude with. And that's why our peace is always being shattered! The prince of the world comes and finds the connection in our hearts. And he will always find it, until he finds it alone! So: put your trust in Christ even more, put your faith in Christ! If you are in the Lord, the prince of the world will come! Jesus says: "In me he has nothing", that is, what is in Jesus, the prince of the world, Satan, has nothing to do with! The believer in Christ is in Christ! And while he is in Christ, he truly has the peace of Christ.
We can only say all this, think it over, but for it to be so: it needs the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says: "But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." (Jn 14,26) It is not just a simple recollection, but that all the words of Jesus, including his testament of peace, are made actual by God himself, and are inserted into the life of the believer as the divine will that demands a decision. God, through His Holy Spirit, makes present to us what God has accomplished through Jesus Christ. The blessing of the peace obtained by the death of the Lord Jesus 2,000 years ago, He shares with the believer today by His Holy Spirit!
Everything that the Lord has not made a living Word, a personal address to us by His Holy Spirit, will also disappear without trace from this Pentecost sermon. So let us ask God's blessed Holy Spirit, His Word, to come and do His enlivening work in us! Come, let us ask together with a prayerful heart:
And now, too, tear our hearts and all our feelings
From all the futility of this deceitful world,
That we may be hearers of the Word, Keepers of the Word;
That shall take root in our hearts, that shall bear fruit.
Canto 377, verse 3
Amen
Date: 13 May 1951 Pentecost.
Lesson
ApCsel 2,1-13