“…[M]y peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (Jn. 14:27).
WHAT IS THE PEACE Jesus offers us? The Hebrew word for peace is “shalom,” which means more than the absence of conflict. It conveys an inward sense of wholeness: body, soul and spirit in harmony with Creation and reconciled with God. Jesus’ peace brings this hope for completeness into the present, the Kingdom of God at hand.
In John 20:19-29, Jesus prepares His disciples for His return to the Father. He assures them they would not be alone; that whoever loves Him and keeps His word will be loved by the Father with the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit making their dwelling within that person. At our invitation, expressed by our faith in action, God lives in us in intimate relationship, and where God is present, peace results.
The peace Jesus promises is different and far better than what the world offers because it cannot give what it does not possess. Jesus extends the comfort of God’s presence: “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (v. 27), even though we live in a world where beauty and mercy co-exist with hate, violence and heartaches; where true relationships are sometimes replaced by the isolation of smart phones, AI and text messages.
Theologian Peter Kreeft describes three stages of God’s intimacy with us: (1) the Father of the Old Testament- God above us; (2) the Son of the New Testament- God with us; and (3) the Holy Spirit in the Church- God in us. Scripture makes clear God doesn’t just want to dwell with us, but in us- not as a distant Supreme Being, but in relationship as our loving Creator. Jesus gifts us His peace to be within each of us, flowing from what lives within not outside of us, and experienced by how and what we share with others. To paraphrase Jesus, it is not what comes from outside that defiles us but what we harbor within (Mt. 15:11). It is not about removing the splinter from another, but about transforming our hearts, our way of being, to show others God’s presence within us.
Homilist Michael Marsh commented on the Abinger Institute’s Anatomy of Peace: “A heart at peace sees the other as a human being, even in the midst of conflict and disagreement. When my heart is at peace, the hopes, fears, concerns and needs of others are as real to me as my own. When my heart is at war, however, the other is an object, issue, obstacle or irrelevancy to me… We can continue arguing with one another about who is right or wrong and what is the right or wrong thing to do ‘but the deepest way in which we are right or wrong is in our way of being toward others.’” (Ibid. 57)
Living in the imitation of Jesus we become peace itself for others: the Jesus who broke bread with sinners; healed the outsiders, the marginalized, the Gentile “dogs;” made the unclean clean; wept at the death of a friend; forgave those that killed Him; and modeled His peace while the authorities waged war on Him during His Passion and Death.
The Holy Spirit counsels us to depend more on God and less on the world; to see God at work in and around us; to let God reign in our hearts. This is an “inside out” way of being, peace flowing outward from the Spirit within us, bringing hope to our neighbor. What will we do with God’s gift of peace today?