The Sixth Sunday after Easter
May 13, 2007
“Reflecting on
the Peace of God!”
John
14:23-29
Preached at
By Pastor Dennis R. King
The Grace and Mercy of the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you all.
What a beautiful Gospel text for this
Mother’s Day! Mothers are known for living out this new commandment of Jesus
and sharing God’s love and peace with their children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren. They have passed on this Gospel and have been the flesh and
bones of this message giving out hugs and kisses as they have shared this love
of God with others. They have done as God has commanded through Jesus.
A school teacher asked a boy this question
about fractions, “Suppose your mother baked an apple pie, and there were seven
of you, your parents and five children. What part of the pie would you get?” “A
sixth,” the boy answered. “But there are seven of you,” replied the teacher.
“Don’t you think that you would get a seventh?” “Oh, no!”
The boy said. “I know all about fractions, but I also know all about my mother,
too. She would say she did not want any pie.” Mothers have a way of giving
themselves away and sharing God’s love and peace with others by what they do.”
I pass on to you what has been given to me pertaining
to the peace of God. Last week we celebrated Mother's Day. Mother day always reminds me of my own mother and the peace of God
she shared with me. Let me share that peace with you.
On many occasions Jesus upset His disciples
with His actions and His words. Before the Maundy Thursday meal began, He
insisted on washing their feet like a common servant. After that same meal He
made predictions that shocked them. He said that one of them would betray Him;
that He must suffer and die; and that He would leave them very soon. Needless
to say, these alarming announcements confused His disciples. Consequently, when
Jesus promised them that He would send His Holy Spirit to bring them counsel,
comfort and peace, the words did not sink into their conscious minds.
But they were His words and His promise. We
heard those words read as our Gospel lesson for this morning. Listen again as I
read John 14:27. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as
the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let
them be afraid. Most of us can readily identify with those disciples.
Circumstances cause our world to fall in upon us and life comes apart at the
seams; then some one gives us a pious pronouncement, "God will give you
comfort and peace, so do not be afraid." We just are not ready for them at
that moment.
If you think about it carefully, there are
two sides to life that are separated by Jesus' resurrection. Whether we
experience Christ's promise of peace depends on which side we find ourselves.
The disciples were on the Good Friday side on that night. Their minds were
filled with their own grief, sorrow, fear, and loss. The events that followed
that day, documented their view. Judas hangs himself. Peter denies His Lord and
ends up weeping. Thomas doubts the report of the resurrection. The disciples
are locked behind doors in fear of their own lives. There is no peace, no
comfort, and no joy. Then comes that other side of
life, the glorious Easter experience, and what a transformation takes place!
Weeping Mary shouts, "Teacher" as the resurrected Christ invades her
life. Peter and John run like young bucks from that empty tomb to shout to the
disciples, "He is risen!" Doubting Thomas
can only exclaim, "My Lord and my God!" as he looks at those
nail-pierced hands. The resurrected Jesus bursts through the locked doors of
those disciples and said to them, "Peace be with you!"
That experience of the resurrected Christ
took them from the gloom and doom of Good Friday and thrust them into the Easter
side of life. Now they knew "The peace of God that passes all
understanding" and they were transformed. Set on fire by the presence of
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that same small group of men and women proceeded
to turn the world upside down.
There is a type of synthetic peace that is
often prescribed during times of stress. All of us have had encounters or heard
the witness of those who have been tranquilized by alcohol, drugs, and other
chemicals. This contrived peace is only an illusion. As one man said when he
regained sobriety, "There is no problem so bad that drinking cannot make
it worse." We read the scores of testimonies from the drug addicts who
have found their way out of the chemical jungle. We hear the stories of the
alcoholics who have regained sobriety. We listen to the tales of the numerous
people who sought "peace of mind" through material wealth. All of
these people scream out to our world that this contrived peace is synthetic and
illusionary. They continue to worn the world about living on the Good Friday
side of life.
When the resurrected Christ bursts through
the doors, we have erected and invades our lives, we
know the true peace.
How often have we dreamed
that we could build peace through world organizations such as "The League
of Nations," the "United Nations," and the "
Jesus assures us that His peace is quite
different. It usually occurs when life has met some very troubled moments and
then this mysterious presence of peace invades our spirit and surpasses all
understanding. It is times like these when life seems to be tumbling in upon us
that I think of Jesus standing in that boat on the storm-tossed Sea of Galilee
and He speaks the words, "Peace, be still!" Dramatically that angry
sea grows calm.
I read the story of a family that had lived
in
One night during the great confusion of such
an alert the family became separated. When the all clear was given the father
and son searched frantically for the mother and daughter. They returned to
their home to see the roof gutted by a bomb and there under all the rubble were
the bodies of the mother and daughter. For some strange reason they never got
to the shelter. The husband collapsed in grief. But as he wept over his wife
and daughter, he suddenly discovered his son was missing. Desperately he looked
for his boy and found him out in the garden looking up at the sky. Quietly the
father stood beside his son and took his hand into his own. Looking up at his
father, the little boy said, "It is going to be all right, daddy. God is
hanging out the stars again."
The father claimed that faith was born in him
at that moment and his spirit was flooded with peace. He recalled the words of
Jesus. "When things are at their very worst, look up, for your salvation
is at hand."
Jesus also promises that "If a man loves
me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him
and make our home with him." When the Father and the Son make their homes
in our lives, there is peace at last!
When we fail to keep His Word, His peace
eludes us and we go into hiding. What great joy is ours when Christ bursts
through the doors we have erected and we too possess that "peace which
passes all understanding." Two people come to my mind in this regard. On a
particular occasion I had an individual ask me to conduct the funeral for a
loved one in his family. He announced that this loved one of his was an atheist
and that he wanted no singing, and just something brief. After wrestling with
what he had said, I proceed to outline a brief service. But during the service
I did plan a brief meditation to proclaim the Gospel and explaining our hope as
Christian. After the service this individual thanked me for the service. He
explained I needed to hear that message. Jesus Christ can bring peace even in
the most troubling times.
In contrast to that experience is the one
Minton C. Johnston tells about in his book The Noise in the Sky. As a
boy of seventeen, he and his brother represented the family at his father's funeral.
He explained, "I endured the services in the house and at the church. I
hardly heard the words of the eulogy, thought how vague was the solo,
'Beautiful Isle of Somewhere," and then sat unthinking through the slow
procession to the cemetery." Then writes
One might say that both of these people
mentioned in these two illustrations came to the Easter side of life. We learn
from such experiences that true peace comes only as we live our lives in Jesus
Christ. There is no other source of peace than what we obtain by abiding in
Christ Jesus and keeping His Word. Have you had the Easter experience? Do you
know peace, true peace? Man cannot concoct peace, the world cannot give it, and
armies cannot capture it. Only Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace, can bestow
it. He stands at the door of our hearts now, knocking and pleading to enter. If
we are to have peace, He must have us. We must give all to Him, our hopes, our
plans, our will, and our future.
"The peace of God, which passes all
understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.