Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

Jesus the Peacemaker

Pastor Robarge’s Sermon

Lent, Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Peace is often described as a relationship that is lived harmoniously without stress, without anxiety. Is this the peace that you know? We look around in our world today. We see the things that are happening. We look at the wars that we are in, Iraq, Afghanistan. We look at the conflicts that are happening around the world. We see who’s on our radars right now. North Korea, Iran, China. It’s an endless list.

Peace. And yet here we are, we look not just in our world but we just look in the United States. We find out that peace is gone. We find out and we look around and we say that beliefs and attitudes and ideas are becoming so polarized and when we say, “Well, I believe this and you believe this,” but when you lose the debate, all of a sudden, the other side becomes a demon and demonize them and you push them away. It’s becoming us versus them. There’s no peace.

We look at family relationships. Peace doesn’t exist there. A lot of families we see in our world today where problems are occurring, battles are existing right there in the family home. It can cause all kinds of problems. Maybe you can look at yourself today and say, “I have a lot of stuff that I’m dealing with in here, turmoil, anxiety, doubt. Does peace exist?”

As we look around and we see the world and the things that are happening, we say, “Does peace exist anywhere?” We’ve tried to figure out ways of dealing with peace, right. We go about it and we see we’ve tried to deal with this. If you remember, back in 1873, there was a man by the name of Samuel Colt. He came out with the revolver and he called it the peacemaker. He said, “No longer is there one man who can be stronger than another, who can take this weakness and utilize it against him. This is the gun that’s going to make things equal.”

Ronald Reagan in the ‘80’s had a new missile that he came out with and he put it out there and he called it the peacekeeper because he said, “Once the people notice and see that we have this new missile-guided defense system and all kinds of stuff, people are going to be left in line. They’re going to be in check. No one’s going to want us to use the missile, so it’s a peacekeeper.

We even see that police officers at one time were called peace officers. A man carrying around a gun and a club keeps the peace.

Do you see the way we’re going about trying to keep the peace? Guns, missiles. This kind of peace is taking it and saying, “Well, peace comes with fear, anxiety and that’s the way you’re going to see peace.” Is that the way we want to see peace? Is that the way you’re going to feel peace within yourself? “Yeah, we’re all at peace but only through fear.”

Tonight we see something different. Tonight we see that peace is not fear but it’s in Jesus Christ that we see that He is the peacemaker. The prophet, Isaiah, talks about this in Chapter 53 when he talks about Jesus being the peacemaker and it says in Chapter 53 starting with Verse 5, “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with His wounds we are healed.” Did you catch that part? It was this that brought peace to us. It wasn’t through warfare. It wasn’t through fear, anxiety and all this other stuff that was coming into it. It was when Christ went to the cross, He created peace for us.

Jesus is that peacemaker. He makes peace within us through His death on the cross. It’s no longer sin then that’s what is keeping us from God. He became sin who knew no sin so that we might become righteous. You see, in our world, what happens is when we try to figure out these other ways of peace, when we try to figure out that peace can come through this way or through that way, it always comes to a dead end. It’s kind of like this analogy when you have this mountain stream that comes down and everyone likes to drink from the mountain stream water, beautiful water. But what happens when the spring bursts, it’s contaminated and it leaks into this mountain stream. You can spend millions and millions of dollars trying to un‑contaminate this mountain spring and get it fresh again but until you deal with the source, until you go back to the source where the contaminant is, it’s pointless.

And that’s what we do tonight. We go back to the source, the maker of peace. And we see that when Jesus went to that cross and when we start to look at that next week in Holy Week when we prepare that journey with Christ to the cross, we see it’s there we can find peace. When we return to the source, that’s where we find peace.

But now what do we do with it? This is what Jesus did with His disciples. In Matthew 10, Jesus was sending out His disciples because He had a message that He wanted them to bring to the towns and the villages, so this is what happened. He says, “Acquire no gold, no silver, no copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, no tunics, no sandals nor staff for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy and stay there until you depart. As you enter his house, greet it and if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it’s not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.” So when Jesus encounters and when He talks to His disciples and He says, “Now that I’ve given you the message of peace, this is what I want you to do with it.” He doesn’t say, “The peace is all within here and now I told you whatever you want.” But He tells the disciples this very important information. He says the kingdom of God is near. The reign is found in Jesus Christ. Now go out and share this message. He says, “The peace that I have is yours.” And He continues in the gospel of John, “These things I’ve spoken to you while I’m still with you but the help for the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all the things, bring to remembrance all that I’ve said to you.” And He says this, ‘Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.’” And then this is where He distinguishes it. He says, “The peace that I leave with you is not as the world gives. Let not your heart be troubled and neither let them be afraid.”

This message of peace as we go back to the source tonight and we see that Jesus is the peacemaker, when He gives us that peace, He says, “Now there’s something you can do with it.” We see the world’s peace through anxiety, through fear, it’s not real peace. It won’t give you that lasting peace, the lasting joy that we see. But the peace that He says I leave with you, the peace that He gives to you, it’s not as the world does. It’s not as the world gives.

There’s an example as I continue to think about the Philippians passage when it says, “The peace that surpasses all human understanding,” whenever I come across that, I keep thinking, “Well, if it surpasses all human understanding, then how can I even get it? I can’t understand it then.” But when we say that, usually at the end of the message, we hear, “The peace that surpasses all human understanding,” well, if it surpasses, I don’t get it. But it’s all human and worldly understanding.

Think about this story. The writer of a hymn It Is Well With My Soul. This is a man whose son died. He lost all of his financial wealth in the Chicago fires. He was moving his family over to Europe. His four daughters die on the way, his wife the only survivor. And he writes this hymn as he’s traveling across the great ocean and he says, “It’s well with my soul?” This doesn’t make sense to the world around us. How can a man who’s going through so much torment, through so much pain, how can he say it’s well with my soul? It doesn’t make sense. That’s what the world doesn’t get. When the peacemaker gives you peace, when He says, “The peace that I have, I give to you,” the world’s not going to understand it. But it’s for you. And He says do something with it. Take that peace and tell others. The kingdom of God is near.

And next week, when we start to experience with Jesus the very things that happened on the cross, we can hear those words echoing, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Don’t be afraid because Jesus has overcome the world.” Amen.