The Offer of Peace Keith M. McFarren April 14, 2024 Luke 24: 36b-48 A United Methodist minister told me the other day that he believed you can be a Christian and not go to church.He said that you can be a Christian and have a relationship with Jesus Christ and yet stay home and never set foot in a church and still go to heaven when you die. Now whether or not you believe that is up to you.We aren’t here to debate that this morning. But what I do want to talk about for a minute or two this morning is “why we should go to church.”The church can add more to your life than you could ever imagine and until you get involved with the people of the church and the activities the church has to offer you are missing out on an important part of life.There is a void within our lives that needs to be filled and it’s my belief that the church and its people can fill that void. The church brings us together as a people of faith, and it forms us into a community of believers that works together to not only make our community and our world a better place but to also makes each one of us better people mentally, physically, and spiritually. The church offers us the opportunity to go outside of ourselves and outside of our comfort zone and get involved in lives of others. I cannot imagine being sick or having a death in the family or going through a difficult time and not having the church and its people there to help you find the peace and the comfort you need to make it through the deepest, darkest valley that you have ever been in. Can you be a Christian and not go to church?Maybe.But God wants us to be involved as his people and with his people because together we form the body of Christ…and as the Body of Christ, we work together and we learn together and we develop together as a community of faith to serve God, to serve others, and to serve and care about each other in whatever way we can. The church I served in South Bend had a Pass the Peace time at the beginning of their worship service.It got to the point that I couldn’t get them to stop visiting with each other…so I got a little bell and at the end of three minutes I would ring the bell and everyone would go back to their seat. I gave them a hard time about it every week but I really wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.It was Dorothy Sisk who told me that “that’s what we do best as United Methodists, we talk and we eat.” I liked to stand up there and watch them every week because it was part of what we were all about…it was about community and it was about fellowship…and they were serious about what they were doing.I could tell that they cared about each other and that they loved each other and they wanted the best for each other and above all else I could tell that they really wanted every person there that day to be filled with the peace of God…the type of peace that moves into our hearts and offers comfort in place of conflict. The disciple’s lives were filled with conflict – maybe chaos would be a better word.Early on, things were going good for them and then all of a sudden it was like someone opened the flood gates and bad things just started happening. Jesus started talking about leaving them and then he started talking about dying. Then Judas betrayed Jesus and Jesus was arrested and crucified and in the meantime they all ended up abandoning Jesus because they were afraid they too would be arrested and crucified. There was this tremendous feeling of guilt and anger for abandoning Jesus while at the same time they had to be grieving heavily for their friend who was tortured and crucified and amid their fear and their grieving, they looked up and there he stood.Right in front of them.9 Amidst all the turmoil, amidst all the chaos and fear and grief Jesus appeared.At the lowest point in any of their lives Jesus appeared.And what does he say?The first word out of his mouth is “Peace.” “Peace.”More than anything, that is what he wanted for his disciples. This is also what Jesus wants for us. This is what Jesus wants us to experience in our lives and this is exactly what Jesus can give to us – Peace.Amid all that the world throws at us; amid all the troubles and fears and chaos and grief that we are faced with, Jesus wants us experience the peace of mind and the peace in our hearts that only he can give. He wants us to experience the type of inner peace that can only be obtained when Jesus is at the center of our lives and Jesus is in control of our lives. The author of the Book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon, wanted peace in his life, but he wanted to do it his way so he tried to find the type of peace the world offers and went to every extreme known to mankind to get the type of peace he was looking for. Solomon received the gift of wisdom from God but even that didn’t give him peace…because he looked for peace and happiness and contentment by seeking the pleasures of this world and he ended up hating his life. He tried to find peace in his life by working long, hard hours trying to earn as much money as he could and own as many possessions as possible, only to find out that they would all be left behind on the day that he died. Solomon looked for peace in status and wealth and possessions and found out that it was like “chasing the wind” in that you can never catch hold of it long enough to get what you want out of it. Could it be that the elusive peace in Solomon’s life 3,000 years ago is also the elusive peace that you are trying to find to fulfill your happiness? Are you looking for peace through stuff…through money and possessions?Are we willing to work and work and work looking for peace only to find out that the kind of peace the world offers won’t be able to go with you when you die? Are you looking for the kind of peace the world offers by “chasing the wind” like Solomon did only to find out that if and when you do catch it, greed will begin take over your life and you’ll never be able to get your hands on enough of whatever it is to satisfy yourself? The only kind of peace that is going to allow you inner, spiritual tranquility is the same peace that Jesus brought with him when he stood there among the disciples that day.The peace to calm the chaos, the peace to calm the turmoil, the peace to calm the storms, the peace that turns night into day, the only real peace in our lives can come from the resurrected Christ. Nothing else can fulfill that inner need.Oh, we might think that the things of this world can give us peace but as Solomon found out that peace is only temporary and it will not last forever. But the peace that Jesus offers us, the peace of the resurrected Lord, is an inner spiritual peace that will last forever, a peace that will allow us to face the fears and the chaos of everyday life. Because of some physical disabilities, the late Steward Elliott lived in a nursing home but wrote a column for the Evansville Courier and Press called “Notes from a Nursing Home.” He writes, “It seems difficult to remember that the peace and happiness process begins and ends with the individual – with you.Because we were happy together, my wife and I were happy in Chicago, New Harmony, Indiana, San Francisco and here at the nursing home.We didn’t find happiness in any of those places; we took it with us. Is it perfect happiness?No, it isn’t.Perfect happiness is reserved for heaven.Somewhere I have written that if you go searching for happiness, it is sure to elude you.But if [give your life to Jesus, and] you follow the road that [God puts before] you, you will find it along the way.In that sense, it may vary from most of our goals.Some natural law that I do not pretend to understand says that if we stay cheerful and positive and have a clearly defined goal, all the forces of nature, [with God’s help and God’s love] will push us in the right direction (Elkhart Truth, April 26, 2006). I can’t imagine being stuck in a nursing home and having all of your faculties as Mr. Elliott did, and still have a positive attitude.That’s because he believed that if you follow God down the right road, he’ll take care of you.Here was a man that was at peace with himself; at peace with the world and at peace with God simply because he had accepted the gift of peace that God offered him. The peace of God, is the harmony and calmness of body, mind, and spirit that supersedes all earthly circumstances.It’s a tranquil state of appreciation and faith we receive when we submit to and trust in the commandments of God. The neat part is…the closer we move to him, the more of his peace we will be able to experience.“Come near to God and he will come near to you,” James tells us (James 4:8).And because God is inherently peaceful, then to accept God is to live in his peace.Which means then that the nearer we move to him, the more of his peace we will be able to experience.The closer we are to him the more we will begin to recognize that he really will make all things work together for our good and that his offering of peace is a blessing from God that is harmonious with his character. Jesus’ followers are portrayed as people who thought that Good Friday was the end.The end of Jesus and the end of the story.They doubted that the crucified Jesus was really raised from the dead.They doubted that God really did defeat death and evil.They even doubted that the women who told them that Jesus was alive even knew what they were talking about. But when the resurrected Jesus appeared to them and offered them his presence and his peace, their trust in Jesus was immediately fulfilled because their potential for peaceful living and eternal life, both here and in heaven, was assured. That’s why Jesus said “look at my hands and my feet.Go ahead, touch me, and see.”Getting in touch with Jesus, being at peace with Jesus, through communion and through the spiritual disciplines of worship and prayer and bible study and fellowship, these are the things that allow a person to live triumphantly amid the meanness and the anger and the hatred that accompanies us through life. We need to live through the Gospel.We need to remember the Gospel and we need to remember Jesus.We need to remember how he conquered death and how he assured us that through our faith, we too would conquer death as well.We also need to remember his resurrected greeting to his disciples of, “Peace be with you.” The only thing that makes any of this Easter stuff believable is knowing that the Resurrection was real. Christ has come back to us and he’s offered his very body as tangible proof to us to prove that he is alive.He has shared his food with us, he has spoken to us, he has taught us and he has offered us the opportunity to live our lives just as he lived his…through a life of peace. May Jesus’ words of “Peace be with you” be a sign of your belief in the resurrection. May it be a sign of your belief in eternal life. May it be a sign of your love for your fellow man. And may God’s Peace, a peace that passes all understanding, be with each of you, now and forever. |