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.