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Pax Vobiscum. Peace be with you. Peace. Wow! Peace is pretty hard to come by these days, isn’t it? Is that even a thing anymore? How is peace even possible when our world is in flames? How can we have peace when there are riots and rebellions and chaos and corruption in our cities? How can we have peace when the two major political parties are at each other’s throats, unable and unwilling to compromise and cooperate for the good of our country? How can there be peace with the saber-rattling of Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia? How can there be peace with terrorist groups proliferating and infiltrating the porous southern border of our country? Our world is not a peaceful place by any stretch of the imagination. The devil is alive and well and seemingly having a field day right now, isn’t he? How can we find peace when peace is so elusive and evasive?
Interestingly, Jesus told us this would happen, and He didn’t beat around the bush: In the world you will have trouble. More and more, the world is at war with us Christians. In days gone by, we were only marginalized and minimized as being hopelessly out-of-touch and out-of-date. Our morals, values, and ethics were ridiculed and rejected as relics from the past. Now, in some places, even in America, Christians are being assaulted and assassinated just because they are Christians and conservatives. It is true: “In the world you will have trouble.” It’s happening!
Jesus told us it would happen. But He didn’t tell us that stuff to make us afraid. He told us that because He DIDN’T want us to be afraid. He told us that because He loves us and doesn’t want us to focus on the peripheral piffle, all the stuff that is going on around us. He knows the devil uses those things as distractions, diversions, and detours to lead us away from Him. No, Jesus wants us to look to Him, to fix and focus our eyes on Him. He holds Himself in contrast to the world: “In the world you will have trouble…in Me you may have peace.”
Saints, this world isn’t where it’s at or what it’s all about for us Christians. Jesus’ kind of peace isn’t world peace. It’s not peace between nations or peace between races or peace between political parties or peace between peoples or churches, or families. It is a peace knowing that peace has been made between God and man by the life and death of Jesus. It is a peace of heart and soul and mind knowing that our sins have been forgiven. And so, we can have peace in the middle of a raging storm; we can have peace amid peril; and we can have peace in the midst of colossal chaos and confusion all around us.
My first church was a beautiful little church perched on a mountainside in Eagle River, AK. That meant we were far from the Midwest, where my Green Bay Packers play. That also meant that NFL games often began at 9:00 a.m. Alaska time. By the time many of my members would get to church at 10:30 a.m., it was almost halftime, so they would know the score of the game. I had a member with one of those giant satellite dishes about the size of a small house. He would record the games for me, so I had to swear the rest of the church to silence because many of them were Midwest transplants and also were Packer fans. Despite my elaborate instructions to keep the score out of earshot, sometimes I would catch wind of what was happening in the game. Sometimes, the guy who recorded the games for me would let it slip as well. While I loved the excitement of not knowing and experiencing the game as though it were live, I have to admit that I secretly kind of liked knowing ahead of time when the Packers were going to win. The fumbles, the interceptions, and the incomplete passes didn’t bother me so much then. I could just relax and watch the game, knowing what the result was going to be. No stress. No anxiety. No yelling at the TV. Just peace. I knew how it was going to end. The Packers win!
Guess what, Saints! As horrible and horrendous as things sometimes get this side of heaven, we know how this is all going to end. “I have overcome the world.” Game over. Jesus wins! Because He wins, we win! We don’t need to be troubled by riots and rebellions in the big cities of our country. We don’t need to wonder about this school year or worry about the presidential election. We don’t need to sit at the edge of our seats with anxiety and worry. God’s got this, and He’s got us too! We know how it’s going to end. We know the final score. The battle is over. The victory is won! Jesus won! And because He did, we do, too.
That is precisely where our peace lies. Peace. We can’t find it in a pill, a prescription, or a program...only in a person. In Jesus. In Jesus’ victory over sin, death, and the devil. In Jesus’ overcoming of the world. “In Me you may find peace.” Only Jesus can provide peace in the pandemic, safety in the storm, and calm in the chaos. The only thing that provides peace in these perilous times is the cross of Christ. My friends, that’s what we are here to do: to look to the cross and to lift high the cross...in our own lives and in the lives of our students. That’s our only reason for being as a school: Proclaiming Jesus Christ! That’s Job One!
As we begin a new school year with more questions than answers, with more uncertainty than certainty, we can find true peace only when we turn in faith to the cross and to the promise of Jesus: “In Me you may have peace...I have overcome the world.” Saints, we’ve got a big job to do: students to teach, faiths to feed, and souls to secure for Christ. Jesus says, Take heart; Be courageous! We can boldly enter this new school year despite all that is broken and wrong in the world around us because we know how it is going to end! Jesus wins! And so do we! So peace be with you. Amen.
Dear Jesus, sometimes we don’t know where to turn for peace; everywhere we look, things are mixed up, upside down, inside out, and backward. When we look out at our broken world today, it is easy to get depressed, anxious, and worried about our future. Then we hear Your Word tell us: “Be courageous! Take heart! I have overcome the world.” That’s so cool, God! We don’t have to worry or wonder about the future. We already know how this ends. You won, so we win, too. We can truly “take heart” knowing that You have overcome the world. We are so grateful that You have allowed us to come to know You. We want to spend the rest of our days getting to know You better and better each day. But that’s not the only thing You want us to do. You’ve given us the huge assignment of sharing Your Word with the world -- and right now, our world consists of the students and their families, as well as the faculty and staff here at Crean Lutheran. You have promised us a peace that passes all human understanding: the peace of heart and soul and mind that comes from knowing how this whole thing is going to turn out, from knowing that You have overcome the world. And because You have, we will too! Thank You, Jesus! Amen.
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