"Again Jesus said, 'Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.' And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"
John 20:21-22
As I thought about this Scripture this morning, I realized that peace is a very elusive thing. Jesus urges his disciples, who had recently lost their rabbi, the man they thought would save the world, and were definitely not at peace. But there is nothing the disciples have done or can do to achieve this peace on their own. Jesus bestows peace through the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. Sure, the disciples had seen their risen lord, but that certainly didn't solve all the problems they had. Now there were just more questions than answers: Where did he come from? How did he come back? Why didn't he rescue us from the Romans the first time around? Yet Jesus offers them peace. We have all received the Holy Spirit and peace in the same way. We just have to accept that life will not be perfect, and things will still go wrong. Easy enough, right? But true peace, the peace that "passes all understanding" is not affected by the day to day. It is rooted in God's awesome love, Christ's self-giving gesture, and the Spirit's constant presence. I hope I can remember that always.
No comments:
Post a Comment