Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God
- Jesus
These words of Jesus are very telling indeed! On one level, they address the evil and violence in our hearts. Jesus knows that we are bent on destruction. Each day, we cause harm to ourselves, to other people, and to God’s larger creation. But Jesus' words also call us to a new and better way of living. Jesus calls us to turn from our destructive ways and to become a peaceable people.
In this season of Lent God is calling us to humbly acknowledge our sin, to turn from it, and to become his agents of peace in the world!
The morning of Friday, February 15th was not unlike most mornings – I woke up, gave my two year-old son a bottle, got ready for work, drove to my office, and I eventually checked my email. That’s when my day took a turn. I opened an email that brought the tragic reality of the recent shooting at the University of Northern Illinois to my attention. The shooting happened on February 14th in a university lecture hall as students were attending an oceanography class. The gunman, who killed himself, was a graduate student in sociology. The shooting resulted in 7 fatalities, over a dozen serious injuries, and an untold amount of grief. Lord have mercy!
But what are our reactions to yet another violent act on the campus of a North American University? Does this act provoke a sense of hopelessness in us? Does it cause us to feel helpless in the face of evil? Or does this act simply work to confirm the entrenched numbness and apathy that so often defines our existence?
As we read the story of Jesus in the Gospels, we come to a startling realization: In a world where the human response to injustice is most often to either ignore it, hide from it, or carry out further acts of injustice, God sends his Son to die under the weight of sin and to rise in newness of life.
Christ’s death on the cross announces that God has dealt decisively, personally, and powerfully with the problem of evil. Paradoxically, God triumphs over the power of evil and reconciles creation to himself through the violence of the cross. Thus, we worship a God who enters the pain and absorbs the evil of the world. Through Jesus’ suffering and death, God took upon himself the weight of the world’s sin. And through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, God established peace in the world – a peace that must now be implemented by Jesus’ followers.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” says Jesus.
It is our responsibility to “make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy” (Hebrews 12.14). God is calling us to choose love over power, the cross over control, and peace over revolt.
And so, in the face of all tragedy and injustice, let us first take the posture of humility by acknowledging that we are part of the destruction against which we protest. Let us confess that our hearts are bent on destruction and let us receive God’s forgiveness, knowing that “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all injustice” (1 John 1.9). And as we do this, let us embrace the task of peacemaking, knowing that God’s Spirit is renewing our hearts and is working through us to bring God’s peaceable rule to bear in the world.
In this season of Lent, let us realize that there is hope for our world. This hope is seen most clearly in the face of the crucified and risen Messiah Jesus and in the faces of all who truly follow him!
A Lenten Prayer:
“Out of the depths of our being, we cry to God for peace. Out of that fearful place where we have to confess that we too are part of the destruction against which we are protesting. Out of that center where we discover that we too are so high up in the air that we have become numb and no longer see, feel, and hear the agony of thousands…Out of that empty spot of silence where we feel helpless, embarrassed, and powerless, where we suffer from our own impotence to stop the reign of death in our world…we cry to the Lord and say: ‘Lord have mercy.’”
Henri Nouwen, The Road to Peace
February 26, 2008
February 16, 2008
Lent 1: Is Following Jesus Hard or Easy?
C.S. Lewis says, “The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down…Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’ Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do.” (Mere Christianity, 196-7)
Have you ever pondered this seemingly odd juxtaposition in the teachings of Jesus? At one point he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” And at another point he says, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Read Matthew 10.38-39; 11.30.
The way of Christ is harder and easier than what we are trying to do. This is one of the many deep mysteries of the Christian life and we would be wise to give it careful consideration in this season of Lent.
For those of you who are not familiar with the season of Lent, it is the forty-day liturgical season before Easter. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan (the Accuser). Read Matthew 4.1-11. The purpose of Lent is to prepare believers - through prayer, fasting, confession of sin, and sacrificial giving - for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the death of the Messiah Jesus, which culminates on Easter Sunday with the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
During the season of Lent, let us look to God’s Spirit as we consider how Jesus has made our lives both easier and harder.
Through his life, death, and resurrection Jesus has opened wide the door of salvation for us and has freed us from the curse of sin and death. And so, life is easier for believers because God is at work in us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In Christ, God is accomplishing our salvation. As the apostle Paul says, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15.54-57)
But our new life in Christ is also harder than what many people are doing because God now calls us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2.13-14). Our responsibility as followers of Christ is to be holy as the Lord our God is holy. And this task is possible only because God is at work in us. Because God’s new creation is bursting into the present world, we are called by God to work out the salvation that he is accomplishing in us. Yes, the victory is ours in Jesus Christ. But that victory must be lovingly and peacefully implement in the world through we who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
“Therefore, my beloved brothers and sister, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15.58). As God’s new creations in Jesus Christ, may this be our focus and passion in this Lenten season and always!
Have you ever pondered this seemingly odd juxtaposition in the teachings of Jesus? At one point he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” And at another point he says, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Read Matthew 10.38-39; 11.30.
The way of Christ is harder and easier than what we are trying to do. This is one of the many deep mysteries of the Christian life and we would be wise to give it careful consideration in this season of Lent.
For those of you who are not familiar with the season of Lent, it is the forty-day liturgical season before Easter. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan (the Accuser). Read Matthew 4.1-11. The purpose of Lent is to prepare believers - through prayer, fasting, confession of sin, and sacrificial giving - for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the death of the Messiah Jesus, which culminates on Easter Sunday with the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
During the season of Lent, let us look to God’s Spirit as we consider how Jesus has made our lives both easier and harder.
Through his life, death, and resurrection Jesus has opened wide the door of salvation for us and has freed us from the curse of sin and death. And so, life is easier for believers because God is at work in us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In Christ, God is accomplishing our salvation. As the apostle Paul says, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15.54-57)
But our new life in Christ is also harder than what many people are doing because God now calls us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2.13-14). Our responsibility as followers of Christ is to be holy as the Lord our God is holy. And this task is possible only because God is at work in us. Because God’s new creation is bursting into the present world, we are called by God to work out the salvation that he is accomplishing in us. Yes, the victory is ours in Jesus Christ. But that victory must be lovingly and peacefully implement in the world through we who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
“Therefore, my beloved brothers and sister, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15.58). As God’s new creations in Jesus Christ, may this be our focus and passion in this Lenten season and always!
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