God’s Peace

Of late we have heard much about “Peace Talk.” So many wars are being waged around our world with the only benefactors being the big arms manufacturers.

There’s a world leader at present, obsessed by peace, demanding that he be awarded a “Peace Price.” He seems to think that peace can come from waging war! But true peace, the peace that passes understanding can only come from God. It’s a peace that always, is not self-serving, bound up in ego, a peace that reaches out to others in love.

And it is Paul in our reading this morning Romans 5: 1-5 who says “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Not a peace that comes through diplomacy. Not a peace that comes by committee. Not a peace that comes and goes. Not a peace that gives men and women time to plot another war, but a peace that brings us into a free and certain connection with the God who made each of us. Not a secular, tentative peace, but a peace of mind and spirit that flows from faith and works its way into the world through the faithfulness of the people of God who choose the cross before the sword, who chose service before self-interest.

And Paul can’t tell us enough about this peace that comes on God’s terms. It’s a peace that comes from grace, he says. God’s limitless grace.

It’s like standing in the rain as it bursts from heaven. You get soaked to the skin, bathed by the fragrant rain, chilled by its coolness and cleansed by its flow. It requires no effort to get wet. It simply rains on you.

Oh, that that peace-rain might fall on our world today.