June 28, 2020

Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Our first reaction to Jesus’ words is bewilderment. We are often tempted to regard this as one of the great paradoxes of the gospels and respectfully pass on to those portions of Jesus’ teaching that are more agreeable to what we prefer to hear.

Jesus did promise peace. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27 (ESV). But within the same three years of His ministry He proclaimed: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

My Sunday School teachers spent most of our time together picturing Jesus as a gentle peacemaker. But this was not the whole picture. When Jesus dealt with the poor, the ill, the sinners, the publicans, the fishermen, He spoke words of comfort and challenge, peace and promise. But when he addressed the sanctimonious, hypocritical establishment of His day, He spoke like a revolutionary. His words were like a sharp sword, slicing into the hearts of those oppressive and self-entered leaders like a knife into soft butter.

We cannot avoid or ignore the violent events that transpire around us any more than did our Lord and His faithful followers in the face of Israel’s legalism or Rome’s paganism. Our responsibility is to put our reputations, jobs, incomes, even our lives, on the line to confront violence with courage and hatred with love. We can never be perfectly at peace in a world so fraught with pain and suffering. And yet we can claim Jesus’ eternal gift of peace even as we seek out and try to heal and comfort the victims of the world’s violence.

May God comfort and strengthen us in this effort.