Day 40 - The presence of faith

Another word that requires definition-in-use, what does ‘peace’ mean?

Remember Jeremiah 6:14 - They treated my people's wound superficially, telling them, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.

This is a criticism of those who confuse their wishes with the evidence, particularly religious people seemingly wanting to be insulated from the world, in which there is very little peace in the sense of an absence of conflict and strife. We live in circumstances much like those surrounding Jeremiah. All sorts of superficial solutions being proposed for very deep-rooted problems.

Phillipians 4:7 begins to explain what peace really means - And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Unsurprisingly, Jesus provides the whole solution in John 14:27 - Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Jesus’ peace is that which comes from faith, from knowing that the issues of the world do not define God’s peace. God’s definition is that which lasts forever.

Here comes the rub. Be patient while I explain; I have spent much of my life teaching philosophy. Often when students learn of my faith, they ask the quite reasonable question “why does a God of love and power permit so much suffering amongst the people?”. In effect they want to understand why God doesn’t just make ‘peace’ in that sense a fixed part of creation, like gravity.

I could provide the philosophical responses about free-will and so on, and when it’s part of a curriculum, I do that. However, that isn’t the full response in my opinion.

Authentic peace, that which defines a main characteristic of God, is not ‘the absence of suffering’, it is the presence of faith. Jesus and His immediate followers certainly did not avoid suffering, nor did they try to.

It comes to this: the leaders of Jeremiah’s times like those of ours remain leading only by telling people a falsehood. On its own, human nature is not nice, avarice and meaningless ambition cannot avoid creating strife. The evidence is all around.

The antidote would be, but is not currently, that people who know Christ actually take His advice and really don’t live in fear and trouble, but instead take the Peace that He alone can provide.

Imagine, a group of people expecting that the promise of the Holy Spirit will guide them exactly to where God wants them to be – even if that entails ‘hobgoblins and foul fiends’ along the way. You’ll almost certainly be constrained to imagine it as examples are rare indeed. If you succeed, you will have an image in your mind of a nonconformist meeting in which true Peace is present.

I won’t know or understand what you think that Christmas is about, but I hope that you find what you need in thinking about it. For me, it’s all about what Isaiah said –

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. [Isaiah 9:6].

That is the Peace that we need to portray. God wants the world to see it in us.

John Cartwright