Tuesday, April 26, 2022
This Represents Well How We Live
Stormy With Others,
Exposed by the Light,
Always in Conflict,
In the Dark!
.
.
.
This Represents Well How Christ Frees Us to Live,
at Peace
With Ourselves,
and With Others.
Psalm 89:49
Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Words of Grace For Today
Sunday afternoon two men show up in a big 2500 pickup truck having plowed their way through huge gullies of water, ice, slush and mud to park in the snow just off the lake. They say as explanation that they have been away working up north (one presumes Fort McMurray, though it could be lots of different places up north) and they have come for some peace away from their women. [Their own description and words, not mine at all.]
This is a common explanation of men (and women) who come out here to the sacred ground (that is also so desecrated by abuse of the land and of the people themselves who show up here to ‘party’), namely that they come here to get away from [fill in the people supposedly closest to them] so that they can have some peace.
Jesus shows up where the disciples are gathered behind locked doors out of fear for their lives and offers first, “Peace be with you!”
Jesus knows what the disciples need first and foremost. Jesus knows what we need first and foremost. Jesus knows we need first and foremost an overriding sense of peace, a peace that cannot be shaken by whatever comes our way.
It is an honest observation about humans that we thirst for peace, well most of us. There are some who only thirst for violence and blood and destruction and power. Most of us, though, thirst for peace. Soldiers write that their enduring dream and motivation in fighting battles in horrid conditions, experiencing abominations no one should ever have to witness, is that they want to live, at home, with their loved ones, quietly and peacefully.
It is an honest and depressingly sad commentary on us humans that given the opportunity to live at home with our loved ones, we are unable to find peace with each other. We need to be apart, away from the strife, in order to find any peace at all.
What is it with us, the vast majority of us, that we thirst for peace, and yet given every opportunity to live it with our loved ones, we end up in conflict with them, they with us, and we flee?
The Psalmist wrote on a larger scale, bemoaning the loss of a kingdom ruled by David, and Israel’s being ruled by foreign powers. We can cry these same words to God with reference to how we live with each other at home, in our faith communities, in our neighbourhoods and villages, and in our provinces, states, and countries: Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
Where indeed is God’s promise that we can live in peace with each other?
I would guess that God actually never promised us this, and Jesus certainly does not promise us this. Jesus provides for us 1) freedom from our sin and guilt so that 2) we can live with gratitude for all that God has done, is doing, and promises to do for us and so that 3) we can serve others with gentle grace, forgiveness and love, starting with those closest to us and not ending at all. It is our Christ-bought-and-freely-given way of being towards all people.
The wages of sin are death, and we see that in our inability to live at peace with those closest to us: the greatest impediment to living at peace with others is (not that they are such imperfect, terrible people but) that they reflect back to us our own imperfections and terrible sinfulness (especially that we do such terrible things to the people we love – and what kind of horrendous people are we to do such terrible things to our beloved!) It is living with others that our true selves are unavoidably presented to us.
So we run away.
So we blame our beloved (as if they were the cause of us being such terrible people!)
So we begin to descend into a life of lies about ourselves and others, and here we see the wages of sin: it is a slow, miserable death, bit by bit of our souls are lost until though we walk and talk, we are dead through and through inside.
How can we live given we are such miserable sinners (actually we are excellent sinners, and miserable people!)??
Only by Grace can we live at all.
Only by Grace can we find peace with ourselves and with our beloved.
Only by Grace.
For the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And that is the promise given to David and all others through all generations.
We can live in Peace! Even with those closest to us.
So what are we waiting for?!
Today, be Christ’s Peace for those closest to you. It’s free, so why not!