'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you' (John 14.27). 'Go forth in peace, hallelujah, hallelujah! Thanks be to God, hallelujah!' So we'll say at the end of the service, reminding us of two things: first, we're still in the middle of the Easter celebration - that's why we say 'hallelujah' - and second, we are - as always - sent out in peace. After every Eucharist. 'Peace': it's a popular concept, one so prevalent these days that I wonder if we ever stop to think about it. So, if we pause right now and ponder, I suppose for a definition we'll likely come up with something like what was declared sixty-five years ago on VE day. In other words, 'peace' is the opposite of 'war'. And while that gives us a good starting point, I want to focus a bit more on it because 'peace' is the kind of concept that our faith cannot do without. One need only think of Paul, who begins nearly every letter with some variation of, 'Grace and peace to you from God our Father'. We don't even need to stick with Paul. Let's look at our own liturgy, the one we're right in the middle of.
The first explicit mention of 'peace' is in the Gloria: 'Glory be to God in the highest, and in earth peace, goodwill towards men' (and women we should add). In a moment, we'll share with one another a sign of peace, a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of the church. And just before we take the Eucharist, we will sing the Agnus Dei, a prayer asking the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world to have mercy upon us and to grant us his peace. After the celebration of the Eucharist, we will receive a blessing, which involves God's peace - which passes all understanding - keeping our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God. The service ends - as I said above - with us being sent out in peace, for which we give thanks to God. And, in case you who don't know, the people who serve at the altar finish the service in prayer, where we pray for the souls of the faithful departed, that they may rest in peace and rise in glory. You see, peace permeates the entirety of our liturgy. It is inseparable from our faith, and it is what Jesus, in the Gospel this morning, says he gives to us. So what exactly is it? I would like to suggest that by paying close attention to today's passages, we can deepen our understanding a bit.
The fact is: all three of our readings stand in some tension with one another. If you were to go home and pick up your Bibles and have a close read of the passages, you might notice two things: there's a tension between John and Revelation about who those on the 'inside' are, and there is a tension in Revelation between things happening now and things that will happen in the future. To figure out what 'peace' is, I propose we start with these two places of tension. What we'll find is that there is a connection between what God is doing and what God will do, and what we are now doing.
So, the tension between John and Revelation about those who are on the 'inside' and those who are not. In our Gospel reading, Jesus responds to a question from a disciple: 'Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?' (John 14.22). He responds with the words we heard a few moments ago: 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him and we will come to him and we will make our home with him' (14.23). Here, then, the picture is one where there is a correct response - keeping the words of Jesus - and subsequent to that, one receives the love of God. Certainly, John has passages that speak of God's love for the world, but at this point in our reading, the focus is on Christ manifesting himself to a few, seemingly at the expense of others.
If we compare this to the reading in Revelation, however, we find a slightly different picture. There, John is in the midst of a prophetic vision, and what he sees is the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. And what draws this into tension with the Gospel is that the kings of the earth will bring their glory to it, and its gates will never be closed. Indeed, the leaves of the tree of life bring healing for the nations (Rev. 21.24, 22.2). And while John elsewhere in Revelation does suggest that some will be left outside the gates of the city, the main image here is one of renewal and hope for all the nations. Not just for the apostles, and not just for the saints. There is a movement, from God, whose glory lights the city, to the Lamb, who is the lamp of the city. The two of them shine one light on the new Jerusalem and its inhabitants; the city, in turn, shines light on the other nations. In other words, the movement is from the new Jerusalem out to the rest of creation. Think about Paul in the reading from Acts this morning. In a vision, a Macedonian man asks for help, and what does Paul do? He and Luke and Silas and Timothy change their plans and go to Macedonia to share the good news of the Gospel, the good news that in Christ God is reconciling the world to himself. In other words, Paul doesn't just sit there; he goes out. Literally, in fact. In the reading, he walks out of the gates of the city to the river and shares the Gospel with Lydia (Acts 16.13-14).
So, there is a tension between John and Revelation - one suggests that there is some kind of boundary around the disciples, while the other that the gates of the city are open - but it is a tension that can be explained by an image found in both John and Revelation: the image of light. As John tells us at the beginning of his Gospel, Jesus is the true light that comes into the world. He shines, as it were, on his disciples so that they themselves shine. The tension draws our attention to the fact that we, like the disciples, have been enlightened by the true light of the world - have seen how things really are - and now should go out like Paul and explain how this is the case, to go out and help make it the case.
And that brings us to the second tension of the morning, which is in Revelation, a tension between things happening now and things that will happen later. When John the Seer is taken up to the top of a great, high mountain, he sees the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven from God. The tense of the verb is what is interesting: John sees something that is presently happening. He's getting a glimpse of the true nature of reality: the new Jerusalem is in the process of coming down currently. But by the end of the passage, there is an emphasis on the fact that when the new Jerusalem has arrived, then the nations will come to it; its gates will not be shut. Then, the nations will be healed by the leaves of the tree of life. All of the verb tenses suggest that this hasn't come to pass yet. The servants of God who will worship him in the city and see him face-to-face cannot do so now. So there is a reality that is coming to pass at this moment - the new Jerusalem is coming - but it has still not fully arrived. There is some sense in which we must hold out hope for what is coming. But there is an even greater sense where we, like John, have seen how things really are - the advent of the new Jerusalem has begun - and we should therefore go into the world, shining the light of Christ. We, the Body of Christ, are the new Jerusalem that is in the process of arriving. We stand in the place of Paul, witnesses to the world of what God in Christ has done and is doing.
And here we finally make it back round to 'peace'. When Jesus says to his disciples and to us, 'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you', he is not saying that we're finished and safe on the inside, while everyone else is on the outside. What he's saying is that we have what he was sent into the world to bring - fellowship with God and with one another. That is why he goes on to talk about returning to the Father. The true light has come into the world and dispelled the darkness of death, recreating the world from the inside. When he returns to the Father, the Spirit - the Advocate whom the Father sends to us - can come and lead us into all truth so that we can go out and teach others and begin to show them the way the world really is, to teach them what God has done for them, to teach them that he has brought and is bringing peace to them, no matter what the world might look like. There is a new Jerusalem coming down from heaven because of what God in Christ did, because of what God in Christ through the Spirit is now doing in the world through us, bringing to fruition the new heaven and new earth that was glimpsed in the resurrection, the event we have been celebrating now for six weeks. The gates of the new Jerusalem are open; all the nations are welcome now and will one day actually come inside and dwell in harmony and see their God face-to-face.
There are two aspects to peace then: first, God has reconciled us to himself through Christ. Peace is fellowship with the one who created us in an overflow of love and saved us when we wanted nothing to do with him. And second, because of this, we now have peace with one another through the Holy Spirit. That's why we pass the peace before the Eucharist. But we are not a closed off city; we don't hoard this peace for ourselves. We are dismissed - 'Go forth in peace' - because we are meant to be shining God's light on the rest of the world as we are caught up in the advent of the new Jerusalem. The true light of the world shines into darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. That is the foundation of peace. And it is this peace with God the Father and with one another that Christ gives us, that the Holy Spirit continues to bring about through us.
Amen.
Sermon by: Jake Andrews