A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus said to his disciples, peace is my farewell to you. My peace is my gift to you. I do not give peace to you as the world gives it. Do not be distressed or fearful.
You have heard me say many times, I go away for a while and then I come back to you. If you truly love me, you would rejoice to have me go to my father. For the father is greater than I. I tell you this now before it takes place so that when it does take place, you may believe. I shall not go on speaking to you longer.
The prince of this world is at hand. He has no hold over me, but the world must know that I love the father and do as the father has commanded. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
In this passage today from Saint John which is a continuation from the Gospels we've been reading it morning after morning, the emphasis this morning is on peace. And there's except for the word love in the English language, I don't guess there's any other word more often used and or abused than this little word peace. We throw it around freely, especially you know at Easter and Christmas and Anyway, everything's peace. Peace, peace, peace. You even have it on the bumper stickers for your car like I love New York.
It's in the same class you see. What do we mean when we say peace? Now this is a frightfully important question. There are many people who think who think their lives are disturbed. They think they're abnormal.
They think there's something wrong with them. They think there's something missing between their relationship with themselves and with God and on and on because they don't have this peace. What peace? What do you mean when you say I wish you the peace of Christ? Well, that's like wishing you the love of Christ.
And as CS Lewis says, you wanna be careful when that when you get it. It can be very upsetting, very upsetting. Because our Lord has said, my peace, the peace I give you is not the peace of the world. But we don't get that into our heads and our hearts and our guts. We have a sense of peace being tranquility.
As I say, on a nice balmy summer day, not with not with Washington's humidity, of course, but in a nice comfortable hammock with somebody serving you cold drinks and the bird twittering in on all that malarkey. All I can say is when Christ said, I wish you peace, I'm giving you peace. But he specifically, emphatically says, I'm giving you my peace. My peace, not the peace of the world. Now you say, well, what do you mean?
What are you giving me? Well, just look at the cross. Just read your synoptic gospels in Saint John. If you want to know what kind of peace Christ has given you, read his life. What kind of peace did he have?
Read the life of Saint Paul. Look what happened to Saint Paul. He had the peace of Christ. So he gets stoned and is left for dead. You see, we've got to get it out of our heads that this peace that we are wishing and throwing around and asking for and giving out and all that, we've got to get into our heads that it is not of this world.
Now when you say that it is not of this world, you mean it is not of this world. So that all of these things which the worldling, the secularist, the humanist, the good, honest, sincere, family loving people, and all of this, that they want and it was the way of peace, a good home, security, good education for their kids, good food, good housing, good clothing, good car, good second home, you know, on and on and on. No illness, no death, no tragedies. Beautiful. But that's not what Christ is giving you.
He's giving you the cross. Now we we may not like this. We may say this is this is a frightful doctrine. Who can bear it? That's exactly what many people said to Christ.
Who can bear it? And many turned away from him and walked no longer with him. They didn't want any parts of him. But let us realize when we say I'm a Christian, I take I'm following Christ, I want his peace. Let us know what we are saying and be prepared for what we get.
And many times it seems like a good, stiff, severe kick in the pants. And I am not exaggerating one iota bit. And if you don't believe me, you haven't begun to live. And so when we talk about the love of God and the peace of God and the peace of God and the peace of Christ and all of this, let us beware what we're doing. But let us not be afraid.
There's the point. There's the point. Turmoil, turbulence is being is very it's part of being a Christian. That's that's absolutely part of being a Christian. Unless you take up my cross and follow me, you're not my disciple.
Christ said that. Could it could anything be more clear? Could anything be more plain than that? That's his peace carrying a cross. Now let's be real.
Look at Holy Cross Hospital. Think of the people lying in that hospital right right at this moment carrying their cross. Is that peace? Most of us say we are out of your cotton picking mind. Well, they better well know that it's the peace of Christ that they are having on their hospital bed.
Remember, even the Jewish Hebrew word shalom, which is thrown around a lot just as much as the English word peace. Remember, I can give you text from the Old Testament where that word means warfare. And that's exactly it. When Erasmus, sixteenth century, when he wrote his Enpiridium, Miletus Christiani, what does he what is it? It's the weapon of the Christian soldier, And that's not a bad figure of speech.
That's the peace of Christ. It's his peace. It's being with him. It's it's living with him. It's taking what life brings with him without fear and without anxiety.
Because if you love Christ, that excludes fear. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.