Psalm 85:8-13
(READ PSALM 85:8-13)
For a long time now, I have been wanting to “speak peace” to you. I know it is not a popular subject and definitely is not the way our culture speaks. But we have been told not to live as the world lives. We are to live as Jesus lived, following His ways, using His words and the words of our Holy Bible as our guidelines in this journey we call Life.
Our God is a speaking God. He loves us and has chosen to get his message to us in words. First there were the patriarchs and great prophets. A prophet’s primary task was to proclaim the word of the Lord, pointing out sin, explaining its consequences, and calling men and women to repentance and obedience.
Zechariah was one of those prophets. And Zechariah was one of the most important prophets, because his book in the Bible tells in graphic details of the Messiah, 500 years before the Messiah was born. Zechariah also preached peace. In chapter 8, verses 16-17 he said, “These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace, do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.” Our judgments are to “make peace.”
Every single chapter in the New Testament also gives us instructions—and the results—of being peacemakers. As in the past, people today prefer to listen to comforting lies rather than the painful truth—and the truth is, Christians are to be peacemakers in a world full of evil and war.
The Beatitudes, which is the name we give for Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5, tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (v 9) How can we be peacemakers and see that justice is also done and that righteousness wins? How can we be peacemakers even when our President’s administration calls its military campaign “infinite justice?” How can we speak of peace while pictures of horror still parade through our minds and the pain of devastation needles us to seek revenge?
The Beatitudes goes on to say, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sale, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on (Jesus’) account.” And Jesus tells us to “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (v.10-12)
If we pursue peacemaking, which I believe Jesus demands that we do, we had best understand what peace is and how God’s righteousness and justice are related to that peace. We need to get this straight, for the misuse of these words—peace…righteousness…justice—leads to anger and the dangerous war of words that we hear and that can only end up in more destruction.
God’s righteousness is God’s passionate, persistent striving for peace. This has always been true. And yet God’s people have always tended to cloud the issue. From ancient Israel to the present, we have been enticed to define righteousness in other ways—in terms of morality, or in terms of having a relationship with God. If we believe that righteousness is living morally and justice is maintaining law and order, then we easily become self-righteous and in that righteous indignation, we are blind to our own part in violence. Are we hungering for righteousness? Or is our hunger instead for social stability and personal security?
We have heard much about evil in the past year and a half, about how “we” will find those evildoers and “bring them to justice.” It makes no difference whether “we” are Americans, Afghanis, or members of Al-Qaeda, “we” see it as our “righteous” duty to destroy evil, to punish the evildoers who have violated our morality. We use God’s name and give Biblical examples for our righteousness, a righteousness of law and order.
Whether it is the God of Al-Qaeda or the God of President Bush, each side squares off against the other. Each side claims the name of God for itself and indicts the other as evil. Grief turned to anger; neither side can imagine a righteousness that would lead to peace. Surely God’s righteousness has something to do with making things right.
God created the order of the world and it was right and good. When we humans proceeded to violate God’s creation, we became “uncreators” of what God created. So God’s righteousness sought to reestablish the peace of creation. This is the purpose of righteousness: that peace will permeate creation. To hunger for righteousness is to hunger for God’s peace. Not the peace of social quiet or personal ease, but the vibrant, energetic peace of the original creation. Peace is the sole aim of God’s work in the world.
The prophet Isaiah recognized that God works from above to change our condition here on earth. He wrote in chapter 32, verses17 that “The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.” God is continually working for peace in this world of ours.
And then there’s the word “justice.” Justice is not commitment to the rule of the law! We see this perversion of justice and law criticized all through the gospels as Jesus argues with the Pharisees about the purpose of the law. For example, the Sabbath, Jesus told them, was made for humans and not humans for the Sabbath. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives several examples of how the ancient covenant law is a law that seeks for peace.
A justice that rests upon law seeks revenge against the enemy. But when law rests upon God’s justice, upon God’s righteousness, then we see how persistently the law seeks for peace. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” Jesus says. (Matt 5:44). When we love our enemy, it is an expression of the covenant we have made with God and that is to be a people passionately committed to His desire to bring peace to all creation. Loving our enemies is justice, and so we seek peace for the enemy as well as for ourselves.
Because peace for ourselves without peace for the enemy is no peace at all! The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong…” (1 Cor 1:27). Some of you may believe it would be foolish for the United States not to spend millions of dollars in seeking Osama bin Laden and the people who attacked our country. And scriptures written two thousand years ago tell us, “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…” (v. 28) Mighty towers reigning above the wealthiest of the wealthy, A building housing the minds and bodies of the mightiest defense, the wisdom and power of our age—these things were brought to nothing.
And in our grief and rage, we are forced to recognize—even for a moment before we push these thoughts to the back of our minds—we are forced to recognize that neither our power—missiles, wealth, defense—nor our wisdom—human and electronic intelligence—was enough to provide us with the one thing we truly wanted--security.
We must listen to the words of Paul who declares that human power is weak and human wisdom is futile! We must listen to Zechariah who tells us that the only judgments we should make are ones that lead to peace. We must listen to Isaiah who says that the results of righteousness will be peace and tranquility and trust.
Jesus Christ, came to us as a helpless little baby, Jesus Christ is our way to righteousness. When we know Jesus and know of his crucifixion, we cannot turn our grief into a retaliatory anger. Christ IS the righteousness of God. In him is expressed and accomplished God’s desire for peace.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit (those who know humiliation), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And then he says, “Blessed are those who mourn…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…Blessed are those who are merciful…Blessed are the peacemakers.”
It is not a plan that either Washington or Al-Qaeda is likely to follow. But for those who name Jesus the crucified as Lord, it is the only plan for peace that we have. First, we need to acknowledge that we are creatures, not the Creator; that we know our own poverty of spirit; that we confront the weakness of our strength and the foolishness of our wisdom, and that we preach Jesus Christ. Only then, when we know our own poverty are we truly able to mourn. And it is this deep, unspeakable mourning that will lead us to a ravenous and tender hunger for God’s righteousness, for clear evidence of God’s peacemaking activities in our midst, for God’s infinite justice.
And what will be our expression of God’s justice? Mercy. Mercy. For in God’s economy, mercy is not the holding back of justice, it is the expression of justice. Mercy is justice making peace. May we celebrate this Christmas season with “Peace on earth, good will to men” uppermost on our hearts and minds.
May we come to understand God's greatest message, which were not words at all, but a person named Jesus of Nazareth, who is Christ and Lord of all. May we, his Church, be what he wants us to be, peacemakers and prophets to the world. May we, as individuals, look to the Baby Jesus this season, seeking out exactly whatever it is that He wants us to be and to do.
“…For he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts. Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground and righteousness will look down from the sky. The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.” (Psalm 85:8)
Sources: Peace: God’s Infinite Justice, an essay by Virginia Wiles, published by Brethren Press, 2001.
Holy Bible, NSRV translation.
