Peace be with you

What is perfect peace?  Is it attainable?  Is it real?

Some say that our nation is "at peace" if we are not engaged in war with any other nation.  In fact, an old Spiritual had people singing, "Gonna lay down my sword and shield (down by the riverside); Ain't gonna study war no more."  But disarmament isn't peace--in most cases, it is oppression.  An oppressed people are told to lay down their weapons and bow to the will of their conquerors, their oppressors.

Even if our nation is not at war, there are arguments and strife all over the place.  Lawsuits, threats, fistfights, hair pulling, name calling, gun violence, screaming--this is peace?  We are wounded people, and it doesn't take much to reopen the wound.  The Bible says, "They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace." (Jeremiah 8:11)

Peace can only be found in Jesus.  "No Jesus, no peace.  Know Jesus, know peace."  Jesus is called the Prince of Peace.  The Bible says, "If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea." (Isaiah 48:18).

When I was a teen, the youth in our church would sing this chorus: "I've got peace like a river."  Sure, it has a biblical basis, but what does it mean?  Close your eyes and picture a river--not on a map, but imagine yourself on the bank of a wide river.  What do you see?  How does it compare to peace?

Living Water

The water is ever moving.  It never empties out, never dries up.  As fast as the river flows, that is how fast the water is replenished.  It will hold up those who are buoyed at its surface, and it will cover those who sink in its depths. Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become a spring of living water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:13-14).  Peace is assurance that God will provide.  When this day is done, another will follow.  You can fight the current, or swim upstream, but when you realize that Jesus is our peace, then you go wherever He takes you.  And if you get stuck, or leave the river and lie on the bank awhile, you can get back in the boat wherever you left off, and start going with the flow again.

The Source

When you gaze at a river, you can't help but wonder where all the water comes from.  It can be traced to a single source, a spring or fountain somewhere on higher ground.  Jesus said, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." (John 7:37-38).  Peace finds its source somewhere outside of ourselves.  We cannot manufacture peace.  We can try meditation, we can try chanting monosyllabic "om's", but when we open our eyes again, the stressors are still there.  The only way to find lasting peace is to look to Jesus as the source.

The Delta

When a river ends, it is swallowed up by a larger body of water.  Streams empty into lakes, rivers empty into the sea.  That is its destination.  All the water that flows ends up moving toward something bigger than itself, something more vast and expansive that can be contained between two banks.  The Bible says, "They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:9).  Peace eventually leads us to God.  The Prince of Peace wants to introduce us to the Father.  And when we follow God's path for us, we are changed.  Just as a river is changed into a sea, so we are changed.  The letter "Delta" in the Greek, when written as a capital letter, looks like a triangle.  In shorthand, it is a symbol for Change.  God's peace changes us.

The Bible says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of  God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7).  In many ways, a river cannot be fathomed.  Similarly, we can never fully understand the peace of God.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

Refrain

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Refrain

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

Refrain

But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord!
Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!

Refrain

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Refrain

Behind the Scenes

I've always enjoyed working behind the scenes.  The best part of our high school one-act play (we did Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest; I was Algernon) was not the performance in front of the live audience.  It was the rehearsal.  The best part of our college a Capella choir tour was not performing in front of live audiences in tuxedos and long dresses.  It was being in the bus travelling from one concert destination to another.  I have had the privilege of working in the Super Bowl--not as an athlete on television, but as a server in a suite--the liaison between the kitchen and the guests.  Anyone who has worked in a restaurant knows what I'm talking about.

There are those who go to entertainment venues and enjoy the finished product, or critique it, as the case may be.  Or you may just turn on the television and consume whatever that channel is offering at that particular time slot, without any thought at all about what goes into the production, or the broadcast, or your set being one of hundreds of thousands of receivers receiving the same electronic waves at the same time.  It's mind boggling, really.

It's also pretty mind blowing what God does for us--what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will do for us in the future.  We may not be able to see it, but His hand is at work in a thousand different ways every second of every day.  That is why Paul was so confident in his letter to the Romans: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

In my daily scripture readings this week, I came across a couple of passages that I think are relevant.  The first is in Isaiah chapter 37.  One of the enemies of Judah was a country called Assyria, and it was ruled by a king name Sennacherib.  Ol' King Senny had quite a run--he had successfully conquered all of the lands between Assyria and Judah, including Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and Samaria.  Sen' sent an open letter to all of Judah that basically said for them to give up.  Just surrender when we march in to Jerusalem, and give us what we want.  "Say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, 'Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria'." (Isaiah 37:10).  He went on to taunt the living God, comparing him with the idols worshiped by all of the other lands that he had conquered. "Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them?" (Isaiah 37:12).

The prophet Isaiah was sent to king Hezekiah with a message of hope.  He asked them to take courage, that God had a plan, and that His plan did not include the destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrian army.  His plan did not include Hezekiah, king of Judah, paying any tribute to Sennacherib, king of Assyria.  All they had to do was believe, and obey.  After the people of Judah had prayed, ol' king Sen' was called back to his home town, and was killed by his advisers in a coup d'etat.

Hezekiah was not stupid.  He was aware of what was going on in the world.  Geopolitics aside, he trusted God to save them.  Isaiah was not some smarmy televangelist, some "name it and claim it" charlatan.  There were many times that Isaiah had pronounced God's judgement on His people.  He only said what God told him to say.  Later, Isaiah would pen these words:

Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of a dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we received him not.  Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrow, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. --Isaiah 53:1-6

Who else could he be talking about except Jesus Christ?

Another scripture I read this week was in Genesis, chapter 29, where Jacob, the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham, had gone back home to find a wife.  Let's pick up the story in verse 1 and following:

Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the eastern peoples.  There he saw a well in the field, with three flocks of sheep lying near it because the flocks were watered from that well.  The stone over the mouth of the well was large.  When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the well's mouth, and water the sheep...."Look," he said, "the sun is still high; it is not time for the flocks to be gathered.  Water the sheep and take them back to pasture."  They replied, "We can't, until all the flocks are gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well.  Then we will water the sheep." --Genesis 29:1-3, 7, 8.

I can't read this passage without thinking about the Water of Life, who was despised and rejected of men.  He was crushed for our iniquities, he has taken up our infirmities and carried away our sorrow.  We could not see what God had accomplished until the stone had been rolled away. And that event, the resurrection of Jesus, only happened when God ordained it to be so, when all the sheep were gathered, so to speak.  Even now, Easter Sunday is the day with the highest turnout in churches around the world.  When all the sheep are gathered together, the under-shepherds, or pastors of those flocks, will roll back the stone and reveal the empty tomb, from whence the River of Life is flowing to this very day.

One of the reasons I work part time behind the scenes at the stadium where the Dallas Cowboys play, and also at the ballpark where the Texas Rangers play, is financial.  My day job just won't cover the bills sometimes.  Last week was one of those weeks.  We had twelve dollars in the bank, and three days until payday.  The enemy was nibbling at the back of my mind: If you weren't so faithful with your tithing, you'd have money at the end of the week.  It's a mathematical fact: if you give ten percent of your income to the church, you only have 90% to pay your bills.  But I held on to God's promises, and believed in His provision.  I noticed that my gas gauge hardly moved all week--usually I have to fill up my gas tank twice in a week; and with the price of gasoline these days, that is no small cost.  But my son offered to fill up my tank at the beginning of the week, since he had used my car for something.  And all week I waited for it to empty out, knowing that I would have to spend the money to fill it up again.  But I didn't have to that week.  At the end of the week, I received a check in the mail.  It was a gift.  I had not asked for it.  There was no reason in the world for me to have received it.  I called my benefactor and thanked her, then bowed my head and thanked God for the gift that He had impressed her to send to me.  God knew that I would need the money when I received it in the mail.  But he impressed someone to write the check and mail it even before I knew I needed it. That's how God works.

1 Corinthians 2:9 says, "As it is written, 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him',"  Don't rely on what you can see with your eyes.  When you can't see His hand, trust His heart.  He really is working behind the scenes to give you a hope and a future.  All you have to do is pray, and believe.

SO YOU WOULD KNOW

How many times must I prove how much I Love you?
How many times, must my love for you I show?
And How many times must I rescue you from trouble?
For you to know just how much I love you.
Chorus
Didn't I wake you up this morning,
    you were clothed in your right mind
and didn't you walk right in your closet,
    each step right in time.
When you were weak on life's journey,
    didn't my angels carry you?
So you would know
So you would know
So you would know, just how much I love you.
How many days must I build a fence around you?
And how many nights, must I wipe all yours tears away?
And how many storms must I bring you safely through?
For you to know how much I love you.
Repeat Chorus
Didn't I put food on your table,
    when your bills were all past due?
And when the pain was bad in your body,
didn't I send healing right to you?
When you were lost in sin and sorrow,
    well I died just to set you free
So you would know
So you would know
So you would know, just how much I really love you.