34: Peace Be With You
I’m not sure what flipped the switch, but about 10 or so years ago, I became prone to motion sickness. It wasn’t always this way - I can remember days as an easygoing boat passenger out on the open sea; or being able to pick the seat at the very back of a bus with absolutely no issues. But for some reason, that all changed. Choppy waves and winding roads are no longer kind to me. Sure, there are remedies that can help, but at the end of the day, what calms the queasy turmoil best is standing on sturdy, solid ground.
There’s a familiar story in Scripture about Jesus calming a storm, and I sometimes wonder if the queasiness I feel was felt by any of the disciples. Did any of them ever get seasick? Granted, they were certainly dealing with much more than that. There’s a good chance the boat was sinking and their lives were actually in danger. But still. If you don’t know the story, it’s found in Mark 4: 35-41.
35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
There is a lot we could unpack here. But in many ways, this past week, this past year, and in several seasons of my own personal life, I’ve felt storms raging and I’ve experienced a similar, metaphorical motion sickness. And when that inner turmoil and disorientation hit, what I find myself most longing for is that “Peace! Be still!” moment we see in this story. For Jesus to swoop in and for calm and stillness and harmony to be realized in an instant. But as I’ve unpacked that a little bit, I’ve also found myself asking, is that really what it means for us to want and have peace?
Peace could mean simply wanting all the problems to be solved. But we all know metaphorical storms don’t just disappear without hard work and accountability. Peace could also mean wanting to hide and shy away from our problems with the ability to adopt and maintain a “don’t worry, be happy” mentality. Out of sight, out of mind, right?. But in the context of our faith, peace is a bit more complicated. Because peace is something we both experience and are called to create.
In last week’s episode, Remind{h}er 33, I shared a benediction I heard nearly every Sunday growing up. I shared it on the heels of a season spent celebrating God With Us, as it reminds us of all the ways the living Jesus Christ is in fact with us. There is a line in that benediction that says,
“May the living Lord Jesus Christ go within you to give you peace.”
As followers of Jesus, we are able to experience the promised peace of Christ, a strong, sturdy footing in the midst of topsy turvy circumstances. It’s a peace that steadies us, that roots us in what is true and sure. And that peace often dictates how we operate in the world.
When we operate from a place of peace - out of the abundance of Christ’s peace and guided by his character - we aren’t determined to have the last word. We aren’t motivated by anger or fear, pride or anxiety. We aren’t interested in maintaining or achieving power. We aren’t grasping for a sense of control. We aren’t intimidated by differences. We don’t find joy in stirring the pot unnecessarily.
Instead, as Walter Brueggemann shared, we maintain a vision of “many dimensions and subtle nuances: love, loyalty, grace, salvation, justice, blessing, righteousness.” We are secure in who we are and Whose we are. And we have the courage to step into what is difficult or harrowing, to be the people God calls us to be, recognizing that this peace is not simply for our own benefit, but that it is a gift that is meant to be shared. And we say “Peace be with you” in the way we live our actual lives.
In Matthew 5:9 during his teaching on the Beatitudes, Jesus said,
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
To experience and know the peace of Christ is one thing - one NECESSARY thing as we operate in the world. But we see from this Beatitude that we are both promised peace AND called to it. We get to experience it AND work toward it. As Ben Rector sings in his aptly titled song, Peace,
“You find peace where you make it.”
This past week, I read an article about the newly appointed chaplain for the House of Representatives, Margaret Kibben. Wednesday, January 6 was only her third day on the job. That in and of itself would have been a stressful situation for me. But talk about baptism by fire. I’ll link to the entire article in the show notes, but as they began evacuating representatives, Kibben was asked to pray. Among other things, one thing she remembered praying for was “that we would look to care for each other, even as we are under stress.” In the interview, she also described what enabled her to keep calm and provide comfort and peace to as many people as she could. She said she felt a sort of spiritual “covering” that allowed her to be present for others. She couldn’t make the storm go away, but she was able to provide peace for others in the chaos, out of the abundance of the peace she felt within her.
Having the peace of Christ within enables us to make peace all around. Not necessarily in big, grandiose ways. But through the small gestures and steady work within our own specific spheres of influence. We will never be able to calm storms all on our own, but we are invited into the work of peace through the power of the Holy Spirit, right where we are. We find peace when we practice it and pass it along.
We find peace when we work toward solutions instead of pointing the finger or making excuses.
We find peace when we embrace a posture of humility.
We find peace when we listen and seek true understanding.
We find peace when we refuse to give in to the spread of fear, anger, and hatred.
We find peace when we pray.
We find peace when we seek to reflect the character of Christ in the world around us.
We find peace when we remember that “God is not a God of disorder, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 4:33).
As Osheta Moore writes in her book, Shalom Sistas, we find peace when, we invite others “to stand in our line of vision so that they too can see the beauty of the kingdom.”
Today, in the midst of chaos and strife, remember, the peace of Christ is within you. May we rest secure and answer the call to be peacemakers by sharing it with the world around us. Peace be with you.