This reflection by Jim Monroe originally appeared in Daily Grace: The Mockingbird Devotional, Vol. 2:

 

February 28

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (Jn 14:27)

Ian Barclay puts it this way in his book, The Facts of the Matter (published in 1971):

In the last 300 years, there have been 386 wars in Europe. And since the year 1500, 8,000 known peace treaties have been signed. Each one was signed with the intention that it should last forever, but the average length of each was a little over 2 years.

Plus, there are all of those personal peace treaties that you and I make that end up “in the sod.” I will make peace with my parent/child/friend/boss/pastor over that argument, damn it. I will make peace with that fear of being overlooked/rejected/humiliated, damn it. I will make peace with my guilt over that thing that I did yesterday/ten years ago, damn it.

The extraordinary news of this verse from John is that the peace of God becomes real and is experienced  — and is marvelous — not in spite of strife, but in the very midst of it and through it.

One afternoon 36 years ago, I was standing outside a small church in Nairobi, Kenya, frozen with fear after a flashback from Vietnam. A woman from the church approached me. She was well over six feet tall and not slender. She proceeded to invade my personal space and wrap her arms around me. I felt my fears falling away, just as leaves fall off the trees in autumn, and being replaced by a kind of peace I hadn’t known was possible. I later learned that she was one of three wives to a local Kenyan man, that she spoke no English, and that she had sixteen children. She and I had nothing in common, except that both of our lives had been captured by the Lord Jesus Christ, who said to his disciples and to us: “Peace I leave with you … Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

I can’t wait to see that woman in heaven (when I’ll understand Swahili). And I can’t wait for you who are reading this to experience the loving embrace of the One who says to us, “My peace I give to you.”

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