Saturday, the second week of Easter

John 16:16-33

 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

I always find the beginning of the last part of today's gospel reading to be a little funny.  The disciples, after years of misunderstanding and messing things up, suddenly declare, "Oh! Now we get it!"  I can just see Jesus, his hand on his forehead, with more than a hint a doubt in his voice "Do you now believe?"  Of course, the disciples don't really get it at this point, even if they think they do.   They don't really understand what exact hour it is that has indeed come, what the next few days exactly have in store for them.  And Jesus knows it.  He knows that the hour will be to much for them, that it will scatter them like dry leaves in the wind.  He knows that for Himself, one of the greatest torments of the days to come will be abandonment, since it is only in utter isolation that he  can achieve the work set before Him.  Yet, Jesus' concern is for them.

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

Jesus, in the very moments before His sorrowful Passion, wants to give His disciples, who will very soon abandon Him, peace.  Peace, is after all what Jesus has come to establish.  His life, death and resurrection are really at root about breaking the hold of chaos and establishing God's peace, his great Shalom, in the cosmos.

Peace was a loaded word in those days, as it is today.  Peace has been promised by many, not least of which the Romans.  Whole peoples, entire civilizations, had submitted to Roman rule because of the promise of the pax romana, the Roman Peace, the stability which came from being part of the world's only great power.  The logic was that if everyone only came under the Roman umbrella, then war would cease.  If there was only one power, there would be no one to fight with.  Of course we know that that was a thinly veiled lie.  The solution to all the world's problems could never be so simple.  Today we hear similar lies.  If only people were educated enough, healthy enough, rich enough, free enough then hate and strife would end.  Since the beginning we've been fooled into believing that the great peace we all desire is just beyond our reach, that there is only one thing more needed to achieve it.  Once that thing was piece of fruit, once it was a Roman world, today it seems to be a different thing everyday.  The lie however is the same. 

The truth is that peace, true and lasting peace, can come from nowhere but God, and no one offers God's true and lasting peace except Jesus.

We who have that peace can take heart, can be of good cheer, even while the tribulation rages around us as it has since Jesus first spoke these words.  Because our peace is the invincible peace, the unassailable peace, the peace of Jesus, who has overcome the world.