The transforming power of peace-making

John 7: 11-36

19 ‘Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?’

If there is one revelation that we need more than any other, especially those of us who live by the words of Jesus as revealed in scripture it’s this:  Jesus came and pointed out that the law of Moses, the law of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob fulfilled by Jesus and the law by which disciples of Jesus frame their entire life, this law of life, has been hijacked by the forces that rage against God and us and turned into a law to justify murder. ‘Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?’ asked Jesus. This destiny of death has been the destiny of many prophets of peace. Jesus, proclaimed in the prophets as the ‘Prince of Peace’ was the target for the killers. Peace is always the target that has to be destroyed by those who may be experts in the law but are ignorant of the One who gave us the law. Jesus claimed that His words were life and His followers experienced them as such. The giving of life meant the laying down of arms and the taking up of a cross this is participating in the transforming power of peace-making.  Peace-makers are transformed into such through participation in the Kingdom of peace-making. Granting the gift of life to another rejuvenates, renews and reasserts life in the giver. This is the revelation; this is the recognition of the power of the cross of the gospel and the power of the resurrection.  The revelation of the God of Peace is in Jesus, in and through His life and voluntary death of Jesus. Jesus refuses to call to arms the tens of thousands of ‘messengers of war’ at His command and reveals Himself as an offering of peace. The end result was the renewing of life, resurrection life and life which has no end. The resurrection teaches us that the power of love and life cannot be destroyed by the powers of hate, murder and violence. The cross may be our lived experience but in the end life wins life for all. Here we must be radical, as radical as the self-offering of Jesus; the gospel of peace is offered to those so dedicated to the crucifixion of their enemies that they have become blind even to their own reasoning.  Jesus is reported to have said at His cross: ‘Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.’  They don’t know they are killing their only hope for peace. A centurion soldier in charge of the crucifixion recognises for the first time how peace is made.  It is the same today. Men of violence do not know that in all their striving to save their own lives they are in fact killing their only hope of life by their violence. The men of violence may be convinced that they have a divine right and are invincible but they are simply delusional; mad on the narcotics of self-destructive murder. Some say Armageddon will be the final battle of conflicting armies whose destiny is self-destructive violence; but Jesus of the Nazareth sermon; the One who offered His life for the lives of the many at the cross will be there, and He will turn that battlefield into a peace rally. The battle will not be won through yet more righteous violence but through Jesus irresistible call to eternal peace already won at the cross. The call to peace will finally be heard and all the blood shed down through the millennia will not drown any of us in a flood of hate but will be restored and renewed for its life giving purpose. We can participate in this renewal process today; simply hear the words of Jesus and put them into practice. The eternal peace-maker is with us and will never leave us; this is the law of Christ the fulfilment of the law of Moses; what will we do with it?