CRYING PEACE... WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE!

      "From the least of them to the greatest... everyone is greedy for gain, from the prophet to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They dress the wound of my people as if it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say when there is no peace." (Jer. 6) "So my hand will be against the prophets... because they've misled my people, saying, 'Peace,' when there is no peace, and when anyone builds a wall, they plaster it over with whitewash." (Ezekiel 13). Indeed, the prophets had it right. We can't have peace simply by claiming it or by denying our struggles anymore than we can cure cancer with a band-aid. Some wounds are superficial. Some are life-threatening... and it's important to know the difference. Likewise, covering things over doesn't make them go away, and whitewashing a wall... doesn't change its character. Peace demands truth, and truth often demands a painful struggle with oneself, and with one's God... even as Jakob found his identity... when he wrestled with God through the night.
      Peace, real peace, demands honesty, and to be honest, there is no peace in our time. Surely, you've seen the headlines. Undoubtedly, you've watched the reports on TV, about the protests taking place in many parts of our country. Sometimes I think that the tension between black and white is just as thick today as it was 50 years ago. Laws have increased opportunities and leveled the playing field a bit, but they have not changed the human heart, or calmed the fears and prejudices that find root in most of us. The war on poverty was a failure, it seems, and the tension between the haves and have-nots is even greater than it was 50 years ago. The war on drugs was a failure too, and the gang-related killings in our cities... ought to make every Christian cringe. The country is divided on every significant issue, which makes it nearly impossible to govern, and while political correctness has reduced public name-calling, it may have elevated the anger that people nurture in their hearts. People are tempted, persuaded and driven... to want more and more, and like rats in a maze, we keep running, and running, and running... chasing a peace that cannot be cornered and tackled. Many people don't fit in. They're lonely, and weary, from putting on and taking off the masks they wear, none of which gives them peace. Marriages are often little more than agreements that collapse when one of them feels slighted... because there never was a commitment to see things through, let alone a surrender to the union. Look, there's no point in denying it- we live in a broken and war-torn world. Nations war against nations, gangs war against gangs. Church fights tear families of faith apart, domestic violence tears families apart, blacks don't trust whites, and whites are afraid of blacks. School shootings are so common that they don't even raise eyebrows, young black men have a better chance of going to prison than college, many of our older citizens are hidden away in shoddy nursing homes (they would die if they could), and bullying is actually taking lives. People neither know nor trust their neighbors, and there's a line of people, more than a mile long, taking off their shoes as they go through security at Midway Airport... so that they can have peace around a Thanksgiving table- unless, of course, an argument breaks out. A boy in Cleveland gets shot by a policeman... and he has a toy gun. Hardworking people in Ferguson, MO. had their businesses destroyed by angry mobs, and there are hordes of people at war with addictions.
      Friends, there is no peace... and there never will be without God...because God is the author of peace. He's the giver of the serenity we all so badly want. Augustine noted that our hearts will never rest until they rest in God, and we'll never feel quite good enough about ourselves... until we accept the fact that Christ died for us. Friends, there's no greater peace than being forgiven- and in Christ, we are completely, fully, and forever forgiven. On our own and in ourselves, we can never fully get out from under the burdens of the past, or the anxiety of the future... but Christ is the giver of new names and new beginnings. Our journey is filled with hills, sometimes mountains, unexpected turns, obstacles, pain, and a thousand little deaths... anyone of which will tear us apart... unless we are in the hands of the man from Galilee. Life is difficult, and we will never be at peace unless we are in Christ... because peace demands surrender. Peace is a gift from God, and it comes to us in a three-step process: 1) we admit that we have no peace, 2) we come face-to-face with the fact that we cannot manufacture peace on our own (not the deep shalom that the Bible speaks of)... and 3) embrace Christ as our only source of peace.
      Peace is a gift from God, and it is found in Christ. Over the years I've tried everything I could... to get peace. I covered my ears so that I wouldn't hear my mother's screams; I stayed away from home as much as I could; I drank a fifth of whiskey and a handful of beers every day; I went out on the town; I lied when the truth would've served me better; I worked furiously to be important... and still, I had no peace. Indeed, I feared the nights because I felt so empty. For a long time I made excuses for myself, but I came to hate the man in the mirror. Finally, as if it was God's plan, I hit bottom, and at last, I did business with the living God. "Kenn," Pastor Lu asked, "do you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, and will you trust in Him from this day forward? Will you let him have his way with you and count it all good? Will you accept the fact that you are accepted? Will you lay your sins at the cross and dance away as a man forgiven? Will you share the peace that I have given you with everyone you can?" Yes, yes, yes, I said. I'm free at least. My soul is finally... at peace. Amen.