A Sermon of Peace - Easter 6 - May 25th, 2025

By Jan Savory

It is the night of his betrayal, the evening when he will be handed over to those who hate him and who will take him away to be executed. And yet in that moment, Jesus takes time to prepare his disciples for his departure.

Just like last week’s gospel reading, the one we heard today takes us back to before Easter. Jesus talks about his departure and prepares his disciples for their lives without him. You may find this passage familiar from having heard it at funerals. Those of us who have said goodbye to family and good friends can learn from Jesus’s words to his disciples to prepare them for his death. 

As Jesus talks, the disciples interrupt from time to time with questions. At one point, Judas, not the Judas who will betray him but another one of that name, asks “Lord how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?   The passage we heard today begins with Jesus’ response to this question.

I’m not sure that Jesus’ answer was really what Judas was looking for. Jesus does seem to be jumping around in this talk leaving a topic for something else, and then coming back to it. It seems to me like a very rambling conversation, with much repetition and an interweaving of the various themes, but this is characteristic of the Hellenistic style of similar discourses.  Or, maybe that’s just the way it seemed to the disciples and this was reflected in the way they told the story afterwards. Either way, I think it was too much to expect them to understand what Jesus was telling them until they had experienced the events of the next few days and had time to think about what had happened and what Jesus had told them.

In his reply to Judas, Jesus made two promises which are repeated and further developed elsewhere in this conversation. He promises that the Father will send the Holy Spirit to teach the disciples and to remind them of what Jesus has told them. And he gives them his peace.

Three days later, after his execution on the cross and his defeat of death through his resurrection, Jesus joined his disciples again. He greeted them with peace and breathed on them to bestow the Holy Spirit. In this way, just three days after the promise, Jesus fulfilled his words - and he continuous to offer us peace and give us the Holy Spirit. Peace and the Holy Spirit frequently come together.

Today I’d like to focus on the gift of peace. In two weeks, we will celebrate Pentecost and hear more then about the Holy Spirit. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled." Jesus kept saying it, kept repeating it that night: ”Let not your hearts be troubled”.

It's difficult to imagine a more troubling context in which to say such a thing, but Jesus kept talking about peace in the midst of the mayhem which had already begun.  Judas had already fled the table and Jesus had foretold Peter’s impending denials. I’m sure the atmosphere was very tense and unspeakably sad.  How could the disciples not have troubled hearts? When we have lost someone close to us, or anticipate that loss, do we not have troubled hearts? When life does not go as we thought it should do we not have troubled hearts? And doesn’t Jesus say to us too: “Peace I give you, … don't let your hearts be troubled”?

Isn’t peace something we sorely need in this world? And isn’t it absent for too many of us? In this discourse, Jesus reassures the disciples that they will not be left alone and he gives them peace. This is not a wish, this is a gift.  It is a gift of profound importance at this moment in the journey of both Jesus and his disciples. Jesus must have known the turmoil that the disciples would face when he was gone and he does all he can to prepare them for the next part of the journey. Peace, along with love, is an important element in John’s gospel. Stephen talked last week in his homily about love being how we are known as his followers. And, like love, peace is a mark of true discipleship.

Jesus contrasts how he gives peace with the way that the world gives peace, if indeed the world gives anything. All too often, the rules of the world are that we have to earn anything which is worthwhile. We need to look out for ourselves; there is simply not enough to go around, and each of us is in a constant competition with all others for scarce resources. (And if you’re not sure that this is message of the world, listen to the political ads going around these days!)  Peace, from this perspective, is at best a break, a moment of rest, a brief lull in the fray of everyday life and the constant need to compete, secure, hoard, and protect.

But Jesus gives differently than the world -  not as the world gives. Jesus gives freely, with no expectation of return, only the hope that, transformed by this peace, we might pass it on, giving others the abundant gift we have received. Jesus, gives us a different peace. In the 1st century, when most of the known world was occupied by the Roman Empire, the common understanding of peace was that of the Pax Romana, Roman peace, which was brought about and maintained by military conquest and might.

Jesus’ peace is not the Roman peace. New Testament “peace” reflects a much more comprehensive concept, a concept that is not Greek or Roman in its nature but Hebrew, with the all-important and encompassing Jewish idea of Shalom. Faithful to the concept of shalom, the basic concept of  God’s peace is that of “wholeness”—a “wholeness” in all dimensions of life, implying tranquility, safety, well-being, welfare, health, contentment, success, comfort, integrity, harmony with God and His laws, etc. Such a kind of peace is in direct relationship with the work of God in a our lives and in this world. Shalom occurs fully when the world is just the way God intended it to be, when the Kingdom of God breaks through on earth. In this way Shalom is closely related to Salvation.

God’s peace is not just a state of the absence of conflict, but a flourishing and harmonious relationship between God, creation and humanity. It is not something imposed from above, but a gift. And as we all know we are free to accept or decline a gift.  When we accept the gift of God's peace, we can begin to enjoy the salvation and shalom of God in this life.

We all need peace, and sometimes we need it more than others. Even Jesus needed to leave his friends to leave the cares of the world and to go away by himself to pray. Maybe we’ve tried the world’s peace; if so we will have found it rather elusive and not satisfying. At those times, nothing will satisfy us but to sink into God’s peace and rest where we can be healed from that which makes us less than whole, as the power of God fills our lives.

We can begin to experience rightness in relationships as the love of God flows through us to touch others. We come to know a peace that allows us to lift our gaze from the troubles that beset us and see those everyone and everything around us as gifts of God worthy of our love and attention. And we can share God’s peace with those around us through acts of kindness, love and being a good friend and neighbour. 

God's peace isn’t something we can seek or grasp, but only receive. Only as we release our grip on the many things we are trying to hold onto do we discover open hands that can receive God’s gift of peace. In those moments when we are convinced that it is all up to us, w find that God is still there, offering us God’s peace, a gift the world cannot give.  Jesus gives us peace in a way that no other can. Perhaps this week we will receive it anew and share it with all those we encounter in the sanctuary and beyond.

Remembering that, let’s pause for a moment to bask in God’s pleasure, in the confidence that God loves us … and then then we’ll close with a prayer for peace .

Sit comfortably close your eyes , breathe in and out and feel God’s peace .

Breathe in peace , breathe out love .

Hear Jesus saying to you,

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled.

Lets us pray:.

Loving God, we come before you with open hearts and minds to receive your gift of peace. Help us to be instruments of your peace so that, through us, those around us, in our homes, our families, our communities, and our world will know your peace. We pray for your peace to reign in every heart and mind will overcome every fear, every anxiety, and every conflict. We asked this in the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of peace. Amen.