Luke 24:36b-47
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ………………………………………………………………………………………
Peace be with You. This is an ancient Hebrew greeting. Shalom Aleichem. If we compare it to its Arabic counterpart, to the phrase of Salem Aleikum, it is obvious that the two greetings are completely the same. Thus, this greeting goes back at least to Abraham or even before him, probably to Noah or even to Adam, who had to bury his slain son.
From the Bible story we know that in the very beginning Cain murdered his brother Abel, so the wish for peace became a greeting, like an indication, that peace should not be taken as granted, but it must be maintained, it must be preserved, it must be restored, it must be established.
Jeremiah, the prophet could have said bitterly in his own time, that even staying in the open desert would be better than to be in Jerusalem on the day when the Babylonian army will burn the whole city and destroy the Temple of Solomon. It had already happened before, during the Exodus, that the desert tents had been the homes of the Israelites for forty years, when Moses led them out of Egypt, from the overcivilized house of wicked slavery.
Jeremiah wrote that the Lord " brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that none passed through, and where no man lived ...”
It can be a bitter perception from the known human history, that peace may dwell only in a land that none passed through, where no man has ever lived and quarreled angrily with each other by waging war, inflicting looting, devastation, extermination and by wiping out whole nations, making cities and half continents desolate.
The human prayer for peace is genuine, but maybe the peace is just against human nature, against the code in our DNA, which is embedded in our cells. Some scholars say that human history should be depicted according to its sad and brutal reality, as it is nothing else but a chain of long and cruel wars where even truce had been used always for preparations toward the next war. Thus, peace, as a desired, but never really achieved condition, looks like, if not completely impossible, at least almost supernatural.
The realm of the Messiah King's is the home of peace beyond human reason, the home of the benevolent rule, justice, compassion and mercy, all woven into harmony. Its coming is a certainty, however even the prophets hardly dared to dream about it, as if it were only a wishful thinking, though a sure promise from God, as it is written in the Book of Isaiah, chapter two that the Lord " will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
Enduring and ruling peace on Earth definitely needs divine intervention, wisdom and guidance, supervision and even direct divine governance.
That is why the Biblical view is so important that all kings on Earth were and are usurpers, because the Lord alone is the King of the Earth and the whole universe. When kings or countries fighting for overlordship, attempting to gain the upper hand, fighting for power, for rule, for resources, they are fighting for something that does not belong to them, as it is completely clear from the Lord's Prayer that Jesus says to God the Father of all that “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”
Peace on Earth and peace among people, the peace among nations is very important, however there is an other aspect, we do not frequently talk about, and that is the peace between God and men. We assume that God is unconditional love only, however it is not really accurate. God is not only mercy, but justice as well. And not only justice, but mercy too, and these two are in a divine balance.
Just as the Lord said to Moses in the Book of the Exodus that “ I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” However the Lord continued that "You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live."
The sinful man can not withstand and physically survive the direct presence of the living God, who shows up as a scorching light-beam, a column of living fire.
The same phenomenon is written in the Book of the Judges, when time to time the so called Judges liberated the Land of Israel from its enemies. It happened during the Midianite war that the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, the judge who led the freedom fight of the Jews. The Bible says that “Gideon saw that he was the Lord’s angel; and Gideon said, “Alas, oh Lord God! Because I have seen the Lord’s angel face to face!” The Lord said to him, “Peace be to you! Don’t be afraid. You shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord God, and called it “the Lord is Peace.”
The sinful Man can not have peace with the Lord without complete repentance and full submission to the Lord. According to the Book of the Judges, even the Midianite war started because “The children of Israel did that which was evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. (… and ...) The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel; ” until they repented and God finally sent judge Gideon, the man of valor to free the people and the land.
We have to find peace with the Lord through full repentance and by the amendments of our conduct, otherwise there is no peace inside the heart of a single person, no peace in a house, no peace within a tribe, within a nation or on the surface of the Earth or in the whole universe among the creatures and different species. And it is very logical.
The sinful human heart is filled with selfishness, animal lust, greed, blood thirst, power hunger, idolatry and blasphemy. It is impossible to reach peace in the single heart and within humanity without repentance and the full acceptance of the rule of the Lord. Only, when God is the only king in my heart and in my country, then there will be peace in the house and on Earth, exactly as it is in Heaven. May your kingdom come, Oh Lord, may your name be praised by our deeds and by the peace among us. With the Holy Spirit may we pray,
AMEN.
