Wednesday Wonder – October 30, 2024

Peace

A word we hear often these days, especially in the lead up to Remembrance Day, is peace. Peace is also listed in Galatians as one of the fruits of the Spirit. But what is peace? What does the word peace mean? Why do I end all my emails with it as my salutation? Good questions.

I decided to write about peace today because my day started with some peace. When I woke, I was debating about whether I had to get up as early as the alarm had been set, or if I could spend a few more minutes in bed. As I lay there, I realized that there was peace all around me. Literally no sounds from inside or outside of my little cocoon. I lay there listening and as I did so, my own mind became more peaceful and quiet. The silence of this peace only lasted a minute or two, but it started my day in a truly peaceful way. Then a car drove by and the furnace came on, and my brain started to whirl again. That feeling of peace was gone. And yet, it is lingering as I go about my day.

We often think of peace only as an absence of war. Countries living peacefully together, working out their differences with words not guns. But there is more to peace than that. Peace is something more deep and abiding.

It is the feeling you get in the early morning when you are treated to the awesomeness of creation as the sun rises over the autumn coloured trees which are rising from the morning mist. It is what may prompt that deep sigh at the end of the day when you realize that you made a difference to someone today. That sigh may also be a sign that as the day ends you are truly able to relax and just ‘be’ for a few minutes. It is that warmth inside you when you understand that you are truly blessed in abundance by God.

Jesus told his disciples that he was leaving them with his peace. We often refer to it as ‘the peace that passes all understanding.’ The knowledge that Jesus was with them, is with us, gives a sense of peace, especially when going through troubled times. The peace that Jesus gives is the deep and abiding kind. It reassures us that in a world in turmoil, a world that sometimes feels out of control, both on the grand scale as well as individually, there is a place that provides us with a little shelter from all that is whirling around us. With the peace of Jesus within us, there is the ability to be calm and know that things will work out as they may. Keep calm and carry on was a slogan adopted by many during WWII. It still holds today. And we can find that calm and peace to carry on when we remember that the peace which passes all understanding is ours for the taking.

So, each time I sign off with the word peace, I am offering to you that very peace Jesus was offering the disciples. It is a peace we as believers can offer to one another, and to those who do not know it yet. A deep and abiding peace that those who know the presence of Jesus can feel and claim. That is why peace is a fruit of the Spirit. Peace, true peace, is not something we can keep to ourselves, we need to share it. In a world that at times seems out of control, it is good to know that true peace can be found, but often, you need to look within first to find it.

Peace,
Rev. Mary-Jane