COLLEGE CHAPLAIN

I wonder if you’re at peace as 2021 begins? If you’re not feeling peaceful then I can sympathise with you. I think we all can. We’re starting a new school year and we know what that usually brings with new books, shoes, perhaps even a new uniform. However, we probably all have an underlying unease about starting another school year after the way 2020 began for us with bushfires, toilet paper shortages and lockdowns. I imagine it will be an enduring memory for us for sometime as each new year unfolds. Nevertheless, we also want to be hopeful, proactive and just normally peaceful don’t we? We know it’s good for morale to act peaceably as a new year begins, so that we don’t envelope ourselves in a fog of doubt.

During the holidays you may have seen some of the press coverage of Joe Biden’s inauguration as President and heard the phrases, ‘peace, unity, hope, new beginnings,’ uttered many times in the various speeches and interviews. We want to run with that vibe, and so we should after the terrible unrest we have witnessed in the US in 2020, and even at times in our own country. Recently, there was a public holiday for Australians, and while everyone always appreciates the day off we know it’s a day that sparks culture wars, rips open old wounds and just continues to disturb our peace. Having said that, if you listened to the speeches at the award ceremonies or saw the ads on TV you would have heard the same phrases, ‘peace, unity, hope, new beginnings’. These are the values we long for and strive for even amidst racial division, political differences and global pandemics. We just want things to be normal and peaceable, but are they?

‘Peace, peace, when there is no peace’. That’s a phrase that God’s messenger, Jeremiah, repeated again and again many centuries ago in ancient Jerusalem. The King in Jerusalem was regularly soothed by his own paid prophets with predictions of peace for the people of Jerusalem, but Jeremiah and every other member of the kingdom could see over the city walls that the Babylonian Empire was inching ever closer. Even within the city walls the people of Jerusalem—from the kids to the king—were at war with each other and within themselves. There was no peace. So Jeremiah would often comment that he hears ‘peace, peace’, when there is no peace. There was no peace, Jeremiah said, because the people of Jerusalem, ‘treat their brokenness superficially’ and they were not at all ashamed ‘when they acted detestably’ (Jeremiah 8:11-12). In short, Jeremiah said, ‘They have rejected the word of the LORD’ (8:9). 

This is why there was no peace. Not because there was famine in that ancient city, not because their king was power hungry, not because a foreign nation was threatening war. No, these are merely the results of rejecting the word of the LORD, the One who is peace, the One who would one day send his Son into the world as the Prince of Peace. A son who would respond to the chaos of this world by bringing in a true kingdom of peace, because he forged peace between us and God at the cross. 

Peace with God comes from putting our faith in this reality. The Apostle Paul promised the church in Rome, ‘Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 5:1). Jesus’ work at the cross brings peace with God. As a new year begins, the Christian message calls for peace, much like our politicians and public figures do, but it’s not a peace of our own making. We can’t bring real peace to our bodies with a vaccine. We can’t bring real peace to our society by getting a public holiday right. We can’t bring real peace to our government just by changing the leaders. 

We can’t manufacture peace. Peace is given. Peace is a gift. One of the most repeated blessings in the Bible is, ‘The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you’. If we want real and lasting peace for the year ahead, it can only be given to us. Paul promised the church in ancient Philippi that because of their faith in Jesus’ peace making efforts at the cross they can cultivate real peace in their lives, ‘the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4:7)

The coronavirus outbreaks, the injustices facing our First Nation citizens and the deep divisions that threaten democracy are problems we will face this year and beyond, and we should hope that we will make progress with them. But we won’t ever make progress on our own in being at peace with God. No, that peace surpasses our understanding. In God’s great mercy, however, if we have a living and active faith in Jesus Christ then our hearts and minds will be guarded by the peace of God. We will grow to understand that which cannot be understood.

As we grow in our understanding of the peace of God in our hearts and minds then we won’t be crippled by anxiety over corona, we won’t be set in hard-hearted apathy about racism and we will long to listen and learn from other viewpoints, confident that we are at peace with God. So as 2021 begins, may you truly know and feel what it means to be at peace.

Gareth Tyndall | College Chaplain