Isaiah 9:2-7, Ephesians 2:4-10, 14-20, John 20:19-23

Earl Johnson begins his final chapter in his book Witness without Parallel – Eight Texts that Make Us Presbyterian this way.
This final chapter brings the discussion full circle in the search to understand biblical texts that make us Presbyterians. The conclusion is the beginning, since Jesus Christ is advent and ending, alpha and omega.
If faith begins with the commitment to Jesus as Lord, it finds maturation when it is realized that – in a world in which believers are tormented by stress, turmoil, and doubt, and in a time when the nations are still pulled apart by continuing violence, and even terrorist attacks on major U.S. cities – peace can only be found in him, since Jesus is our peace. Perhaps at no time since nuclear annihilation was a daily threat has there been a greater need to understand this central Christian belief.”

About the same time I was reading this chapter I also read an article from Christianity Today on line. It was by Riad Kassis, who is executive director and chaplain at the J.L. Schneller School in West Bekaa, Lebanon and a lecturer in Old Testament at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut.
The article began this way: “Children normally pray brief and sweet prayers before they go to bed. Friday evening, my seven-year- old daughter, a Lebanese, and her four-year-old cousin, an American, stood side by side, stretched up their hands, and prayed. It was neither a prayer to keep them safe during the night nor was it a prayer to bless Dad and Mom. It was not even addressed to God or Jesus, as prayers usually are.
It was a spontaneous prayer that came from pure hearts, mingled with politics and the current tragic events. 'Condoleezza Rice,' they said. 'We are in trouble in Lebanon. Please save us!'

“They repeated this prayer several times. When my daughter was told that prayers should be directed toward Jesus or God, she answered: 'But Condoleezza is able to stop the war on us, is she not?'"
I wonder if the theology that lay behind the prayer of these two girls is not much different from so many of our prayers. I suspect that frequently our prayers are more in the form of I wish that or I want that, and are addressed, not God or Jesus, but some person or power, often nameless or faceless, that we believe has the wherewithal to grant our request.
And I truly wonder if we are giving these prayers more credence than those we do address to Jesus or to God. We seem to have great faith in the ability of worldly powers to bring what we would like and, as a result, are willing to address our hopes and our prayers to them, rather than to the one who truly does have the power and is Lord of all creation.
Prayers such as “I wish they'd stop all that fighting over there,” or “I'd really like to see the folks in Washington do something about all this,” become a sacred mantra.
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe God hears and listens to even these prayers, but what does that say about us, and where we put our real trust and faith? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we spent more time talking to the one who really is in charge, instead of muttering half- believed hopes to all those other unhearing powers that be.
The writer of Ephesians understands correctly that Jesus Christ is the only one who has the power to bring all people together, no matter how far apart they may seem to be. The writer claims that Jesus can, and in fact, already has broken down the walls that divide Jew and Greek. Through his death and resurrection all the divisions of hostility have come to an end and all things have been reconciled to one another in Christ.

But we live in a world that is often described as already and not yet.
Christ has already reconciled all things to himself, but because of our sinfulness, his peace has not yet been fulfilled. We live in an in between time, when we know the gift of Christ's peace, but God's peaceable kingdom still remains elusive and unrealized.
Nonetheless, Christ still calls us to the task of peacemaking. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he said, “for they shall be called the children of God.” When we engage in the task of peacemaking, we are offering a small glimpse into that unfulfilled reality of Christ's peace.
And Jesus calls us as peacemakers, not peace dreamers, or peace wishers, peace thinkers, or even peace prayers. The Greek used really means peace doers. Jesus calls us to be doers of his peace.

This is not an easy task and demands, as Earl Johnson says, “a commitment of the heart that is based on a relationship with Jesus that is nourished through prayer and reading of scripture that results in a spiritual maturity achieved by continually being in the presence of God.”
The strength and perseverance we need to be doers of peace can come only from the One who is truly our peace.
The poet Robert Frost has written:
“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
that wants it down.”
But there is something in us that likes walls, that wants them, even needs them. The Berlin wall has come down, but an ever bigger one is being built in Israel and there there are voices being raised to build a barrier between the US and Mexico.

It's interesting that when the wall was built against us, we rallied for its destruction, but when we or our allies feel threatened, we're ready to build our own walls bigger and higher. But if we truly believe that Jesus is our peace, aren't we then being called, as his followers, not to build walls, but to tear them down?
If he blesses us as peace doers and teaches us not only to pray for, but also to love our enemies, isn't our job to work for reconciliation, not only globally, but in our communities and our homes?
Peacemaking is more than wishful thinking. It is part of the central message of the Christian faith. It is reflected in the Christmas story, in the teachings of Jesus, and in the vision in the book of Revelation, when all God's children will sit together around a single table. Building walls is not what Jesus would do; nor should we.

Jesus teaches us that we should be about the business of taking down walls that divide and separate us from each other. Through him we are also to find ways to overcome the barriers that keep us from being at peace within ourselves. And I think this is the critical beginning to being doers of peace. Any peacemaking must start with ourselves.
Everything I read about making war or making peace stresses that violence and wars have their genesis within individual hearts and minds. Walls are built first in our souls, before one brick is ever laid.
When we are more willing to listen to words of violence that come from external sources, whether they be political or religious, or whatever other source, or internal words that have their origins in family, cultural, or religious histories that have impacted our souls – when we are more willing to listen to and believe these words rather than to the words of peace we hear in scripture – in the words of prophets, apostles, or Jesus himself - we will fall prey to those things that ignite animosity, hatred, and, ultimately – war.
Since the Palestinians were removed from the homes that had been theirs for 1500 years in order to create the nation of Israel, they have heard stories of the violence that was done to them. Children grew up knowing only refugee camps as homes, hearing their elders tell of uncles who had been brutally murdered, aunts who had been raped, property that had been in the family for centuries snatched away all for the sake of Israel. And they learn that the United States supports all this injustice.

In Israel children have grown up hearing stories of God promising this land to Moses and the divine right of the Jews to posses it, now as it had been then. They have lost relatives and friends to suicide bombers and believe all Arabs want to take away their land.
There is violence in that land that we call holy because so many have been taught to hate one another. How can there be peace when individual hearts and minds and spirits have been filled with prejudice and fear and hatred?
As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said, when speaking about the middle east on Meet the Press a few weeks ago - “They hate others more than they love their own kids.”
The genocide in Rwanda that the world finally understood through the movie “Hotel Rwanda” began when a few people began making speeches on the radio, urging individual Hutus to go out and slaughter any Tutsie they came across. And that's exactly what they did.

When neighbors stop speaking to neighbors, even though they raised their kids together, laughed and worked together for years - when they stop talking because of a squabble in the community, the real beginnings were not in some controversial decision or action, but in hearts and souls.
War – and peace are first and foremost issues of the spirit. And when we proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are also proclaiming that he is our peace. And if our faith and our trust in his lordship and grace are real, then our reliance will be on his power and our message will be of his peace. If our hearts, ours souls and our spirits are committed to Christ there is no room for walls of hostility to be built, there is no place for divisiveness. There is his peace.

This week, as I have been reading about, praying about, and writing about peace I have also been reading a book called “War is the Force that Gives Us Meaning,” by Chris Hedges. Hedges is the son of a pastor and a graduate himself of Harvard Divinity School. But instead of ministry, he felt called to be a war correspondent.
He has covered the fighting in Central America, Bosnia and Serbia, the war-torn areas of Africa, and the middle east. He no longer covers wars. It became too much.
The premise of his book, which was written after 9/11, but before our nation invaded Iraq, is that “war seduces not just those on the front lines, but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting basic human desires.
I began this sermon quoting the first paragraph of the last chapter of Earl Johnson's book. I will end it with the very last paragraph in in Hedge's book. It is this:

“To survive as human beings is possible only through love. And, when Thanatos (that is, the death instinct) is ascendant, the instinct must be to reach out to those we love, to see them as the divinity, pity, and pathos of the human. And to recognize love in the lives of others – even those with whom we are in conflict – love that is like our own.

“It does not mean we will avoid war or death. It does not mean that we as distinct individuals will survive. But love, in its mystery, has its own power.
“It alone gives us meaning that endures. It alone allows us to embrace and cherish life. Love has power both to resist in our nature what we know we must resist, and to affirm what we know we must affirm. And love, as the poets remind us, is eternal.”

And I would add, that love, as the fullest most eternal truth, is Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, and our Peace. When he dwells in our hearts and minds, in our spirits and souls, there is no room for walls. There is no place for hatred. There is only room for his love.
It is not Condaleeza Rice who can save us, who will ultimately bring us the peace we so desperately need. Nor is it George Bush, Nouri Al-Maliki, Ehud Olmert, or Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, nor any other political leader.
We are made alive together in Christ.
Authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
He is our peace.
And his benediction to us is: "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
Amen.