My Peace I Give...

It is the destiny of every human being to be rooted and grounded in God.  This is what every man and woman on earth is searching for  -- the depths of truth, of justice, of holiness, of goodness and truth, and of beauty indescribable.  We are angry and frustrated when we cannot find that for which we are made, when our way to truth is blocked.

Sin -- our own and other's sins -- deprive us of the goodness we are meant to taste.  The road is cut off; the path is shut down, and we spend our lives wandering in a desert of desolation and unforgiveness.  We cannot find our way home.  We cry in anguish; our wound, according to Isaiah, incurable:

Your whole head is injured,

your whole heart afflicted.

From the sole of your foot to the top of your head

there is no soundness--

only wounds and welts

and open sores,

not cleansed or bandaged

or soothed with oil (1:5-6).

 

But into our human condition of sorrow and grief, the Lord speaks:

 

Listen to me, O house of Jacob,

all you who remain of the house of Israel,

you whom I have uphld since you were conceived,

and have carried since your birth.

Even to your old age and gray hairs,

I am he, I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you (Is. 46:3-4)

 

And how has He rescued us from an "incurable wound," when our whole head is injured and our whole heart afflicted, when our way home is blocked by the darkness that has descended on every man? 

 

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 

Surely he [himself] took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

 

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was bruised for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all....

 

By knowledge of him, my righteous servant will justify many,

and he will bear their iniquities (Is. 53, selections).

 

Jesus Himself has taken up our wounds and griefs; He Himself has entered the darkness of sin and evil and hell itself --- but that is not the end of the story.  Unlike us, who are overcome and cannot rise, who are buried by evil, He has the authority and the power to rise again to a life untouched by evil.  He came not to judge mankind, but to seek and to save what was lost forever.  He took upon his own back the blows that have fallen on us, and upon His own head the crown of thorns that has caused our "wounds and welts."  He entered the darkness that has overcome the whole world, and in the midst of that evil, He spoke a word:  Light, Be! 

 

In Him, the whole unredeemed chaos of our sorrow and grief ceases to exist, and a new creation is come.  Every culture has its stories, myths, fairy tales of redemption:  Orpheus and Eurydice, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, etc.  The woman / mankind is buried in a deep sleep, slavery, human condition from which she cannot be awakened except by a pure hero who takes on the struggle against the forces of evil, who searches the world over until he finds his beloved, to rescue her from the power of darkness.  And God, too, speaks to His beloved:

 

O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted,

I will build you with stones of turquoise,

your foundations with sapphires.

I will make your battlements of rubies,

your gates of sparkling jewels,

and all your walls of precious stones.

All your sons will be taught by the Lord,

and great will be your children's peace (Is. 54:11-13).

 

And what is our part in our redemption?  Only thirst -- only desire: "Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat."  "Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live...Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near (Is. 55:3&6). 

 

All we have to do is to come to Him, to draw near to Him, to seek Him; He will do -- has already done -- all the rest.  The night before He died, Jesus said, "My peace I give to you...take heart, I have overcome the world."  There is no place else in the world we will ever find this promised peace, but in Jesus.