“Not as the world gives (peace) do I give to you”

Was not man's sin, from the beginning, his error in determining the source of his peace? He is a being subject to death, anxious about it, seeking life in peace. He took the world without God to become God, and the world was dust, which he returned to dust, and death became an inevitable reality.

After the fall, man's relationship with God was disturbed because of sin. He struggled with nature for life in his arduous work, against pain and diseases, and against all natural evils. He began to be hostile to his brother man out of selfishness and competition for existence. He lost his peace.

In the Old Testament, peace was a sign of the end times, and the Messiah was the coming King of peace. But for some, peace meant their “safety,” which would be achieved by raising walls and dominating neighboring peoples. The prophet Isaiah, however, shows the expected Messiah more clearly as the “suffering servant of the Lord,” the “Prince of Peace,” who bestows his peace that will have no end (9:6) and establishes it on righteousness and sincere repentance (1:1-17).

In the New Testament, Jesus publicly declared to Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world, and he publicly announced, when the “King of Peace” entered Jerusalem on a donkey’s foal, that he builds his peace through spiritual reform, not through coercion and authority. Christ is our peace, for through him sin was conquered and through him we conquer it. He reconciled us with God the Father and gave us the grace of adoption while we were still sinners. He reconciles us with nature through healings and miracles and reconciles us (makes peace) with our neighbor through his commandment to love one another as he loved us. But at the same time he sends us against every false peace (violence) (Luke 12:51). When he declared that he did not come to bring (false) peace to the earth, but sword and fire.

Peace, then, is not brought about by authority; rather, it is the Holy Spirit in the Church. It is the fruit and work of the Spirit in us (Galatians 5:22; Romans 14:17). Peace is achieved, then, by abandoning sin and by becoming the dwelling place of God among men (Ezekiel 37:26).

Until God’s peace is established in the world, the Christian does not lose his peace in its midst (Ps 119:165). Rather, he walks with blessed feet, seeking peace (Mt 5:9), completing what was lacking in Christ’s sufferings in his body so that “his kingdom may come,” which is righteousness and peace.

Amen