peace

I hope Jesus doesn't weep the same lament over me as he did over Jerusalem.

Luke 19 tells us of Jesus arriving at that city for the last time, knowing full well what the coming days held. Verses 41-42 read, "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.'"

Jesus would enter the city to save it, to become the ultimate sacrifice at the most holy time of sacrifice in the religious year. Instead of peace the city would see citizens marching in the streets, a murderer released, the dead walking the streets, and the temple curtain ripped in half.

"If you had only known what would bring you peace," Jesus said. Jesus the Prince of Peace brings peace, but Jesus also had to die in order for God's plan for us to work. Was there another, less disruptive way for him to die? Or was Jesus referring to what would happen to the baby Christian church, after the stoning of Stephen, when the persecution of the Pharisees would push so many of them out of Jerusalem?

I don't think I understand exactly why Jesus said that in that context. But I wonder sometimes if he couldn't say the same thing to me. 

Do I sometimes live an uneasy, uncertain life because I can't see what would bring me peace? Am I sometimes the source of strife for the same reason? Is it possible that my inability to truly see Jesus as the only source of peace is the cause of those many days when I don't have it?

This isn't the thrust of this passage, but I can hear these words in so many circumstances. Sitting at my desk, discouraged at a work failure. "Don't you know what would bring you peace?" Worried about a child or parent. "Don't you know . . . ?" Convinced our next president will be a disaster, certain our church isn't what it used to be, wondering if my Florida friends are safe from the hurricane - the list could be a long one, but the answer to all of these is the same.

Jesus, the supreme Lord of this universe, the one with power over all things, the one who loves me so much he already died for me, who has promised to work everything for my good, is the one who weeps over my inability to find my peace in him.

How easy, though, to correct this! How easy in all these circumstances to pray, and then to say with confidence, "I'm secure. I can be at peace."