We live in a world of war.
As I write there are wars going on in many places in the Middle East and
there are wars of one sort or another that fly under the radar in many other
places. In the United States we live in
a peaceable society for the most part.
We are distant from most of these conflicts so we don't spend our time
fretting about them. The problem is that
we are inured to fretting about them, they are an accepted part of the world we
live in. In this first reading,
Zechariah promises peace from one end of the earth to the other and no one
could imagine such a thing. Remember
when David committed adultery with Bathsheba?
The first sentence of that passage begins, "In the spring of the
year, the time when kings go out to battle…" Battle was an expected part of life in the
region. Peace is an invaluable thing and
we have never known it. I grew up in the
midst of the Cold War and we worried about the bomb at some level all the
time. Here, the promise of peace is
based in a war to establish that peace and we know from the Revelation that
there will be a war prior to peace.
Whose idea is the war? Let us
seek peace.
When Jesus comes into town on a donkey He is fulfilling
Zechariah's prophecy but He is also declaring peace. Donkeys were symbols of peace where horses
were symbolic of war. Everything about
this moment seems to indicate that the world will be utterly changed soon, all
the prophecies will be fulfilled and Jerusalem will be the center of
everything. The city is filled with
pilgrims and worshippers, and all are talking about this man Jesus who has done
so many miracles. The disciples surely
were amazed that all went according to the plan He gave them and now the city
was welcoming Him as king. Why, then,
does He go and cleanse the temple?
Judgment begins at the house of God.
We need to prepare our own house.
Peter writes as though he expects his readers to suffer one
way or another, either for righteousness or not. Some preachers today preach a message that
denies that suffering has a place in the life of Christians. This fails to take sin seriously. We live in a world broken by sin and in part
by our own sin. When our theology fails
to take suffering into account, it fails at the most basic level. Jesus did not come to earth, die, resurrect
on the third day, and ascend to heaven in order that we might live not blessed,
but charmed lives. He came to give us a
hope that transcends everything the world throws at us because the hope is in
another world, the world to come where suffering is no more. He has brought peace, but only in the hearts
of believers, peace in the midst of the storm of life.
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