Motivation Monday - Why It’s Time To Choose True Peace
“Where would the Prince of Peace be found today?
I believe He would be found with the marginalized, the abused, the overpowered, the held down. He would be found with prophetic voices speaking truth to power, calling upon rulers to stand with people, asking for weapons to be laid down.
”
There has been so much swirling in our world, both at home and abroad, that I tend to forget that we are in the season of Lent, and particularly this week, are leading up to Palm Sunday.
Palm Sunday is a seminal date in Christian observance. It marks the day Jesus of Nazareth rode into Jerusalem, carried on prophecy’s donkey. Approaching the Gate of Mercy, he was acclaimed by crowds of the hopeful casting all they had before him.
Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, also would be in Jerusalem, coming not on a donkey but with pomp and circumstance, elevated by the masses as someone with enough power to alter the course of human history.
On that day, in Jerusalem, two faces of peace showed themselves for all to see. The “Peace of Christ”, as Paul would write in his letters years after, and the “Peace of Rome” as Emperors and their ambassadors proclaimed all the while oppressing anyone who would not submit to their authority with sword, fire, cross and death.
This moment fascinates me. This Sunday of Palms and Pilate, when two possibilities exist. The world poised between.
One, from the east, offering the peace of revelation. Love’s peace. The peace of certainty and abundance in an uncertain and scarce world. The peace of enough for all. The peace of blessing, of grace, of beloved-ness insisting on love. A Creator revealed as a gentle healer and servant King choosing the unkind cross as the only door to our redeemed futures.
A wonder-filled, sorrowing, suffering, compassionate One. One who wills us into our kindest, most forgiving selves. One walking always with the weak, the imprisoned, the sick, the infirm, the down-trodden, the poverty-stricken, the margin-dwellers. One calling the power-filled, the capable, the wealth-amassing, spear-wielding to walk there too.
One, from the west, offering the peace of power and might. The peace of armed aggression, the peace of war waged upon enemies and their children. The peace of social order, the peace of knowing your place within the system. The peace of rules demarking who is in and who is out. The peace of the power-filled having their way with the power-less, the peace enforced by steel and fist. Peace enforced by will. The peace of wealth sequestered, hoarded and barriered against all comers. The peace of keeping those with power in place and the peace of silencing the voices of victims.
In this cultural moment, we are still poised between a sure and unchanging peace,
a peace purchased for us from love and for love,
or a peace offered to us at the cost of defaulting on our
God-given identity and destiny.
Where would the Prince of Peace be found today?
I believe He would be found with the marginalized, the abused, the overpowered, the held down. He would be found with prophetic voices speaking truth to power, calling upon rulers to stand with people, asking for weapons to be laid down.
In contrast, the peace of power is with voices proclaiming might is right. Voices speaking of ‘over-reaction’, asking the abused to quiet their testimony in the name of peace. Insisting the wounded no longer speak of their wounds or cry out against the weapons that caused them. Voices raised to end poverty by ending support for the poor, by imprisoning the fallen, by blaming the homeless. Voices sounding the war horns in the name of ‘stability’.
In this ‘Palm Sunday’ moment we are poised in the balance. Voices are raised within each of us, just as they are raised outside of us. Now, as then, a time of choosing will come. Which peace will you choose?
When culture continues to amplify its voice and asks you to pay attention to the chaos and acquiesce to the unimaginable for a sense of false peace,
will you still hear the voice of the Spirit saying,
‘peace, peace, be still?’
May God grant you the vision, through the breath of His Spirit through you, and His resurrection power in you, to focus on the Prince of Peace. To refocus in this Lenten season on the One who did not pursue earthly power but rather saw the cross ahead of Him and went to be nailed on its rough wood, to bring peace to the world, and to your heart. Choose well.
I believe in you.
Cathie