Chapter 1

How and Where Peace Is Found


HE IS OUR PEACE, who has made us both one and broken down the dividing wall of hostility . . . that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.
- Ephesians 2:14-17

What was it that transformed the author of these words from a killer of Christians to the most powerful preacher of Jesus gospel of peace the church has ever had? It wasnt the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. Paul knew all about these ethical principles and the Golden Rule long before his Damascus Road conversion.

What was it, then, that transformed the life of Paul and the other Apostles so powerfully that within a generation the Roman world was being turned upside down by the gospel? (See Acts 17:6)

It was the new man Paul became in Christ.

If we had been living around the eastern seaports of the Mediterranean in those first generations after Pentecost, we would have seen the answer to our question scratched on walls or buildings, perhaps even on the ground, in the crude outline of a fish. We might have passed it off as doodling, especially where fishing was the common occupation. This was not doodling. The five Greek letters, which spelled fish, were the first Greek letters in the words, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

Hard pressed by the ruling authorities of Rome who now saw the authority of the Head of the church as a threat to the authority of Caesar, Christians met secretly in the catacombs. The head of the fish would point in the direction of the place where they would meet to worship Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, the long awaited Savior who had come as the blessing of peace God had promised to every family on earth (See Genesis 12:1-3).

This was not just another prophet, another wise man from the East. Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, Gods promised Messiah who had said,

He who has seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one. In me you may have peace.
- John 14:9; 10:30; 16:33

Why did these first Christians believe Jesus to be the Son of God, who had been sent by God to save them? Save them from what? For one thing, save them from fear, especially the fear of death. That each and every human dies is proof of our organic relation to the world of nature. This relationship would seem to prove that the fate of humankind and the fate of beasts are the same; as animals die, so die people. Man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity (Ecclesiastes 3:19).

But the universal fear of death is also an expression of that in us which transcends nature. Our fear of death springs from our capacity not only to anticipate our death but to wonder about what lies beyond: to die, to sleep may mean perchance to dream, as Shakespeares Hamlet put it, an indication that humans are capable of something more than dust and death.

Jesus had been crucified and put to death. The three Marys and the Twelve saw the blood flow from Jesus wounds. But three days later, the same Jesus showed Himself alive at different times and places. The accounts of Jesus resurrection are meager, but the power of His Risen Presence so removed their fear of death that they faced their own death with songs of joy, remembering Jesus words:

Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also.
- John 14:19

Unlike other religions, Christianity is distinctive. It is marked by the joyous songs of victory, inspired by the indwelling Spirit of eternal life; the foundation of nonviolence; love of enemies; rejection of all war; and refusal to fight as the world fights to protect ones physical existence and material goods.

As a stanza of one Christian hymn puts it:

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless:
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is deaths sting? Where grave thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide in me.

If no enemy can destroy our life in Jesus and take away our most cherished wealth, then of whom, or what, need we fear? In Christ we have become part of an imperishable realm.

Christ-likeness is like Eternity. Present and Future have merged in Christ! Our real Homeland is not of the flesh in one of the planets many nations and their inherent violence and death.

It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him.
- 1 John 3:2

We were not made for death. Not made for the trash heap. Not made to slaughter one another. We were made for life. Endless life. Merciful life. Life infinitely valued in Christ, who said,

The thief comes only to steal and to kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.
- John 10:10, 8:51

In addition to being saved from fear, the early church called Jesus Christ their savior because His cross lifted a second intolerable burden: the burden of sins guilt in missing the mark the Eternal has set for us in the Christ-Example (1 Peter 2:21-25). Because we were created in the image of God, we all draw distinctions between what is better and worse. We ponder how it might have been, if. . .