6 Easter, Yr C (2025) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
6 Easter, Yr C (2025) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Rev 21:10, 22 – 22:5 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
John 14:23-29
In the name of the one, holy, and loving God:
who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.
“Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.”
Peace.
When you hear that word -
especially imagining that Jesus is saying to you: “Peace”…
Can you feel your body release?
Tensions soften?
Muscles relax?
Your mind let go of its chatter?
“Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.”
What does Jesus mean?
First, let’s look at the context…
This is the night of the Last Supper.
Jesus is at table with the disciples
and has just told them that one of them will betray him
and that Peter will deny him.
It is a somber night.
Jesus keeps talking about going away.
It is here that he says that when he leaves,
he will be leaving them with peace.
When we think of peace,
perhaps most often we think of peace as the cessation of conflict.
And that is a good and worthy and needed thing…
as we pray for peace in the Middle East,
in Ukraine,
in our own country….
even in our own families.
A ceasing of conflict is important,
and perhaps that is part of what Jesus means.
But perhaps he is also getting at something much deeper.
Could the peace that Jesus offers be something more than an absence of conflict?
Could the peace that Jesus offers be a sense of healing and wholeness,
within one’s very being?
…a sense of harmony within oneself as well as with one’s surroundings:
both with others
and with the whole of creation?
“Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives….
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,
and do not let them be afraid.”
Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word,
and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
“We will make our home with them.”
God will make their home with us!
That brings me Peace!
God will dwell within you.
God will dwell within me.
That means that we can let go and trust the words:
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.
David Lose, a Lutheran pastor, suggests that “Peace connotes a sense of contentment,
but even more… fulfillment,
a sense that in this moment one is basking in God’s pleasure.
And that can come even amid hardship, struggle, conflict, and disruption.”
Lose continues,
“Think, again, of the timing of Jesus’ promise:
it is the night of his betrayal,
the evening when he will be handed over to those who hate him
and who will take him away to be executed.
“And yet in that moment,
he not only senses peace
but gives it to others.
“This peace is a gift of God,
something we sense most keenly
when we give over to God a certain amount of control
of all the things that we worry about
or that normally pressure us.
“Not that we surrender responsibility,
but rather that we recognize there are limits to what we can affect
or achieve on our own,
and sensing those limits, we place ourselves,
our loved ones,
our fortunes,
and our future in God’s hands.
“And God’s response is to give us peace,
a peace that allows us to lift our gaze from the troubles that beset us
and see those around us as gifts of God worthy of our love and attention.
(http://www.davidlose.net/2016/04/easter-6-c-peace-the-world-cannot-give)
“Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled,
and do not let them be afraid.”
In keeping with today’s passage from the Gospel of John,
as I read the passage from Revelation,
I was struck by the beauty and awe and Peace of the imagery.
I invite you to visualize as I read…
perhaps close your eyes if you wish:
“In the spirit the angel carried me away to a great, high mountain
and showed me the holy city Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven from God….
“I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty
and the Lamb.
And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it,
for the glory of God is its light,
and its lamp is the Lamb….
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life,
bright as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God
and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.
“On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit,
producing its fruit each month;
and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
“Nothing accursed will be found there any more.
“But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it,
and his servants will worship him;
they will see his face,
and his name will be on their foreheads.
“And there will be no more night;
“they need no light of lamp or sun,
for the Lord God will be their light,
and they will reign forever and ever.”
“Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.”
As we receive God’s Peace,
we are able to act as vessels through which this Peace passes to others,
and this we do as we live in love as a community.
As we accept this Peace of God and let it dwell within us,
then we may extend this peace as we love our neighbors.
As we live into God’s Peace, I wonder:
how are we called to love our neighbors inside and outside these walls?
I don’t know if you’ve noticed,
but there is a Peace in this place.
Sometimes I feel as if this room were filled with the saints.
I never feel alone here even when praying by myself.
In the coming days, months, and years,
I invite us all to join together
in seeking the movement of the Spirit of Peace in our lives…
as individuals and as a community.
“Peace I leave with you,” Jesus says,
“my peace I give to you.
I do not give as the world gives.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,
and do not let them be afraid.”
Peace be with you.
Amen.
