Peace! What an elusive thing peace is! Most of the time, we don’t have peace. And when we get it, we cannot keep it. Peace is hard to come by and even harder to keep.
In a railway carriage in the forest of Compiegne, in France, gathered representatives of imperial Germany and of the allied nations, to sign an armistice calling for the end of hostilities. This armistice, signed in 1918, came after more than four years of terror, fighting in muddy trenches, facing the horror of chemical weapons, and enduring combat from the air for the first time. This armistice came at the cost of millions of lives – a million and a half French lives, a million and a half German lives, a million British lives, about 88,000 American lives, and Russia – probably more Russians killed than all the other countries put together. What an immense cost for peace! And would this peace last? Would it be permanent? You know the answer. Barely twenty years later, Germany was on the march again, and the world was plunged into another horrible conflict.
Since then, Korea, Vietnam, and scores of skirmishes too numerous to count. Peace – where is it?
It is not my purpose to analyze political and military history. I am here to think with you about peace, about what you and I are called to know about peace. Deeper, I am here to proclaim the good news that peace is on its way. Whatever comes, and at whatever cost, peace is on its way. God has guaranteed it!
There’s something wonderfully symbolic about that World War armistice we celebrate today. November 11 is Veterans’ Day, because the end of that war was proclaimed for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of that year. At 11:00 on 11/11, all shooting stopped. I say it is wonderfully symbolic, because we use the phrase, “eleventh hour”, to designate something that has just about run out of time. “Eleventh hour” means that something happened just before a disaster would have occurred. Somebody is about to be evicted, but money comes in and the rent is paid, we say, at the “eleventh hour”. Someone needs an organ transplant, and just before the body breaks down, here comes that donated organ – at the eleventh hour. Just in time.
Peace at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 83 years ago. And now where are we? Picking up the pieces after yet another “eleventh” -- eleventh day of September. We wonder where peace went and whether it can ever be kept. We worry about the thousands of lives lost on the eleventh of September, about anthrax cases, about American service personnel, and, I hope we are concerned about innocent Afghan civilians. Will peace never come? Cannot this world settle things, once and for all? How are you and I going to find peace for ourselves in such conflicted times?
But I have already said it – God has guaranteed that peace is on its way.
I
Jesus led us to see that when things are the most troubled, then that is when our deliverance is most near. When this world is most troubled, then that is when God is about to act decisively. Jesus knows we have trouble in this world, but Jesus wants us not to miss something hopeful thing – that when it all looks bleak and dismal, that is when God is going to do something glorious. When things are the most troubled, that is when our deliverance is most near.
Did you notice how much Jesus uses, in this passage, the phrase, “a little while”?
"A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me."
The disciples were confused by that. They wondered what this “little while” thing meant. But Jesus responded again,
"Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ’A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’? Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.
“A little while … but your pain will turn into joy.” You see, just as storms are often at their most intense just before they pass over … just as the night’s darkness seems to deepen just before dawn … well, Jesus used the best example of all. He spoke about mothers and the pain of childbirth. It’s very intense just before the child is born. Ah, but then what? The wonder of a new life in the world. The glory of life. And it’s worth it all. Friday I visited one of our members, Dr. Gina Standard, at the hospital. This was her third child. All three of them had to be delivered by C-section. Gina went through intense pain. But if you could see the smile on her face as she held her little daughter, you would know how right Jesus is – “a little while … but your pain will turn into joy.”
You see, God’s timing is not like ours. If we’re in pain, we just want it to be over. We just want out. But God knows that pain is necessary to get us to an authentic peace. If peace comes too soon, we will not value it. If peace arrives too easily, we will not understand how important it is. We just want out of our troubles; we do not want to take the time to get it right. But we set ourselves up for even more conflict. If you know your history, you know that the things that were done after that armistice, 11/11/11, did not make for peace, but that the world was plunged again into conflict. If you and I don’t endure that “little while”, and we just want out of here, things won’t be resolved and peace will not stay put.
Whatever our nation is called upon to do in these days, I hope that we will be patient about it. I hope that our president will do what he has to do because it is right, and not because political opinion sways him. I hope that we can see God at work, in His own time and in His own way, in His “little while”, to bring out of this latest “eleventh” something for His purposes. Paul tells us in the Roman letter that God is at work in all things for good for those who are called according to His purpose. We need to hold on to that.
After all, just think about what has happened since the eleventh of September. God has moved many people to come together for positive purposes. God has stirred up incredible generosity in American hearts. God has exposed the reality of human evil. God has led many people to think about their own ultimate destinies. God has prompted many to consider what they can do for peace. On the Sunday after the eleventh of September, one of our teenagers came forward to profess her faith in Christ, when I talked with her about it, she said that she knew, on that day, that she needed to be on the side of those who intended good and not evil for this world. Oh, ask not where God was on the eleventh; ask instead what God has been doing since then for His redemptive purposes.
When things are the most troubled, that is when our deliverance is most near.
II
But now then, the question becomes, how do we wait for God’s deliverance? If God is at work and is about to deliver us … if the storm is passing over and we are to wait for a clear day … how do we wait? Do we just fold our hands and twiddle our thumbs until God takes care of it all? Do we sit back in the old rocking chair and relax, because, after all, the “whole world’s in His hands”, and He’ll have to handle it, because I don’t intend to lift a finger? How do we wait for God’s deliverance?
Jesus speaks about waiting with joy. Waiting with joy.
So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
Don’t you love that phrase – “No one will take your joy from you”? And then He says,
Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
May I suggest to you that there is a world of difference between waiting in despair and waiting in joy? There is a vast difference between waiting passively, hands folded, ho-hum, what can little old me do? Or waiting in joy?
Waiting in despair says, I cannot do anything, so I will attempt nothing. Waiting in joy says, I cannot do everything, but I can do something. Waiting in despair says, what’s the use? Anything I do is going to be wiped out. Peace doesn’t last, health doesn’t last, money doesn’t last, so why bother? Let me just pitch my tent in some quiet spot and silently steal away. That’s what despair says: I cannot do anything, so I will attempt nothing.
But joy says that the pleasure is in the trying. The excitement is in being on the front lines. The glory is in working for possibilities. Waiting in joy means that Jesus and you and I are going to do something wonderful out here! Waiting in joy says, I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
On Thursday Deacon Nelson and Rev. Braxton-Giles and I went to a meeting about how churches can minister to people coming out of prison. I tell you, if you want to talk about a war zone, we are in one! Make no mistake about it. The District of Columbia incarcerates a larger percentage of its population than any other jurisdiction in the nation. And as if that were not enough, the repeat rate – the folks who serve time and then get arrested again – the repeat rate is the highest in the world! Now that is a war zone statistic. Our sons and our daughters, our brothers and our sisters, are being lost at an incredible rate. But at that meeting, one prominent pastor got up and spoke about his joy. He said that he had many joys in his more than forty years of service; he had had the joy of seeing a new church building constructed, the joy of being elected to a prominent position, the joy of accomplishing certain goals. But he said that he had never known joy like the joy he knows at seeing one child healed from crack, one young person turned around from crime, one marriage put back together, one parolee set on the straight path. Joy! Waiting in joy!
Do you see? In this eleventh hour, when it is clear that our world is in trouble, we have a choice. We can wait for God to do what God is going to do, passively, sitting on our hands. Or we can do what we are called to do as God’s partners, and we can live out our joy.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I cannot stop the crime, but I can work with one parolee. I cannot handle Osama bin Laden, but I can love my Muslim neighbor and share Christ with him. I cannot stop the war in Afghanistan, but I can tend to the conflicts in my family and my neighborhood, and I can be a peacemaker.
I must not cave in to terrorism. I must not go away and pout. I must not hide my head in the sand. But I must do something for somebody, and I must do it now, in this eleventh hour – with joy.
Jesus said that our hearts will rejoice, and no one will take our joy from us. Have you discovered that? This joy that I have, the world didn’t give it, and the world can’t take it away. I can and I must do something and complete my joy.
III
So take courage. Take heart. In this eleventh hour, yes, the situation is grave, and somebody needs to do something, or else, who knows what will happen? In this eleventh hour, yes, peace seems to be gone again, and all that some of us have worked for seems to be threatened. Jobs are being cut, businesses are languishing, security workers and government officials are overwhelmed with responsibility. It is an eleventh hour.
But take courage. Take heart. Jesus says,
“I have overcome the world”.
“I have overcome the world.” We Christians stake everything we are on one astonishing fact: that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead. He who knew no sin, but became sin for us, tasting death for all of us, overcame sin and death. He who was from the very foundation of the world, by whom all things were created, so that without Him was not anything made that was made – very God Himself went through the torture of the cross and the agony of death, for us. And was raised from the dead to become the first fruits of those who sleep – to be the guarantee that what God has begun He will complete. The risen Christ is all we have; but I tell you, it’s everything! It’s everything!
God has guaranteed that peace is on its way. It is the eleventh hour, and it’s dark, but peace is on its way. God has demonstrated that He can do what He set out to do. God will work through our brokenness, our sin, our shame – God will work through it all to bring us home to Himself. He will bring us peace. Paul says it, “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I don’t know about you, but when the dogs of war are unleashed, I run and cling to the cross and hide in the empty tomb. When the battle cries are shouted full throat, all I hear is, “Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”
I guess it’s sort of like those algebra problems I used to work on when I was in high school. The problem was stated up here in the front of the book, and the answer was printed in the back. My job as a student was to figure out how the author got from here to there. How did he work from the problem up front to the answer in the back? Usually I would work and work on that problem, until at the eleventh hour, just before midnight, I’d find my way through to the answer that had been there all along. I knew what the problem was, and I knew where the answer was – but it was my task to work away at finding the right path. I usually found it at the eleventh hour.
And today, if I see that the problem is a world without peace, lives torn apart, and people in conflict, I just need to work at the things that make for peace, because the answer is already here, in the back of the book:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away … And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among men. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new."
I had to look it up. I couldn’t remember whether that eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, in 1918, when the armistice was to go into effect, was 11:00 a.m., an hour before noon, or 11:00 p.m., an hour before midnight. I guessed it was an hour before midnight, because we are always tempted to think that when things look desperate, they will go deeper into tragedy. But guess what? The historian tells me that peace came an hour before noon. For is it not always true that the one who make all things new is working for a new and brighter day? Is it not so -- that He has overcome the world?
Oh, today, in this eleventh hour, if you would have peace, do not sit idly by. Take courage. Take heart. He has overcome the world. And we, we with joy completed, we too shall overcome.
