"take Courage"

“Have Courage”

John 14:23-29

Since the beginning of time, humanity has craved peace!

Peace of mind, peace of heart, peace among the nations.

And this is what Jesus is offering as He speaks to His disciples in our Gospel Lesson for this morning.

The odd thing about peace is this: we are always striving after it, yearning for complete peace in our lives—yet peace very rarely reigns in our hearts, minds or lives.

Historians and scientists have come up with some startling information about peace throughout human history.

Since 3,600 B.C. the world has known only 292 years of peace!

During this period there have been 14,351 wars, large and small, in which 3.64 billion people have been killed.

The value of the property destroyed would pay for a golden belt around the world 97.2 miles wide and 33 feet thick.

Since 650 B.C. there have also been 1,656 arms races, only 16 of which ended in war.

The rest ended with the economic collapse of the countries involved.

Sometimes the very thing we are looking for is covered up in our overzealous searching.

Remarkably, or maybe not so, in the last 5,600 years the world may have known peace for only a little over 5% of the time.

And the odds are, most of that 5% was filled with thoughts and plans for disturbing the peace.

Ironically, it could be our misplaced longing for earthly peace that has kept us from really finding true peace.

And that is because the only true peace is found in Jesus Christ.

This is the peace that “transcends all understanding,” the gift of the Holy Spirit, that guards our hearts and minds.

(pause)

Our Gospel Lesson is just a morsel of a much longer discussion between Jesus and His disciples on the night of Jesus’ arrest.

When Jesus explains that He is going away, He says, “I do not give to you as the world gives.”

How, then, does the world give?

The world gives us simple beauties: the full moon in an early morning, the feeling of our child’s hand in ours, a strong cup of coffee before a day of work.

But so often, the world gives trouble.

The world gives disappointment.

The world gives us fleeting relationships with vulnerable people who hurt us or leave us.

We live in a world full of famine and war.

We live in a country racked by racism and white supremacy.

We might live with the sense that however hard we try to heal this hurting world, it will never be enough and we won’t make a difference.

How does the world give?

The world gives us shattering trauma.

The world gives us the slow ache of depression.

The world gives us the grief of seeing those we love slip away into addictions, into violence, and into death which takes each and every one of us, always too soon.

“The Message” paraphrases this verse as Jesus saying: “I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft.”

This world with all its fragile beauty can leave us feeling like the floor has fallen out from under us, leaving us utterly alone, numb and helpless.

And Jesus knows this when He looks at our lives.

Jesus knows this when He looks at His disciples gathered around Him, and Jesus knows they will be filled with fear as they face the world, and yet, and yet, He tells them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

Jesus tells His huddled followers that He doesn’t give like the world gives.

He doesn’t leave them the way they are used to being left.

Instead, He leaves them with peace.

He leaves them with the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Spirit if Truth that God will send on the Day of Pentecost which we will celebrate in two weeks.

And this Spirit will do many things.

The Spirit will “teach the disciples everything” and will “remind them of all that Jesus has said.”

And the Spirit will bring these disciples a peace that will enable them to untrouble their hearts.

This is a gift.

It is a gift of incredible importance.

And like love, peace is a mark of true discipleship—then and now.

And it’s active peace.

It’s not just laying back and enjoying a life of ease.

The Spirit and peace will propel the disciples and later the rest of the Church into active discipleship and mission.

The presence of this peace reminds me of one of my favorite quotes in life: “breathe in peace, breathe out love.”

But, on the night Jesus said these things, peace is definitely not what the disciples were feeling.

They had travelled the highways and byways with Jesus as He healed, taught, and changed the world.