Peace or pride.
Among other terms of reference for Jesus is the Prince of Peace. This is helpful for those who follow Him as He went on to say that those who are peacemakers are likewise referred to as sons of God. Peace is a big deal to God.
The responsibility of man to look after the earth specifically by subduing it was to bring it to order, not let it get wild and loose and to best utilise the resources that would bring out the best in creation. He was called to make peace in the garden as its keeper. Enjoying and sustaining the wholeness experienced in the garden was the first call to be a peacemaker. Messing that up inevitably called for greater works of peace to take place. Not only were there the natural order to keep in check, now mankind had problems with themselves, namely their tendency to wreck peace.
You have heard it said that religion has caused a lot of wars. A lot of what’s wrong in the world is placed at the doorstep of the various religions and faiths that have cropped up over the years. There’s good reason for that claim too as people declare the need to go on conquests and crusades because that’s what God told them to do. It’s a useful construct until its dismantled.
When it is dismantled, the truth of the matter is that wars have happened because men have not craved for peace. Men may have used religion as a vehicle, but history shows that they just needed to have something in them to make them feel superior to the other. Men have just needed that feeling of being better than the other and slighted by the fact that the other person is around.
The same issue that caused man to tear away from fruitful and peaceful life with God is the same issue that causes man to see his neighbour as the enemy who needs to be conquered or crushed. It stems simple from pride.
Jesus lived a life free from pride because of His complete dependence on God. That made Him the best example possible of a peacemaker. Unsurprisingly, though, when men without peace saw a man living in peace and bringing it to others, that only evoked that sense of a threat and desire to wipe Him out. They crucified Him. They went onto to kill others who were a threat to the status quo by their desire to believe the Man of peace and usher in that peace in their actions in the world.
Peacemakers are a threat to pride.
They are a threat because they see the way of God is not seen by self-exaltation, but by everything and everyone being nourished and nurtured to blossom in their own way. The peacemaker in looking for the wellbeing of the other and not the self is a threat to the mentality that idolises the self above all things. The peacemaker in seeing that wholeness is the harmony and submissive interplay of all creation is a danger to the one that wants everything to be revolved around self-gratification.
Yet this peace is unstoppable. Even though they crucified the Prince of Peace, He rose triumphantly from the grave. Even though they shed the blood of the followers of this Prince, the blood merely inspired others to see the blessing in pursuing this peace. When Stephen asked God not to hold the sin against those stoning him, the gesture of peace and forgiveness in contrast to the violent brutality of apparent men of God was noted by one condoning the stoning. So when Saul of Tarsus became the Apostle Paul that act of peacemaking among others may have influenced his own instruction to Timothy to make the pursuit of peace a dominating priority.
The pride in man does not want to pay the price for peace. The Prince of Peace not only was delighted to pay the price, His invitation to demolish pride is a gateway to establishing a peace that surpasses all understanding. Embracing this truth makes the pursuit of this peace a must for men who truly want to live up to that standard of real manhood set for them by the King of Glory who took on flesh and lived with us.
To see a world of peace requires the ongoing death to pride. This is a price worth paying to see what Jesus indicated in His many acts of peacemaking – a world where the Kingdom of heaven is seen on the earth ushered in by those who make peace.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 