Sermon LXV.
The Christian's Peace.
Jesus came, and stood in the midst, and said to them:
Peace be to you. And when he had said this,
he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples, therefore,
were glad when they saw the Lord.
He said therefore to them again:
Peace be to you.
—Gospel of the Day.
He stood in their midst. To-day he stands in the midst of us and utters the self-same words, "Peace be unto you." And he shows us his hands and his side, and we are glad. And again he says, "Peace be unto you."
To be at peace with the world is the aim of many men. But to have one's life run smoothly on, to be hindered neither here nor there, to be always in the sunshine and never in the shadow, may bring us peace and gladness, but not the peace and gladness that our Lord would impart. For after his words of gentle salutation he showed them his hands and his side impressed with the wound-prints of his Passion, as if to say: "The peace which I wish you is that which comes after strife, conflict, and sorrow; that peace which is the rest and the reward for labor and endurance."
Yes, dear friends, ours is to strive, to contend with self, with a nature that is fallen, with a proneness to evil, with desires that are selfish and carnal. To contend with the world, to disavow its principles, not to listen to its temptations; to realize and to confess that pleasure, success, ease, money, fame, are not the objects for which a noble soul must seek, but that God is our true end, and that mortification and self-denial, the cross, are the true means to arrive at that end, the way to come to union with God.
To be at peace with the world; yes, I admit that it is a thing to be desired, but only so that we are at peace with Almighty God, too. And how is that peace gained? Only by the keeping of his law. At peace with the world, because the world cannot disturb one at peace with God; this is the Christian's life. But so great a boon is not gained without a strife, as the joy of Easter is not till the sorrow of the Passion has passed.
Our duty, then, dear brethren, is to strive, and to keep the law of God, that first law written on our hearts, that law which he has given to us both by his words and by his life on earth, and which he still repeats to us through his holy church.
Foolish, indeed, are we above all others if our Easter joy is only that of the worldling, and our peace that which the world gives. This is not the peace that comes after looking at his hands and his side; not the joy that the disciples felt as they gazed on the risen Saviour, who stands to-day here in our midst, as he did among those his first followers, and says to us, as he said to them, "Peace be to you."