Abstract
In many churches today, there is a moment when the peace is exchanged. People turn to their neighbors and say, “The peace of the Lord be with you,” and they respond, “and also with you.” Depending on the culture of the church, the exchange of the peace may be accompanied by a kiss on the cheek, an embrace, a clasping of hands, or a bow. Depending upon the personality of the worshipper, the exchange may be greeted with open-armed enthusiasm or a desire to hide under their pew.
The exchange of the peace is actually quite ancient although it had fallen out of use in many churches until relatively recently. It has been widely revived in the second half of the twentieth century. The earliest mention of the peace is found in ancient baptismal liturgies. Justin Martyr, in the second century, tells us that worshippers greet each other with a kiss after the washing and the prayers, and before the Eucharist. 1 In Christian worship, the peace is a sign of reconciliation and love among the community as it prepares to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. But the exchange of the peace of Christ is not just something Christians do with one another. In a very real way, the sharing of Christ’s peace is the mission of the Church.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus sends the seventy into every town and place to announce the coming of the kingdom and to prepare a place for him. Part of his instructions includes these words: “Whenever you enter a house, say first of all, ‘Peace be to this house!’” (Luke 10:5). The church is sent out into the world and it is commissioned to say, “The peace of the Lord be with you.” The hope is that this offer of Christ’s peace will be met with the response, “and also with you.”
In our Gospel lesson, the crucial background for this announcement of peace is the Old Testament concept of shalom. Shalom in the Old Testament is not simply the opposite of war or the absence of hostile feelings. Rather, it means universal flourishing, wholeness, harmony, and delight. It is a gift of the Lord, who is the creator and source of peace. The prophets spoke of a time when crookedness would be made straight, when rough places would be made smooth, when flowers would bloom in the desert, when weeping would cease, when the lion would lay down with the lamb, when the foolish would be made wise, when humans would beat their swords into ploughshares. All nature would be fruitful, all nations sit down to enjoy a sumptuous feast, all creation would look to God, walk with God, delight in God.
Jesus draws on this rich vision of shalom when he instructs the seventy to say, “Peace be to this house.” It’s not just a nice greeting. Notice, in the previous verse Jesus tells his disciples not to greet anyone on the road (Luke 10:4). Saying “peace be upon this house” is not a banal how-do-you-do. Rather, it is the announcement of the peace that salvation in Jesus brings. This is the peace that the angels sang of in the night sky over Bethlehem when Jesus was born. This is the peace found in the life and ministry of Jesus: in his healing of the blind, his feeding of the hungry, his welcoming the outcast, his forgiveness of sins. This is the peace found in his death and resurrection: the stretching out of his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross so that all may come within the reach of his saving embrace, and the promise that someday God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, that pain and death and mourning will be no more, and that the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd.
Saying “the peace of the Lord be with you” is a weighty thing! And as Jesus describes the sharing of this peace, we see that it has an almost palpable quality. After instructing his disciples to say “peace be to this house,” Jesus tells them that if anybody in the household is a person of peace, then “your peace will rest upon them; but if not, it will return to you” (Luke 10: 6). Again, this is no simple greeting. There is a substantial, tangible quality of this peace which can rest upon someone like a mantle flung over one’s shoulders. It reminds us of the baptism of Jesus when the “Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:22). Sharing Christ’s peace is like saying, “May the peace of the Lord descend like a dove and rest upon this household!” But notice this offer of peace must be received, welcomed, shared. Otherwise, it will return to the giver. We say to our neighbor, “the peace of the Lord be with you,” and Christ’s peace like the Holy Spirit hovers mid-air awaiting the response, “and also with you.”
Recently, I witnessed the peace of Christ descend upon, of all places, a prison. It was the first Kairos Prison Ministry Weekend inside the walls of the Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown, Delaware. It was also my first prison ministry weekend so I was a bit nervous. Fortunately, I was accompanied by twenty men who had led many Kairos Weekends. The mission of Kairos is to share the transforming love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ with incarcerated men, women, and youth. These leaders assured me that the risen Christ would be with us inside those walls.
They were right. In the twenty-four residents of the prison, in the group of men who led the program, and in the hundreds of others on the outside, who prayed for the guys, and who made thousands of cookies, God showed up. We prayed, we sang, we shared our experiences, we ate and we laughed. And in the midst of it all, I felt the powerful, palpable, forgiving presence of Christ. I saw it in the tears of the men, guys who really needed to know God’s forgiveness, who in so many ways don’t feel as though they can be forgiven, who haven’t had much if any love in their life, who have done some really bad things. And yet in the great “nevertheless” of the Gospel, they began to hear and understand that they too were included in Christ’s sacrifice, they too were included in Christ’s forgiveness, they too were included in Christ’s love. I saw the peace of God which passes all understanding descend upon that prison and change lives.
Toward the end of our time together, we had an open mike when the guys could share their experiences of the weekend. One inmate summed up his feelings by reflecting on the bowls of cookies that were placed on every table. On our first day, he watched as the bowl on his table heaped with cookies disappeared in about five minutes. The guys were hungry and cookies were a real treat in prison. But before the bowl got completely empty, someone came along and refilled it until it overflowed once again. This time, it took the guys about ten minutes to get through the bowl. But before it became completely empty along came another person who refilled the bowl with more cookies. As the weekend progressed we continued to eat bowls and bowls of cookies, a little more slowly each time. And yet every time the bowl started to get empty along came someone to fill it up once again. By the end of the weekend no one could eat another cookie. And yet there on every table was a bowl overflowing with cookies. He said he came to see this as a sign of God’s love. Just as during the weekend we couldn’t out-eat all the cookies people had made, so in life we can’t out-sin God’s love. The bowl of God’s love, the cup of God’s forgiveness, is unending.
At the end of each day, we joined hands and we sang the same hymn: “Surely, the presence of the Lord is in this place.” And it was. I witnessed twenty disciples sent by their Lord go into the Sussex Correctional Institution to proclaim Christ’s kingdom and to prepare a place for him. They said, “Peace be upon this house,” and the spirit hovered above concrete cells, metal doors, chain-link fences and barbed wire. One by one the men said, “and also with you,” and the spirit swooped down, filled our hearts, and Christ’s peace rested upon us all.
The peace of the Lord be always with you …
Footnotes
1
Apology 1.65