Peace. We all know what it is, even when we can’t quite find words for a simple definition. Peace is when no one is afraid; when no one is hungry, when all are alive in the fullest sense of the word. And peace comes when the struggle is over, when we entrust each other to the peace of life restored and fulfilled in glory. Peace is the name we give to life when it is what God made it to be. All of us, I hope, have known moments of it, moments that nourish our longing to see its fulfillment, and our desire to live and work toward it.
For seven weeks, Putin’s war has brought death and destruction to the cities and towns of Ukraine, and to the people who live there, and some will remind us, lest we forget, that it’s been eight years of incursion and fighting for those living in the east of the country. And the devastations aren’t limited to where the bombs are dropping and the atrocities are coming to light. Ukraine is one of the largest grain exporters, and when global grain prices continue to rise, the poor will starve, not only in Afghanistan and Yemen, but around the world. And we don’t know what cruelties may be revealed tomorrow.
Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”[1] Our hearts are troubled, and he knows it. And he won’t treat the wound of God’s people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. What I hear him say is,
Don’t be afraid to take in the whole truth about the world and humanity. Notice the greed, the need to control and manipulate; notice the desire to make your own story the only story, violently if necessary, and notice it not just in others. Take a good look at the whole ugly picture—but do not submit to it. Do not surrender to the way of greed, manipulation, and violence. Do not believe that this is the whole story. My peace I give to you. The peace that frees you to trust in the power of mercy over injustice, and the power of love over hatred. My peace, rooted in the faithfulness of God.
In the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, an old man declares, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”[2] And at Jesus’ birth, a multitude of the heavenly host praise God, saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” Peace on earth.
In today’s reading from Luke, we hear the echo of that praise from the streets outside of Jerusalem:
As Jesus was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
At the beginning of the journey, a multitude of angels sang of peace on earth, and now the whole multitude of disciples echoes their song with shouts of peace in heaven. Perhaps you find it curious that angels are speaking of peace on earth, and disciples of peace in heaven, and you wonder if it shouldn’t be the other way round? I don’t know, I find it curious, but I’m not on the team that writes talking points for angelic proclamation or lyrics for the songs of angels. And I love the way the shouts of the human multitude on the road to Jerusalem repeat the sounding joy of the heavenly multitude, and of the fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains—earth and heaven together, all of creation joined in praise of God.
And so we too shout and sing with joyful exuberance, welcoming the Lord Jesus to the city. We pretend that the tall double doors facing the street are the city gates, we watch him ride down the center aisle, and we shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord,” because we do want him here, we do want him to rule and make all things right and whole.
But we also remember that this week is not all “Blessed is the king” and “peace and glory.” And it’s not just they who get in the way of king Jesus’ reign—they being the Romans and the temple leaders, the fickle crowds or whoever else we think we can blame. We ourselves can’t let Jesus be the king he is, because we want him to be the king we want. Our visions of a world made right often reflect our own dreams of domination rather than the peculiar way of Christ. We get power wrong, and we half know it, and so we feel a little awkward standing in the gate of the city and watching Jesus riding by on a borrowed donkey. He’s turning our world upside down, and we half know that that is what it takes to make things right, but we only half know it and with the other half we resist the pull of God’s vulnerable love.
We get power wrong. We see the donkey and Jesus on it, but we still want the strong man on the white horse, the one who comes to save us and kick them. We get power wrong, because our hearts and imaginations have not been fully converted. The peace of Christ is not the Pax Romana with a doxology attached.
Every year, in time for Passover, the Roman governor moved his headquarters from Caesarea by the sea to Jerusalem. Passover made the empire very nervous. Large crowds were difficult to control under any circumstance, but add the sacred memory of Israel’s liberation from the house of slavery, and the situation could turn easily from joyful worship to revolt.
So Rome made its presence and power known. The governor, Pontius Pilate, entered the city riding on the biggest horse he could find in his stable. Behind him, elite soldiers on horseback, followed by rows and rows of foot soldiers. The procession was designed to impress and intimidate. Rome knew how to project power and quell any outbursts of enthusiasm that might quickly escalate into a governor’s nightmare. The heavy beams used to crucify the most dangerous troublemakers were already stacked at the governor’s headquarters; Rome was prepared to keep the peace.
Jesus entered the city from the East, in a very different kind of procession. He didn’t ride at the head of a conquering army to take over the system and put himself at the top. He came to undermine and topple the logic of domination. He didn’t impose his will on anyone. He renounced Satan’s whispered proposals for global dominance. Doing what love demands was the defining passion of his life to his final breath.
We call this week holy because the events we recall draw us into the mystery of God’s power revealed in Jesus. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” Paul urges his readers. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit … Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Such words were rare and foreign in a city like Philippi, which isn’t to say they aren’t rare and foreign in a city like Nashville. The citizens of Philippi valued their privileges as subjects of Caesar. Roman culture valued force, competition, and honor-seeking, and humility was not considered a virtue. Roman society, much like ours, was built on the pursuit of status.
“You want to talk about status?” Paul seems to suggest. OK, let’s talk about status. If you think of society as layered groups where everybody serves those above and is served by those below, God is at the top—being served by all and serving no one above. In this layer model, Jesus had the highest status imaginable: equality with God. Only he did not use his status for his own advantage. He humbled himself. He embraced the lowest status in the human hierarchy, and on the cross, he died the most cruel and degrading death, reserved for slaves and for rebels against the peace of Rome.
We look to the cross and recognize what we are capable of doing to each other in the name of religion, in the name of justice, or just for political convenience. But we also look to the cross because it has a bright, hopeful side: God vindicated the humble way of Jesus. God raised Jesus from the dead and gave him the name that is above every name. We call this week holy, because Jesus reveals who God is, and not despite the cross, but because of it. We see that the heart of reality is not relentless competition in pursuit of status; the heart of reality is this relentless love in pursuit of communion. We look to the cross and we see love that goes all the way for the sake of communion with us, for the sake of peace.
Alan Culpepper writes, “It is so easy to project false images of the Lord we worship, to make for ourselves a king whom we can worship rather than to worship the Christ as our king.”[3] So when the Apostle Paul writes, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, it is good for us to keep in mind that he’s not opening a backdoor for dreams of domination and Christian hegemony. Instead he points to our hope that ultimately all of creation will know that love is lord of heaven and earth.
So let’s not be too quick to dress Jesus in royal garb and shining armor, and remember the manger, the borrowed donkey, and the cross. For he’s humbly guiding our feet into the way of peace.
[1] John 14:27
[2] Luke 1:79
[3] Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB), 370.