The things that make for peace

What brought Jesus to tears was the pitiful state of his fellow Jews and Israelites not grasping “the things that make for peace,” Luke 19:41-42.

It was so sad, because he’d come “to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace” (1:79). So they had peace in their grasp, the very thing Jesus knew they’d been longing for under the brutal rule of the Romans and the stifling rule of their own religious leaders. And into this suffocating, hopeless world he’d come, boldly announcing in every town and village he visited, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17) – or as we might say, “Stop feeling sorry for yourselves, because what you’ve been longing for is on its way as promised.”

They knew what was promised too, that one day, Isaiah 9:7, “the increase of God’s government and peace” would be established forever on this planet. To hear from Jesus, then, that the time had arrived to begin setting it up was the best news possible. So, go on, people, “believe the good news” (Mark 1:15) and get in on it too, to experience for themselves the peace that God was now making possible.

Because Jesus also knew the consequences in Luke 19 if they didn’t, the first of which was the things that make for peace being “hidden from your eyes” (42). They’d lose all sight of how to make peace, which is exactly what’s been happening today as well, as new ideologies promising utopia and saving the world from disaster replace faith in – and even interest in – biblical values. What Jesus taught about peace is being swamped in a flood of ideas that are already causing havoc and division. Worse still – no one seems to know what to do about it: it’s “hidden from their eyes,” just as Jesus predicted for the people of his day too.

The second and far more harrowing consequence that caused Jesus to cry was knowing the horror that awaited as vicious enemies invaded their land (43), just as Christian countries today are also being taken over by invaders causing mayhem. 

We’re experiencing the same consequences Jesus predicted for his day, and for the same reason too – “because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you” (44). God got the information about peace to us that made us into Christian nations; we dismiss it to our peril. So “Can we restore God’s peace in our nations?”….(next blog)