By Bob Walters
“I am leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart. And my peace is a gift that the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” – Jesus (John 14:27)
This is Jesus at the last supper telling His disciples that His gift to them will be peace, followed by comfort God will send through the Holy Spirit.
The disciples at this point of course are still clueless, confused, and most likely increasingly anxious. Jesus is talking about His leaving, their staying, His dying, their living, His coming back, and His Father sending comfort they cannot possibly understand referring to a Holy Trinity they cannot yet imagine. Faith was all they had.
As we watch our modern world try to cope with so much daily brokenness, it is mystifying that so many people with so much information have so little faith and endure so much pain. The disciples were seeing something entirely new; modern mankind steadfastly ignores truth that is widely and plainly available.
We have the Bible, churches, preachers, teachers, fellow believers, and 2,000 years of scholarship, history, evidence and tradition to teach us what the disciples could only guess. Here in the United States we have an entire nation predicated on the foundational truth that human freedom and creativity are divinely righteous gifts straight from God.
The first of all God’s gifts to mankind, of course, is life itself. One would think that all together – personally, corporately, globally – the family of man would do a better job of defending life. Somehow though, defending life has become the hottest of political hot potatoes, rather than the dearest of God’s gifts.
I’m thinking of the Sandy Hook shootings and how our nation has fervently mobilized on either side of the specific political question of gun control rather than the vast spiritual question of Christ’s salvation for a fallen, broken world.
To me, it’s instructive to look in the Bible for an overall perspective on mankind’s defense of human life. Throughout the Bible chaos, mayhem, deceit and death consistently befall mankind. No guns were involved. God’s laws did not solve the problem then; man’s laws will not solve the problem now.
Our ultimate problem isn’t broken laws; it’s broken humanity. We have no way to pick up life’s pieces, save for the peace God promises solely in the gift of Jesus Christ.
Walters ([email protected]) is writing about salvation in Christ (see John 14), not politics, yet notices the mind-numbingly oxymoronic irony of stricter gun control laws juxtaposed with liberal abortion laws.