Blessed are...

Radical Peace

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9

These words are often used, without reference to their context, in order to justify a secular pacifism that has little to do with the Gospel. On occasions the first four words are used, by themselves, ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth, then placed alongside similar quotations taken from Buddha, Confucius, or Mahatma Gandhi. In this way the reference to God is omitted and Christ’s truncated words become a generalized statement about the desirability of peace, as opposed to the undesirability of war.

Of course peace is to be preferred over unjust war, but that is not really what Jesus was saying in the Beatitudes. The peace, of which Jesus spoke, is more than the absence of conflict, it is the blessedness of a relationship with the One who made us. Peace with God enables us to be peacemakers, and leads to our being known as sons and daughters of God. When our broken, human condition is healed by the sacrifice of Calvary, and confirmed by Christ’s resurrection, then we are changed on the inside. This kind of peace is internal before it is external. It begins in the heart. Savaged by sin, alienated from God, we are redeemed by our Savior. We are made new. Our hearts are made new within us. Only then do we know peace – the assurance of salvation, both now, and for eternity. God would not have us make do with anything less than the radical peace that is begun, continued, and ended, in His Son.



God of peace,
I want to be a peacemaker.
I don’t want to be known as a disturber of the peace,
a troublemaker, or a malcontent.
Give me the grace to live at peace with others.
But first, deal with me.
Turn me from the darkness of disobedience
to the light and peace of Your presence.
Through Christ my Lord.
Amen.