For Peace, in Syria and in Our Hearts

This is what I preached this morning at our parish's Brotherhood of St. Andrew Mass

"I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33)

Our brother in Christ Pope Francis has asked Christians to pray and fast for peace this day.  Well, this is not a fast, our Mass of the Lord's Supper.  But we can pray for peace, and in the breaking of the bread, we can see the one who is broken by our violence.  And in that brokenness, we can find peace.

But really Jesus?  Does Syria look like something you have conquered and is at peace?  Thousands upon thousands brutally killed, thousands more forced to leave their homes and live in the hellish limbo of refugee camps, innocent people torn between a government of moral monsters and the most effective insurgents who are equally monstrous.  Where is the peaceable kingdom?  How has Jesus conquered the world? 

The best answer I can find comes in what Jesus says first: "in me you may have peace."  Often in John's Gospel, Jesus says that he will be lifted up.  And in that lifting up, people shall find healing, all the people of the world will be drawn to him, and they shall look on the one whom they have pierced.  They shall look on the one who refused to conquer the world by the world's rules.  It is the world that divides people into warring camps and territories with fortified boundaries.  It is the world that makes the earth a desert and calls it peace.

Jesus refused to conquer the world in such a way that divided mercy and truth, those two beautiful ideals that are meant to be together, in the words of Psalm 85:10.  He refused to win by destroying his enemies.  He let his enemies do their worst.  He set an example for the world to see.  And because he is raised from death and lives again, then he is able to be among us this morning in the Sacrament of his body and blood.  He is broken before us, and his example stands before us, mercy and truth come together.

And he is broken in the bodies of all those who have been murdered in Syria.  Sometimes, nations and peoples reasonably conclude that they must go to war because the evil seems too great to overcome by moral example.  Whether that is the case here is a decision we all will make through our representatives. But this morning, Christians throughout the world stand united in lifting up the One whom we have pierced by our anger and fear.

The risen Christ stands before us, broken by us, broken for us.  Let us pray that all people might come before him, where they will find the truth of what they have done, and the mercy of what he has done.  and in the meeting together of that truth and mercy, let us find peace, in our hearts, and in the world.