PEACE AMID STORMS
Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29
A wealthy man commissioned an artist to paint a picture of peace.
The artist painted a beautiful country scene: green fields with cattle; birds in a blue sky; a quaint village in the distance. The patron was disappointed and asked the artist to try again.
The artist returned to his studio, thought for several hours, and then painted a beautiful woman smiling lovingly at her sleeping child. “Surely this is true peace,” he thought and took the picture to the patron, who refused the painting.
The artist was discouraged, tired, angry. He thought and prayed. Then, he had a “eureka” moment and began painting. When he finished, he hurried to give the patron the painting. The patron studied it for several minutes and exclaimed: “Now this is a picture of true peace.”
What was this picture? It showed a stormy sea pounding against a cliff. In a crook in the cliff, was a small bird, safe and dry in her nest snuggled safely in the rocks. The bird was at peace amid the storm that raged about her.
This is the kind of peace that Jesus gives: not the peace of a spot in nature – beautiful and serene; not the peace of a mother and child – tender and gentle; but the peace of knowing that amid turmoil there is a rock which shelters us, a power that keeps us safe.
We yearn and pray for peace. But we look for peace as an end to things that disturb us, as an absence of turmoil and conflict.
The Hebrew “shalom” is not the absence of things that disturb us but the removal of the cause of the disturbance! Peace is linked with wholeness: being “at one” with God, neighbour, self, and nature. This peace comes through a presence, here and now, that comforts us: the presence of the Spirit.
The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles is a good example of the way in which the Spirit brings peace. The text details one of the first controversies in the Church: “Must a gentile become Jewish first to become a Christian?” The Jerusalem Council, under the direction of the Spirit, decided that gentiles would not have to become Jews to be members of the Church. Peace is not the absence of conflict but the resolution of conflict through the presence of the Spirit.
Is there conflict, turmoil, storms in my life? Let me surrender myself to the Spirit and allow his peace to fill my heart, a peace that comes from being “at one” with God, neighbour, self, and nature.
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