We find peace in Christ when the Spirit comes to us, reminding us, teaching us, empowering us, to be the peace of God in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Sixth Sunday of Easter, year C
   texts:  John 14:[add 15-22] 23-35; Revelation 21:10, 22 – 22:5

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Jesus offers us peace the world cannot give, he says. Given the utter lack of peace we experience in the world, is this actually peace the world cannot have?

Peace between nations, peace in our cities, peace within families, peace of heart and mind: do we know such peace? From the depths of our hearts to the breadth of this planet, do we see it? Christ may be Prince of Peace, but is that just a pretty title?

The peace he promises today he gives on the night of his betrayal, Thursday night. Three days later, Sunday night, risen from the dead, his first words are “Peace be with you.” In between was heartbreak, suffering, death. There was little peace for these followers those three days.

So of course Christ would re-gift peace to them after all that. But this blessing, the “peace the world cannot give,” he gave before the worst three days of their lives.

The world gives deeply conditional peace. Peace of heart is only possible, the world says, if all things are well and we’ve got all we ever wanted. Peace between people is only possible, the world says, if everyone agrees, if no one raises questions of injustice, if the ones in charge stay in charge and everyone goes along.

If Jesus offers a peace that endures horrible things, as he gave his friends, that is a peace the world cannot, does not, give.

The question is, does Christ give it either?

If we struggle to be at peace in our hearts because of all we face in our lives, because of the lack of peace in our family, the lack of peace in the world, we are not alone. But if we come here and have to pretend that what we see out in the world isn’t important, or hide that we might not feel at peace inside, we’re building our faith on a lie.

The gift Jesus gives us is that here we see clearly he’s aware of our our anxiety and doubts and fears. Twice in this discourse he offers peace. Twice he says “do not let your hearts be troubled.” On Palm Sunday, and now here, he says “do not be afraid.” Jesus is tuned into the hearts of his followers, and knows they’re struggling with what is happening, and will struggle more ahead.

Even with this terrible thing coming, he honors their concern, feels it. And he reassures them and us that he can and will still give peace.

That night and the next two days they must have thought the opposite was true. But when they met Christ alive again, they began to understand. Their circumstances, and the circumstances of their world, still didn’t look like peace. But as they entered deeper and deeper into life in Christ, they found a peace that transcended circumstances, and had the power to change them, even change circumstances. They found a peace that was without conditions.

Now, if we could only find that so we’d actually be at peace.

As it turns out, our Lord has taken care of that, too.

Today Jesus promises he will send the Holy Spirit to be with us, to remind us of all he has said. Listen: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I give to you.”

Christ’s peace comes directly from this gift: we don’t have to keep everything straight that we have learned and known in Christ. The Holy Spirit will teach us along the way, and remind us of all Jesus told us that we so often forget.

Don’t underestimate this. We so often talk about discipleship and faith in ways that make us more anxious than at peace, because we struggle to be what we keep hearing we are called to be. But we have a Lord who helps us, who sends us the Spirit of God, to gently remind us of all that we have known but that we sometimes lose along the way.

This is an astonishing gift. And here is what the Spirit reminds us:

The Spirit reminds us that we are not alone.

A lot of our fear is that we don’t have Jesus ready at hand in a way we can easily see. So much of these followers’ anxiety in these verses is related to him leaving, and them fearing being alone. So Jesus takes care of that. “I will not leave you orphaned,” he says. As if it’s his job to make sure we’re OK, that we’re not feeling isolated and lost.

We aren’t alone, that’s the first reminder. The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and minds every day, and that is the source of a true peace regardless of circumstances. In fact, Jesus promises that he and the Father will make a home with us, too. That the Triune God will live with us.

There is peace in this: whatever we are facing, God never abandons us.

The Spirit also reminds us of how to love like Christ.

Jesus’ words last week brought great anxiety over the implications of his command to love in our lives. It’s too easy to forget how clear Jesus is about love of neighbor, how insistent he is that it is the shape of our lives, it’s too easy to turn inward. So we are filled with worry about this.

We’re also distracted by the problems of life, by the problems our neighbors, even our family, create for us, and to lose track of our call to love as Christ loves.

But the Holy Spirit is our teacher and reminder not only of what Christ has taught us, but what it means for our lives. We don’t follow a God who gives a job description for “Servant Disciple” and leaves us to figure it out. Our Lord has a job, too, to gently nudge and move us into love. To teach us the ways of love we too easily forget. To remind us when we’re distracted of what our calling is.

And the Spirit also empowers us in this love. A little later Jesus talks about us staying connected in him, like a branch to a vine, so we can have the strength to love as we are called to love.

There is peace in this: the Holy Spirit will remind us what we learned and help us live as we are called.

And the Spirit reminds us that our Lord is coming back for us, that there is a new creation being made.

Just as the Holy Spirit opened John’s eyes to a revelation of the world to come in the new creation we just heard, so the Spirit opens our eyes to see that the world is going to be brought into a new life.

The Spirit, the Comforter, gives the peace that God has not abandoned this world, no matter what we see, and is even now making things new. Preparing a new creation that will be, as we heard today, a gift and blessing for all nations and peoples. For us, and for all, there is room in God’s house.

There is peace in this: in our darkest hours, we have hope that God is still working for the healing of all things.

We often speak of God’s unconditional love. Today Jesus promises unconditional peace.

This is the deep peace those who are in Christ have known for millennia, a peace that Paul tells us “passes understanding,” a peace that transcends our current situation. It is a peace without conditions, a peace given us by the Triune God through the Holy Spirit, a peace that doesn’t have to wait for everything to be perfect to be real and life-changing.

This peace is ours when we know we are not alone, but walk with the Spirit beside and within us.

This peace is ours when we are guided and empowered by the Spirit to live abundant, loving lives.

This peace is ours when we are reminded by the Spirit of the healing to come for all people.

When our hearts have this peace, we much more easily become Christ in this world that knows little peace. We become peace-bearing people who bring God’s justice and peace to our families, our city, our world. At peace in Christ, we become beacons of the Good News by our very lives. And other people find peace in God through meeting us.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. Our God is bringing peace. And in fact, it’s already here.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We are being made new in Christ, but it’s a process, begun in the love we have from God, and led step-by-step by the Holy Spirit, who holds our hand and teaches us what it means to live that same love in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Fifth Sunday of Easter, year C
   texts:  Acts 11:1-18; John 13:31-35 (add 36 – 14:3); Revelation 21:1-6

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

It’s hard to understand some things without someone walking us through them.

Like learning to tie shoes. Watching someone do it seems magic if you don’t know the steps. So we’re taught it one step at a time.

Our life in Christ also needs step-by-step instruction. We need help learning to follow Christ Jesus, to obey his new commandment of love.

Peter understood that. Confronted by disciples unready to expand the community to Gentiles, Peter carefully walked through it, “step by step,” Luke says in Acts.

It wasn’t easy for Peter. He had step-by-step help, too. In this episode with Cornelius the Roman, which he retells, the Holy Spirit helped Peter learn the next steps of loving discipleship. But we also heard a few extra verses from John today than were assigned, because two familiar and beloved sections of John, today’s command to love, and Jesus’ promise of rooms in the Father’s house, are linked by Peter’s struggle to understand Christ’s new command.

So Jesus helped Peter, step-by-step. Peter helped his friends, step-by-step. Today, step-by-step, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, we, too, can grow deeper into Christ and the love that is our call.

Step one: you are loved by God forever.

We can’t grasp Christ’s new commandment without these key words: “As I have loved you.” Every time we are commanded to love we begin with the truth that we are first loved by God.

And we do nothing to earn it. Peter eagerly wants to prove he’s worthy of Christ’s love, that he’ll lay down his life. Jesus knows he won’t, at least not that night.

But immediately after telling Peter he’ll fail, Jesus says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.” He reassures Peter that God’s love is non-negotiable. Peter, Thomas, all of us are grounded in the reality of the immoveable love of God that is ours in Christ.

There’s plenty to fear as we follow Christ. The love revealed in the next steps challenges us, scares us, makes us want to put up walls, barriers. But listen to our Lord Jesus: “Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.” Our life of love lives in this unchanging reality: you are loved eternally by the Triune God who made all things and who broke the power of death out of love for you. Whenever we struggle with the next steps, we breathe in the Holy Spirit, ask for calm hearts, and trust in Christ’s love that is ours forever.

Step two: Loved by God, you are placed in Christ’s community where Christ’s love is the standard.

Christ’s unconditional love places us into a family of faith, and the new commandment says our Christly love begins in love for sisters and brothers in the community. Our love for each other witnesses to the world Christ’s Good News.

The appalling disunity of Christians in this world reveals we are not fully in Christ, and have much growing and changing to do. Those Christians we feel justified in disliking, who speak in ways we see as opposed to Christ’s call, they are the first ones we’re commanded to love.

If we can’t love other Christians as Christ has loved us, there are no more steps. We’re no longer witnessing to the Good News of God’s death-defeating love for all. We’re witnessing to a love limited to those whom we like and agree with. Christ commands that our standard for love is no longer those we choose to love, it is to love all whom God loves, starting with those in our Christian family.

Step three: Loved by God in community, turn outward to others outside the community.

Even though Christ begins here with love inside the community of faith, that always led him to command a love for the other, outside the community. When he sums up all of God’s law in love of God and love of neighbor, Jesus also repeatedly breaks open what love of neighbor means.

We learn from the Good Samaritan that love of neighbor is loving those different from us. Those who look different, think differently than we, believe differently from us. Those whom we distrust, or think less of. When we love who God loves, we erase all lines between people.

We learn from Jesus that love of neighbor loves those who hurt us, and not just unintentionally. God’s love for the world – we see this in Christ on the cross – loves through inflicted pain, loves those who are enemies, those who hate us.

Loving others in Christ’s family is hard. Harder still is loving people who are so different from us, or loving those who want to harm us. But these are the new eyes we are given in Christ, to see as God sees, to love as God loves.

Step four: learn the implications of these new eyes. If you love whom God loves, as God loves, it will mean changes.

This is what Peter needed to learn. At this point in Acts, after Easter, after Pentecost, Peter is already a bold leader, fearlessly preaching the resurrection of Christ and the life of faith. But he’s still limited. He doesn’t yet realize Christ is for the whole world, without distinction.

Today Peter took his next step into Christ. “You can’t call profane anything God has made clean,” he hears. Your categories of “other,” of “those who are in and those who are out,” are irrelevant in the new life in Christ.

And Peter’s actions show us this is not a theoretical exercise. These are real people we are called to love in real, concrete ways. These are real people carrying different labels, names of different faiths, some without faith, whom we must love and reach out to, if we are in Christ.

These are real people, our neighbors, who challenge all our assumptions and whom we have no option but to love and embrace, if we are in Christ.

These are real people who haven’t experienced what we have and who cry out that they are suffering, sometimes because of how we live our privileged lives, and we have no choice but to stand with them and seek justice, if we are in Christ.

Real people need real love, not theology and theory, Peter shows us.

Step five: discover the joy of saying, “Who am I to hinder God?”

Peter has become unafraid to defend his actions to those who don’t yet see and love as God sees and loves. The Holy Spirit came upon these Gentiles, so Peter baptized them. He ate with them, shared his life with them, even though they weren’t Jewish as he was. Because God’s love had already crossed the barrier, Peter did, too, and it filled him with confidence and joy.

That’s the goal of this love Christ has given us. That, embraced in the love of the Triune God, we lose all our individual barriers and fears and doubts and live in the joy of loving as God loves, seeing all people as delight and grace, living in Christ, not in ourselves.

There is no fear in love, the elder writes in First John, because completed love, perfected love, drives out all fear. So we joyfully say, “Who are we to get in God’s way? If God’s love goes there, that’s where we will go.”

This is where the Holy Spirit is leading us.

This is where we are going. And it is a process. “See, I am making all things new,” Christ the Lamb says in Revelation today. We, and the whole world, are being made new. Step by step it is happening.

We begin where we live, surrounded by the life-giving, eternal love of the Triune God. From there, hand-in-hand with the Holy Spirit, we take our steps into obeying this new commandment.

And so we move ever deeper into life in Christ and the love that will make us and all things new.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen