PEACE

 

Peace

Picture from Web

‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35) is the Bible’s shortest verse. Who hasn’t shed a tear over the loss of a loved one? In 1873 Horatio Spafford penned the hymn ‘When Peace Like a River’ shortly after receiving a telegram from his wife with the words ‘Saved alone…’ The ship in which his wife, Anna, and their four daughters had been crossing from America to England, had sank. No doubt Horatio and Anna shed many tears of grief, yet could sing, ‘It is well with my soul.’ How so? Where does this peace come from? ‘But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope’ (1 Thess. 4:13). Jesus wept even knowing He was about to raise Lazarus. Just as we grieve with Jesus when loved ones die so we rejoice with Him when He cries, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ (John 11:42b). There’s our peace: Christ has conquered death!

As recorded in the previous chapter, Jesus had already said, ‘I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again’ (John 10:17b-18a). It was as if Jesus had said, ‘Do you want Me to prove it? Then watch this, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ How could Horatio and Anna know peace in their grief? Belief!

Martha and Mary were Lazarus’s grieving sisters. ‘Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:23-27).

Never having seen Jesus raise a loved one from the dead, we can only imagine what it would’ve been like for Martha and Mary: tears of sorrow turning into tears of joy. Yet this is the peace that Christians have. ‘O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ (1 Cor. 15:55).

The older I get the more I think about my own mortality. I’ve no sooner made my peace with death, when that peace is disturbed. “I’ll miss my wife, my children, my grandchildren.’ Then peace returns, ‘I’ll see Jesus face to face, and I’ll see my loved ones who have already died in the Lord.’ But I wish I was more like Paul, ‘For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor…’ (Phil. 1:21-22). Facing the death penalty, Paul was at peace with his own death, but he didn’t really want to leave his gospel work half finished. While my own desire is to see my family safe in the Lord’s arms, I’m also not overly happy with the prospect of leaving them. This is what I mean about my peace with death being disturbed. We’re back to those ambivalent tears of sorrow and tears of joy. The disciples experienced something similar when told Jesus was going to leave them, ‘You now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you’ (John 16:22).

Jesus wept. Why? ‘Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” (John 11:36). But was Jesus perhaps also contemplating His own future death and resurrection for our sins and our everlasting peace with God? ‘For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross’ (Col. 1:19-20).