“Whatever that challenge may be, God invites us to face it, as he did with his own son, and that will be our path to peace.” (PC: Pixabay)
The International Day of Peace, also officially known as World Peace Day, is a United Nations sanctioned day that is commemorated annually on the 21st of September. Its purpose is to strengthen the ideal of peace within and among all nations.
The theme for the celebration this year is, Invest in Peace – for everyone, everywhere, every day.
Peace among nations is regulated by treaties or other government to government agreements. Large, economically powerful nations tend to work well with treaties between each other. Less powerful nations need to work towards agreements in which they have to cede to the powerful partner.
Within any given society or country there may be peace, but even in our democracies around the globe, social inequalities, based on differences of monetary income, will, it seems, be our lot for as long as our countries survive as such.
The International Day of Peace refers to all of the above and more, but Christians have another source that stimulates the hearts and minds of Christians around the world.
John 14:27 reads: Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Despite the clarity in this urging from Jesus, we do not always find peace in our hearts. We are troubled by something happening in our lives or in the lives of those we love. So, one might ask: how might Jesus be helpful in such circumstances?
His own example seems to me to be the key. After the final meal with his disciples, Jesus went with them to a public garden in Jerusalem. He asked them to pray with him, but they fell asleep. So Jesus prayed to his Father to spare him the agony of betrayal, ridicule, a farcical public trial, humiliating punishment by guards and finally, an agonising death on a wooden cross at the top of a hill outside the city walls of Jerusalem.
One of the criminals crucified next to Jesus asked to remember him when entering into his kingdom, and Jesus promised he would. The other taunted him. Some women, including his mother and one apostle, John, were there at the foot of the cross accompanying him. Jesus entrusted John with his mother’s care and her with his. He died following his last brief question: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Choosing to be a follower of Jesus would, during some period of our lives, become quite a challenge. Whatever that challenge may be, God invites us to face it, as he did with his own son, and that will be our path to peace.
Columban Fr Peter Woodruff lives at St Columban's, Essendon.
