The Antonyms of Peace

Today I was discussing a Holocaust novel with some of my students. There was a scene where some Nazi soldiers entered a girl’s home to search for the parents of her Jewish friend.  After a few tense moments the soldiers left, and all the characters breathed a little more easily.

“So what do you think?” I asked the class. “Is everything going to be okay now?”  No, they said, there is a lot more trouble ahead. 

“How can you tell?” I wondered.  It’s obvious, they replied, because it’s only chapter 5 and there’s a lot more of the book left.

That was a good literary answer, of course.  It’s the one I was hoping they would notice.  But then I thought about how it was even a better life answer, although it’s one we often forget.  If there’s more of the book left, we know that more things are bound to go wrong.  Yet for some reason we are nearly always surprised in real life when some trouble we have just endured is quickly followed by—surprise!—even more trouble.

The antonyms of peace are emotionally draining words:  Disagreement.  Agitation.  Distress.  Frustration.  War.  Worry.  No one signs up for a lifetime of these experiences.  At the same time, no one can escape them.   It’s true that rich and poor, women and men, old and young do not all worry about the same things.  But none of us is immune to these disturbances.  If any pages are left in our story, then it’s certain that there is more to come in the conflicts of life.

Moreover, some people seem to embrace a certain role in life as Disturber of the Peace.  In the days of the ancient Jewish poets, one wrote:  “My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war” (Psalm 120:6-7).  In the days of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln spoke of agitators who had preferred to “make war rather than let the nation survive.”  It’s bad enough to think that life is difficult; it’s worse to think that someone is intentionally making it more difficult.

But as long as pages remain in our story, we should anticipate that troubles will keep coming.  The Bible view is that evil will become worse and worse, and only the Prince of Peace—that glorious title of Jesus, announced by prophets and set to music in Handel’s “Messiah”—only He will be able to establish worldwide peace.

However, we are also offered the chance to enjoy a small daily victory in this battle for peace.  A first-century Christian wrote, “Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always by all means” (2 Thessalonians 3:16).  This is not peace in the absence of trouble; it’s peace in the middle of trouble.  The God of the Bible says that He a) wants to send us peace, b) is always able to provide it, and c) can use any method necessary to  help us receive it.

You might look at your story and think, “What if I’m only on chapter 5?  There could be a lot more trouble ahead!”  Actually, it’s wiser to expect that than to hope for the opposite.  But here’s another key:  Followers of Jesus have been told something about the end of the story.  The conflict truly does get resolved, and the peace that is so elusive now will finally have its day.  Until then, the God of peace has not forgotten us.