It was an overflow dining room with high ceilings, concrete floors, large windows and the brightest of acoustics. Designed for senior citizens, many of them in wheelchairs, the space suited perfectly. But our school had obtained permission to use it as a lunchroom for around fifty primary school students. Bright voices. Excited voices. Cacophonous voices. Shall I say, less well adapted? Repeated requests for voices to be lowered were temporarily effective. But only temporarily. I confess that, often, halfway through the lunch hour, there was a tinge of despair of it ever ending. The children were just children, talking with one another, sharing stories and jokes and enjoying their break from the classroom. And oblivious to the aural impact of their deafening enthusiasm. At the end of the hour, the adult lunch monitors were eager to parade their charges, bless their hearts, out of the building to the playground, the environment for which God had created outside voices. Ah, sweet peace!
That post-lunchtime peace is but one type of peace. Making up after a contentious disagreement is another. Signing an international peace treaty is yet another. Seeing the smiling all-clear from the other parent that the kids are finally asleep is, again, another. Getting the all-clear from the doctor is welcomed with an onrush of peace. Jesus spoke peace to the raging storm, instantly tranquilizing the wind and the waves. These are minor categories of peace when compared with the type of peace promised in Jesus.
When Jesus told his disciples he was bequeathing them his peace, chances are his words failed to penetrate hearts heavy with the grief of his soon departure. The scope of this peace Jesus was talking about was far more than an absence of external strife. It was a ‘setting all things right’ peace, a ‘back to the Garden’ peace, an ‘all things made new’ peace. A peace declaring the whole and holy pleasure of God the Father. A peace which, still today, staggers the imagination. Looking forward to seeing all who would like to have their imaginations staggered, tomorrow, 10 AM, 3 PM UK, 4 PM, ES, FR. PD
