Lately I have been pondering a lot on the word ‘Peace’, and what it is really all about. For those familiar with the Anglican Church, we have this strange practice of going around shaking as many people’s hand as we can in 2 minutes proclaiming, “Peace be with you” or we end a Sunday service by saying “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord” But what is it really about?
One of Jesus’ Characteristics, or titles was that He is the ‘Prince of Peace’. I know for me I have used this name for Him many times, in Church, in worship songs, and read it in the Bible, but never really thought about what it truly means. It may be easy to think of Jesus being the Prince of Peace when we see the nice, fluffy pictures of our Lord sat on a cloud. But when we see the Scenes in the Gospel message, as Jesus is being flogged, beaten, and ridiculed as the soldiers mocked Him, still at that moment, He was the Prince of Peace.
When I think of the word peace, the first word that comes to mind is ‘Rest’. So often we match these words together, and give them the same meaning. But I think this is far from right. We can have rest, without being at peace. And at the same time, we can be not resting, but be at peace. So often I find myself with an evening off and I think great, I can rest. But then I will go to bed at the end of the night often more stressed and tired than I was at the start, because I wasn’t truly at peace. Yet I can be at peace, and get loads of stuff done, even work! I believe that our main priority should be to always be at peace, and when we are fully at peace, only then can we fully rest.
So there are some of my current musings, maybe i will post more on the matter as i look into it.
Peace
Lately I have been pondering a lot on the word ‘Peace’, and what it is really all about. For those familiar with the Anglican Church, we have this strange practice of going around shaking as many people’s hand as we can in 2 minutes proclaiming, “Peace be with you” or we end a Sunday service by saying “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord” But what is it really about?
One of Jesus’ Characteristics, or titles was that He is the ‘Prince of Peace’. I know for me I have used this name for Him many times, in Church, in worship songs, and read it in the Bible, but never really thought about what it truly means. It may be easy to think of Jesus being the Prince of Peace when we see the nice, fluffy pictures of our Lord sat on a cloud. But when we see the Scenes in the Gospel message, as Jesus is being flogged, beaten, and ridiculed as the soldiers mocked Him, still at that moment, He was the Prince of Peace.
When I think of the word peace, the first word that comes to mind is ‘Rest’. So often we match these words together, and give them the same meaning. But I think this is far from right. We can have rest, without being at peace. And at the same time, we can be not resting, but be at peace. So often I find myself with an evening off and I think great, I can rest. But then I will go to bed at the end of the night often more stressed and tired than I was at the start, because I wasn’t truly at peace. Yet I can be at peace, and get loads of stuff done, even work! I believe that our main priority should be to always be at peace, and when we are fully at peace, only then can we fully rest.
So there are some of my current musings, maybe i will post more on the matter as i look into it.