The day I was invited to write this article, I entered a washroom in the MacDonald-Harrington building. On the door of my stall was scrawled, “increase the peace.” I could not agree more, but the anonymous author left no more suggestions than does our culture on how to go about increasing peace. Thank goodness Jesus is not so vague! “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it unto you. Do not let your hearts by troubled or afraid” (Luke 14:27). Now there is a message that I can understand! How comforting! Jesus gives us peace. He is perfect peace. What a gift!
With this amazing gift, however, comes a responsibility for each of his followers to be an instrument to help make peace on earth. How can I, as one university student, help to change a society that has become so fraught with violence? I ask myself this daily, but usually only after I have done something violent. I do not mean that I used derogatory slurs or pushed a girl in my history class. The ways to tear down peace are way smaller than that. I walked by a homeless person as if I did not see her. I snapped at my roommate. Such small violations of the way Jesus teaches me to treat my neighbours can add more suffering to a world already wearied with hostility. Who can say what impact kind words have on the hearts of those around us? After all, Mark Twain once remarked, “I can live a long time on one good compliment.” Jesus’s words to the Samaritan woman at the well gave her troubled heart peace, and with her newfound serenity she brought peace to others in her community (John 4).
I can—through Christ's teachings—give the world peace. True, I am only one human being. But when Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,” he is promising to comfort those who are frightened by the violent world in which we live through human peacemakers who choose kindness like ourselves…
Originally published November 2001 in Vol. 2, Issue 1 of Radix
Edited in 2024 by Candice Wendt
