What is this peace the world cannot give?
And how can I find it?
Jesus promises peace the world cannot give (Jn. 14:27). The whole verse, which appears in John’s Last Supper discourse (Jn. 14–17), is as follows: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”
Such a line raises many questions. What is peace in the first place? What kind of peace does the world offer and how does Jesus’ offering differ? And, can we still receive it today?
What is peace?
A brief history of the word “peace” in the English language reveals divergent paths.
In a first movement, we find the origins of the word “peace” in the common Hebrew greeting shalom. Shalom refers to being intact, complete, and whole, to soundness and welfare. Scripture scholar Bruce Vawter explains that shalom is “an expression of the harmony and communion with God that was the seal of the covenant.” For the Jewish people, shalom refers to communion with God that brings peace, and this communion has a covenantal form.
Translators of the Bible reinforced this emphasis on peace-as-communion as they utilized the Greek word eirēnē (harmony, concord, tranquility) for shalom, and opted for the Latin pacem (nominative pax) when the Bible was translated again. The root of pacem is pag-, which means “to fasten” — like forming a pact, contract, or, more profoundly, a covenant that forges peace. Here, we come to our English word “peace.”
The second movement takes a distinctly modern turn, as “peace” gets caught up with the liberal concept of freedom. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, offers these definitions: “freedom from civil unrest or disorder” and “freedom from quarrels or dissension between individuals.” To be at peace is to be free from certain troubles, cares, obligations, and societal bonds, and so to be free to pursue that which one wants.
What is the peace the world gives?
In many ways, the contemporary understanding of peace as freedom from constraint flows from what Jesus describes as the world’s offering of peace.
Every era, it seems, every political power or philosophical current makes a peace claim. At the time Jesus walked on the face of the earth, for example, the Pax Romana was in full effect — imperial peace that resulted from beating down all opponents.
More recently, the liberalism flowing from the Enlightenment attempts to free the individual from external constraint for the peaceful pursuit of happiness. Marxism promises peace as the result of social revolution. Postmodern thinking offers its own promise of peace based upon a sort of relativism and the universal tolerance of every position.
In each case, worldly peace — in particular, the modern and postmodern forms — is a man-made peace created by freeing man from any external or internal restraint. When these attempts fall apart, a certain nihilism results. Anxiety and depression become commonplace, a society seeks less abstract peacemakers, like medication, drugs, or the smartphone.
The Peace the World Cannot Give
If worldly peace emphasizes freedom from any cause of restraint, frustration, or pain, if worldly peace is some sort of cathartic experience to spite the circumstances, Jesus’ peace offering is the opposite. It is presence, communion, and fullness despite the circumstances.
There is an emblematic passage of Christian peace in John’s Gospel (Luke’s, too). News was spreading of an empty tomb, but Jesus had not yet appeared to the apostles as a whole. Being deathly afraid, they had locked themselves in the Upper Room. The rest of the account is too powerful to merely summarize, so I will quote it in full:
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
[Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you.” (Jn. 20:19–21)
When Jesus enters into their circumstances, he enters as peace incarnate. He is, in his person, shalom, peace, because, as God and as man, in the one person of the Son, Jesus is communion with God. He is the peace the Jewish people had been longing for and that to which their offerings of peace when greeting or taking leave pointed. When Jesus says “peace be with you,” something more than well-wishes is happening. He is making a statement about his identity — peace is with you, peace is before you, I am God’s peace.
Luke’s account (Lk. 24:36–41) makes it clear that Jesus’ peace offering was not entirely convincing, for their fear clouded their minds. So, he shows them his wounds. Here, Christ’s transfigured wounds become the chief identifiers of his person, and they rejoice. A presence, Christ, peace incarnate, has entered into their loneliness, their emptiness, and their fear. A fullness is in their midst. All the external circumstances remain — their fear of being found out, their concern about other possible traitors in their midst, their shame at leaving Christ in the hour of his greatest need, and so forth. But a presence has entered into the midst of these circumstances, and they are at peace because they are in the midst of peace, they have encountered peace.
And they rejoice.
Rejoicing, it seems, is the proper response to the fullness of peace. In fact, the angel Gabriel addresses Mary in Luke 1:28 with the Greek word chairō instead of the customary Jewish shalom. We translate this word in English as “hail,” which is fair. However, a tighter translation might be “rejoice.” “Rejoice, favored one! The Lord is in your midst.”
Shalom is no expectation at this point, but a present reality. Peace is in your midst, Mary. Rejoice!
Encountering Peace Today
Jesus promises a peace the world cannot give. This promise transcends the immediate moment of his utterance, for he is with us always, to the end of the age (cf. Mt. 28:20). He enters into our every circumstance as a presence, not a present absence. And, it is in binding ourselves to him, in communion, not in freeing ourselves from relationship with Christ, that true peace is found.
This presence meets us today, not in sentiment or sincerity, but in the concreteness of the Church — in her saints and in her sacraments, in her service and in her ministry of the Word. The Church, as a presence in our lives, makes it possible to encounter Jesus today with the same result as those fearful, depressed, and anxious apostles who rejoiced in seeing the Lord.
There’s a great image in Fr. Jacques Philippe’s book Searching for and Maintaining Peace that captures the essence of this entire post. Philippe argues that we often think peace results from changing our circumstances (i.e., a freedom from the constraint we feel or sense in our circumstances). We must change certain things in order to create a sense of peace for ourselves. A Christian perspective, he argues, is precisely the opposite. “It is not the exterior circumstances that must change,” Philippe says, “it is above all our hearts that must change.” In this case, one begins by discovering Christ within his circumstances and clinging to him there. Then, circumstances may well change. They also may not. In either case, one can be at peace because the peace Christ promises is himself, with us, as our all in all (cf. 1 Cor. 15:28).