In preparation for our peacemaking service, we’ve been washed and purified in the Lamb’s innocent blood. The good news of our forgiveness (washing) in Christ is our hope—the very air that we breathe.
But that same gospel is also our purpose for having an ongoing conversation with the world in which we live. We are here to proclaim the life-transforming good news of God’s promise for eternal peace to anyone within earshot. We’ve been authorized and certified to carry this divine policy of hope to the world. We carry the King’s seal and his letter of protection. The tasks he has assigned to us were prepared before time began. And the greatest joy of it all is that Jesus himself is right there at the center. All that has happened, is happening, or will happen is in Christ, through Christ, and in response to Christ’s work for us. David P. Scaer explained it this way:
Especially in his suffering and death, Jesus fits the description of the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.[These] Beatitudes are first Christological descriptions of Jesus, then descriptions of his followers. . . . Jesus’ suffering will effect God’s righteousness for [his followers], and they in turn will suffer for him and be rewarded by God in heaven.
For my new man, fashioned in the likeness of Christ himself, there is nothing left to want. What more could I possibly still desire? I am in the King’s favor. And as I become more like my Savior, I discover that I have new wants that are no longer captive to my old sinful desires that have caused so much conflict and heartache. I have the power to change my own attitudes and think about life’s purpose in a way that is very different from the way my old Adam approached life. In my new-man life, I am filled with a new zeal for serving my Savior-God in the same selfless way that Jesus gave himself to the world of sinners. “God is already at peace with the world, and those who hear his Gospel must, like God, be at peace with one another and even with the community’s avowed enemies.” We are now willing to share the burdens and trials that others face. It’s a whole new lifestyle that engages us in a new kind of battle in which, like Christ himself, we will appear as victims but triumph in the end.
This unexpected honor is ours the moment water and Word come together in Holy Baptism. In Baptism God calls us into his family of believers. From that moment on, his Spirit is constantly working with us to help us better understand the peacemaker’s role that we’ve been given. We are never to see our new peacemaker’s role as a part-time endeavor in which one can be on duty some of the time and off duty when it is more convenient to let an at-war heart operate with impunity. Nor is it one of those public ministry positions given to some of God’s people and not to others. We are all God-certified peacemakers, whether we choose to carry out the mission we’ve been given or not.
Seeing ourselves as victors instead of victims radically changes our attitudes about conflict and the peacemaking role to which God has called us. It inspires us to gratefully accept this role and live lives of self-sacrifice and service. In doing so, we begin to imitate God and his great love for us and carry the cross that Jesus has given us with joy and thanksgiving.
Does this mean that we are all equally gifted for the work of peacemaking? No, just as we are not equally gifted for teaching or doing evangelism. But it does mean that everyone carrying the imprint of the Savior on his or her heart will work at becoming a peacemaker. It further means we can expect to be called upon to exercise our peacemaking skills whenever opportunities arise. God wants us at the ready.
Excerpt from Heart At Peace: Biblical Strategies for Christian Conflict, 2014 Northwestern Publishing House. All rights reserved.