Roamin' Catholic

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” Jesus’ words from the beginning of John 14:27 are familiar, and yet are interpreted in many different ways. What “peace” is Jesus giving us? Is it the peace that negates war? The peace of mind in the absence of anxiety? What about when a loved one passes away and we say they are finally at peace? Can’t we be at peace here on Earth?

It’s no surprise that we have many different ideas about the nature of Jesus’ peace that he promises to us. There are at least sixteen different words in the Bible that translate into “peace” in English. In this case, the Greek is eirene (Strongs 1515). There are a few different definitions, including “peace between individuals,” “the way that leads to peace (salvation),” or “the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earlthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is.” (BLB).

Let’s step back a minute, and figure out why I’m so interested in ‘peace’ anyway! I had an opportunity to lead a discussion last Sunday about conflict, and the difference between worldly (counterfeit) peace versus Jesus’ (true) peace. The discussion led to some great insights about how conflict represents a broken relationship, and started examining how we can look at aspects of our relationships in order to begin resolving those conflicts.

The part of the topic that we didn’t delve into (so little time!) involved different ways of resolving conflict, and whether those results were counterfeit peace, or true peace. That leads to the question I started with: What peace is Jesus talking about?

Let’s start with this: The root of eirene is eiro, meaning “to join.” Perhaps we can take eirene to mean joining with God in order to be assured of our salvation through Christ.