The Society of Saint John the Evangelist: The Daily Office

Christ’s Peace, the Path is Love

Br. Timothy Solverson, SSJE

Tuesday April 22, 2008
Acts 14:19-28
Psalm 145:9-14
John 14:27-31a

Some of you may know that I was adopted—this fact is not so unusual many children are adopted, but my experience of being adopted put me in a position of learning about love from a variety of “mothers.” I was surrounded by three women who nurtured me, who taught me how to love, and in many ways taught me how to find God. Sophia was my great-grandmother, Colene was my great-aunt, and Alene was my grandmother they lived in parts of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries and were women of great of spirit. They were all beautiful women to me, but it was my great-aunt who was the keeper of my heart. You see, she was the one in our family who nurtured people. She had deep faith, and only believed in the good of people—she wasn’t a Pollyanna by any means. She had her own emotional wounds, and she had an understanding of how people could become de-formed by life, yet she also knew that God is a God of Love and that love is what gave people the strength to strive to become whatever it was that God was creating them to be. Colene believed in God within every human being and she knew that this God—the good—in each of us was a relationship nurtured through prayer. My aunt was my cheerleader—my support system—in her eyes I could never be un-lovely no matter how far from my true center I drifted, and at times that drift could be very far indeed. She always greeted me with a bone crushing hug and we would have long conversations about life and our hopes and fears for the world.

My aunt was a teacher—she taught people to read. She taught hundreds of people to read. She taught adults to read so that they could read the bible. Auntie Colene taught me to read my soul. She taught me the value of being alive, and what it means to have faith. My Aunt died at the age of 93 on Easter Friday this year and I miss her very greatly.

I saw her for several days before she died—sitting in her bed talking to one of the many people she had taught, and I had a sense that I wasn’t going to see her again. There was no tell- tell sign of imminent death—she had just been feeling poorly and had to go into an assisted living facility to rest. There was something about her spirit that lead me to believe she was going to go away—she was wrapping up loose ends, and telling people how much she loved them. I was deeply saddened and anxious because I knew I was going to lose my greatest teacher. I was fearful because I felt like I would be left alone without this great woman to guide me. When I finally did get the call that she had passed I had a great sense of peace, and although I was sad, I was not afraid because I understood that everything she had given me I still have, and she was dwelling in God. The memory of her love will sustain me when I begin to feel lost, anxious, or alone, without her.

I imagine the disciples felt much the same way about losing their teacher, Jesus, as I felt about losing my aunt. They were plunged into a night of anxiety, and fear after Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. Hiding in anonymity they were lost, anxious and alone. Their teacher Jesus had been arrested and brutally executed—they had all abandoned their friend in his deep time of need and they had no where to turn. Just nights before Jesus had tried to tell them that he was indeed going away. Which one of them could possibly have guessed he was speaking about his death? He kept speaking to them about preparing a dwelling place; about becoming a road to truth and life; about being one with the Father, and finally about giving them a peace the world could not give. What could he have been talking about? Where was he now? Jesus then appears to them resurrected from the dead and speaks “Peace” and gives them the promised Holy Spirit who gives them the power to understand his teaching and begin to live in his love.

I imagine it was after he filled them with the Holy Spirit that they began to understand the meaning of Jesus Christ in their lives. They understood that he had created for them a dwelling place in the heart of God that was their true home. They understood that he was indeed the way, the truth and the life of God and that they shared in this life. They believed that they were empowered by God to do the works of God for they dwelt in the father through the Son. And they truly dwelt in the peace of God for Christ is their peace. These anonymous, fearful disciples then brought Jesus’ message to their world and it has become transformed one disciple at a time until now.

Some of these disciples became what we understand to be the Johannine Community centered in Christ around the teachings of John. For them what held everything together and gave meaning to their community was the love of God found in Christ and mediated to them through the Holy Spirit—“This is how they will know you are my disciples, when you love one another.” When they love they dwell in God. Love is the dwelling place of God. God is love. Through love they did the works of God, and from within that love they came to understand the Peace of God.

So it is true for us. Personal alienation and loss of community plague our society leaving people feeling lost, anxious and alone. People are seeking desperately, I believe, for something or someone to give them a sense of peace and security and our answers are often fleeting or shallow. Until, that is, we return to our center, to who we truly are deep within ourselves, and listen to the still voice of God that whispers to us in our prayer “You are loved.” When we remember that we are loved we begin to remember our way back home to where we dwell with God. God will show us the way in Christ, lead us to the truth that is in Christ and give us Life—eternal life—which is found now, today. It is welling up from someplace deep within us and is energized by God’s Holy Spirit who is our teacher, our advocate, the deep soul nurturer of God. In God’s Holy Spirit we will learn how to love and then we will be able to draw others to the life of Christ.

Jesus says to his disciples, we are Christ’s disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” We have been given the Holy Spirit of Christ to teach and comfort us. We have been given the Holy Spirit to be our companion because Jesus Christ has gone ahead of us to prepare a dwelling place for us in the heart of God from whom we can never be separated. We have been given the Holy Spirit so that we can learn how to love and so to live in the peace of Christ in the midst of this fear filled and anxiety driven world.
I would like to encourage you if you are feeling lost to turn to God in your prayer and to ask to be filled with the presence of Christ’s love. If you are anxious pray for the peace of God that Jesus has promised we will always have. If you feel alone or isolated seek out a community of love where you will meet Christ in another who is lost, anxious or alone.

I would like to encourage you also, if you are dwelling in God’s love to dare to be Christ to those of us who are lost, anxious and alone. Believe in God for us—nurture the relationship of God dwelling in us; seek out the good in us and remind us how much God loves us. Teach us how to love. Teach us how to pray— and please—show us God. Christ’s peace, the path is love; we all have such great potential to love.

Amen.

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