Don’t Miss the Prince of Peace
Reflection by Matt King
Life is full of missed opportunities. I wonder if it is also that way in our relationship with God. What if each day is full of countless opportunities to recognize the presence of God right in front of us, inviting us into deeper relationship, showing us how to walk in God’s ways, urging us to make choices in accordance with God’s will? But so often we aren’t in tune enough to recognize what is staring us right in the face. We have our own goals, our own agendas, our own schedules and to-do lists to complete, and sometimes it is just too difficult to pause and look closely and recognize that God is with us in those moments. If we aren’t careful, we will come to a point in our life when we look back and see a timeline full of missed opportunities with God.
We don’t want you to miss the opportunities to witness all that will takes place during Holy Week. In these columns over the next few weeks we will be considering different moments we remember and celebrate as we follow Jesus to the cross. Perhaps if we consider them for more than just one day a year we won’t miss what we need to see and learn. So we start today with the very beginning of the week, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem.
It was an exciting day for the people. The prophet Isaiah spoke of one who would show the way to peace: peace in our souls, peace in our lives, and peace in our world. God’s own Prince of Peace would come showing us what the realm of God looks like when it brings peace, and justice, and compassion to all. He would come not with powerful armies or displays of power and might, but he would come as the suffering servant. He would be so committed to peace that he would do no violence, but would bring about God’s peace through his own sacrificial death.
As Jesus of Nazareth rides the borrowed donkey toward Jerusalem the Prince of Peace has arrived. Though his followers have seen what he is capable of, though they recognized the authority with which he preaches, though they have heard his own predictions of the kind of death he will face when he reaches Jerusalem, they still don’t seem to get it.
All those who join in the parade seem to recognize that they are taking part in a powerful moment. They are so swept up in the drama of the prophetic and political display that they jump right into it without examining it and asking what it truly means. They take off their coats and throw them down on the ground as some kind of ragged first century red carpet to welcome their king. They recognize that this is a rival claim to power against the Sanhedrin, and Caiaphas the high priest, and Pilate the governor, and Caesar himself, and they are right. But he wasn’t the king they wanted, and he wasn’t ushering in the kind of peace they expected.
Jesus, however, sees it all more clearly than anyone. They are so blind by their own desires and their own expectations that they can’t see what is truly happening right in front of them. He has offered them the way to peace through calling them to repentance and urging them to share what they have with anyone who has need. He has preached good news for those everyone else looked down on. He has offered a place at the table for the outcasts. He has brought healing and restoration to those in affliction. He has tried to open their eyes to a better understanding of holiness lived out each day. Still they seem to be missing it.
The peace Jesus offers is available to all, but you have to look for it to truly see it. As Jesus said, it is for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. True peace is not the absence of stress, hardship, and chaos. It is the recognition of God’s presence in the midst of life’s storms. It is lying in a hospital bed and knowing God is standing right next to you. It is acting with integrity at work knowing that speaking out about unethical practices or refusing to do something you know is wrong may cost you and your family your livelihood. It comes in choosing patience in traffic, at work, or in your home instead of allowing yourself to be overcome by stress and what I heard one wise person call the “heresy of the urgent.” It comes in adopting an outlook of humility and gratitude instead of only seeing what is wrong with your life. It comes in embracing compassion, understanding, empathy, and love for those who are different than you instead of prejudice, fear, and hate. It comes through being fully present to the person in front of you instead of being distracted by to-do lists and schedules. It comes by recognizing that each moment and each interaction presents and opportunity for an encounter with God.
True peace is also not about God blessing us more than anyone else. It is something we are called to bring to all people as we partner with Christ in God’s mission to the world. The ironic part is that Jesus’ first followers were not the only ones to get it wrong. Christ’ kingdom was a kingdom of peace for all, but still the world overlooks the homeless and the working poor. Still the world keeps the refugee at a distance. Still the world fears the immigrant. Still the world shuns those who are different from whatever is “normal.” Still the world refuses to treat everyone as a reflection of God’s image. Still we come up with catastrophic ways to destroy each other. And here comes the one who shows us how to recognize God is at work among us and I am reminded again that all of life, indeed all of world history, is made up of missed opportunities, times when we could have known and lived out the way of peace, but we chose another way.
What will we choose today? Life is full of missed opportunities, of misunderstandings, of moments filled with the expectations of things that might have been. Some might have looked at Jesus on the cross and thought, “What potential squandered away. What a missed opportunity for greatness.” But soon the world would see. Thankfully life with Christ is also full of moments for repentance, for coming home to God, for opening our eyes to see God at work among us, for embracing God’s peace again.
As we follow Jesus and the crowds on Palm and Passion Sunday, as we meet in the upper room on Thursday, as we hear his cries of agony on Good Friday, as we meet him in the garden of the tomb on Easter Sunday, and every day after, may we have eyes to see that each moment, each interaction is an opportunity to recognize an encounter with God and follow Jesus where he leads. “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Blessed is the Prince of Peace. Don’t miss him.