Day 276

Jeremiah 6:1-7:29, Philippians 4:2-23, Proverbs 24:5-14

I have been quite surprised how often we have seen this plea for justice and peace (or justice and mercy) linked with worship, but it is a plea that is echoed through a great deal of the Old Testament as we have read along. I know that I have brought it up regularly but it dawned on me this time as I was reading that, if it is here so often, it is something that must be vitally important to God.

Jesus talked about it in terms of loving our neighbour, and then went on to describe who our neighbour was. What we don’t look at quite so often is the question of how e love our neighbour, what does it mean to love friend and stranger alike. Paul in his letters gives us some lovely passages on what love is, and the easy answer is that we should act in this way to everyone we ever meet and people who we don’t get to meet as well. Sometimes this might be difficult though but what we are seeing through the Old Testament is that justice, mercy and peace are vitally important to God. We are making a pretty good stab at love when we try to make sure that our lives are marked by these virtues.

Paul also offers us a vision of peace in our lives in the blessing that he offers. That the peace of God which passes all understanding may be ours. I imagine here Jesus calming the storm, the ravaging waves and then the glass like water after the event, a peace that the disciples could not imagine when they were in the middle of the storm. It is that peace that comes into our lives through Christ, where the storm is stilled and we can rest in the calm.

In Christ we can understand the deepest possible peace.