Blessed are the Peacemakers
Since a very young age I have always been exceedingly uncomfortable with conflict. To me conflict was a threat to my security. If my parents were arguing, the angry tones and words and sometimes tears would fill my young heart with dread. Conflict with my brothers would often lead to actual fist fights. I smile now, when I remember they were more like “hit and run” skirmishes. The winner was the one who made the other one cry first.
Once I started school, I learned quickly that conflict with the teacher meant staying after school at best, or a meeting with my parents, or a paddling at worst. But to me the hardest conflicts of all were conflicts with my classmates. I was an easy target because everyone knew I could be provoked to tears with name-calling and hurtful words. I dreaded going to school and having to face my cruel classmates. Sometimes things would get physical between us, as well. Hair pulling, face slapping, pinching and scratching were the usual attacks from other girls. Honestly, I preferred the rude but infrequent punches from the boys. They were usually “once and done.” Maybe back then the old “boys don’t beat up girls” rule carried more weight than it does today.
Anyway, conflict made me so nervous I would resort to all kinds of measures to avoid it.
- Hiding. Not easily done, mostly during recess.
- Placating. Going along with the tormenting or pleading to be left alone.
- Ignoring. Avoiding engagement at all costs, including not standing firm on my convictions, and abandoning self-respect in favor of self-preservation.
There were many more and I was one who would define those responses to provocation as “peacemaking.” But really all they accomplished was a delay of the inevitable. Peace was never really accomplished.
It’s only been much more recently that I have realized that peacemaking is a gift and a characteristic magnified by the Holy Spirit within the lives of those who live by the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe that until we have peace with God we are unable to be peacemakers in the world. Jesus Christ reconciled us to the father. We were at war with God in our sin and Jesus became “The Peacemaker.” After His resurrection, when He ascended to the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit as to be our Peacekeeper.
So how do we become peacemakers?
First let’s take a closer look at the reconciliation theology as defined by John Calvin and other Evangelical theologians.
“ Biblical Reconciliation is the end of the estrangement caused by original sin between God and Humanity.” John Calvin describes reconciliation as “the peace between humanity and God that results from the expiation (atonement)of religious sin and the propitiation (appeasement)of God’s wrath.”
Evangelical theologian, Philip Ryken, describes reconciliation or peace with God in this way; “it is part of the message of salvation that brings us back together with God. God is the author, Christ is the agent and we are the ambassadors of reconciliation.”
The following scriptures speak to reconciliation with God and how it applies to the believer:
Romans 5:10–11
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
Romans 11:15
“ For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”
2 Corinthians 5:18–21
“Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Ephesians 2:14–17
“For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the law of Commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near…”
Colossians 1:19–22
“For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach…”
God reconciles us back into relationship with Himself through Christ. As disciples of Christ, armed with the gospel and empowered by the Holy Spirit we are to share this ministry of reconciliation (peace with God) by our witness.
Peacemaking is so much more than avoiding conflict. It is healing the causes of conflict and providing the better alternative to achieve reconciliation both in our hearts and in the world to the glory of God the Father.
Matthew 5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
