On the Second Sunday of Easter, we celebrate that the Son of God, who is the Word of God, stood before His first followers (and stands before us) and says: “Shalom.” This Hebrew word has no English equivalent, though it is frequently translated “Peace.”
Although we can never plumb the depths of its meaning, Shalom describes wholeness and harmony. For the people living 2,000 years ago, it described “the mending of a net.” It had to do with putting together what was broken. When Jesus spoke in the Upper Room, His utterance of “Shalom” was not a wish, but an announcement that He was there in their midst, and their relationship with Him was not broken by death. In fact, their relationship with Him was definitively healed and mended.
Christ’s Peace is not something we can produce for ourselves. It is something given and proclaimed by God in Christ. It is wholeness, it is unity, it is healing. Christ’s Peace is something our wounded world needs in a very big way today. Are we ready to step up to become peacemakers in His name this week?
Let us pray. “Lord God, stir up in our hearts deep gratitude for the Peace which you give us. Help us to be messengers of that Peace and, truly, peacemakers in our own day, among the people we meet on the journey of life. In the name of the Prince of Peace, Christ the Lord. Amen.”
