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Pastor · Sunday Schedule · FBC
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2000
KEEPING THE PEACE
Sometimes we go to great lengths to “keep the peace.” We don’t say the
things we would like to say. We seek for a middle ground. We try negotiating. We
smile when we would rather yell. We give in and say to ourselves, it wasn’t that
important anyway.
All of the above can be justifiable acts of peacemaking but the problem develops
when such acts, especially when combined with an attitude of “peace at any price,” causes
us to give up on ourselves. We keep laying aside our own wishes and desires. We keep
pushing all true feeling and emotion further away from any conscious awareness. The
peace is kept but we are lost to ourselves.
It is a very sad place to be, but it is even more tragic if we try to justify the
sacrificing of ourselves in the name of Christ, thinking such peacekeeping is being
Christian. True self sacrifice leads to fulfillment not the kind of emptiness I have just
described. True self sacrifice leads to the self not the suppression of the self.
In Lent we are given the opportunity to reclaim those parts of ourselves we have
perhaps suppressed too long in the name of wanting to keep the peace. We are led to
Calvary through an inward journey into our own soul. The season of Lent is often thought of as a time of penance, repentance and
confession. It is all of these but it is more. Lent not only leads us to a confession of our
sin but to the darkened areas of our soul where we have hidden aspects of our life we
thought were better to bury than to shine because they effected the status quo or
the maintenance of peace.
Lent isn’t just about sin. It is a reality check. It is a time to survey
what we have buried in our own soul and see it in the light of Christ’s Love for us. It
can be painful, but not just because of the sin we might discover but the hidden treasurers we
have buried and never brought to light because we were afraid to put ourselves forward or
to rock the boat.
I think there are two kinds of peace, one that comes from suppressing everything
about the self and the other that comes through the self. One acts as a dam. The other
acts as a channel. In the one we live our somebody else’s expectation of us. In the other
peace comes the more in tune we are with our true selves, then learning to use that self to
help and serve others.
I invite you to journey with me through the season of Lent and find the self God so
dearly loved He sent His Son to reclaim that self. Learn the peace that comes not by
accommodation but by redemption. Learn the peace that is so wonderful the only words
the Bible finds to describe it is the peace “that passes understanding,” a peace
that only God can give, a peace centered in the self, a self we often suppress in the
name of peace.
Dr. David W. Andersen
        
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