Devotional Hours with the Bible, Volume 7: Chapter 37 - "Peace Be unto You!"
By J.R. Miller
John 20:19, 21, 26
No other benediction that could fall upon the ears of men, could mean more than this: "Peace be unto you!" This is a restless, striving, struggling world. Nation wars with nation. Business interests are in antagonism with other business interests. There are race wars which sometimes seem utterly unappeasable until one or the other race has been exterminated. Then there are family feuds which sometimes go on for generations in deadly enmity. And there are personal quarrels, alienations, strifes, which separate friends. Besides all this, there is a restlessness in human hearts. Men are unhappy and not at peace in themselves. There is strife within the bosom of nearly everyone.
No word Christ ever spoke caught more ears than when He said, "Come unto me ... and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28), or "Peace be unto you!" His words answered a universal need and a universal yearning.
"Peace be unto you!" This was the first word the risen Christ spoke to His disciples as a body after He returned from the grave. This gives special significance to what He said. Three different times He spoke the same words, "Peace be unto you!" twice the evening of the day on which He rose, and once the following week. Yet, while He used precisely the same words, they had a different meaning each time, and were not merely a repetition.
Look at the setting of the benediction as He first uttered it. It was evening. The disciples had sought the quiet and safety of the upper room for a meeting together. The doors were carefully shut, for fear of the Jews. The little company was in sore dread of those who had crucified their Master. "Jesus ... stood in the midst, and said unto them, Peace be unto you! And when he said that, he showed unto them His hands and His side." Why did He show them His hands and His side? Because of the WOUNDS. He reminded them of His sufferings, through which alone peace could come to them.
The second use of the words was a few minutes later. "Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be unto you!" Then He added, "As my Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive the Holy Spirit." Here the benediction of peace, is accompanied by the gift of the Spirit. There can be no true, deep peace in us--except when the Holy Spirit holds sway in our hearts.
The third time the benediction was given: "A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you!' Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.' " Here the purpose of the benediction was to help Thomas' slow faith.
"Peace be unto you!" The spirit of Christianity is all in the direction of peace. There is a picture called "Peace" which is suggestive. It shows a cannon lying in a meadow, in the grass, with a lamb feeding beside it, nibbling at its very mouth. But while the picture is beautiful, it is incomplete. The cannon, which once was used in war, dealing death, is still a cannon, useless--but ready to be used again in the old way. The prophet suggests a more fitting and complete picture when he says in his vision of the redeemed nation, "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3). That is the kind of peace Christ would make. The sword shall no longer be a sword, though rusty and unused--but shall be made into a plowshare, doing its work for humanity. In the artist's picture would be truer to the spirit of Christianity, if the cannon were not merely lying in the meadow, with the lamb feeding quietly beside it--but instead was made into church bells to call the people to the house of God.
The peace which our Master would make is not merely the laying down of arms--but a peace which shall bring good to both nations and restore them to fellowship. Christian peace is not merely a drawn battle, with the old bitterness remaining. The bitterness must be swallowed up in love. If two have been estranged through misunderstanding, or by whatever cause, Christ's peace leads them together in a new friendship which forgets the past--and wipes out all traces of difference in a relationship of love.
