Magyar Egyház, 1972 (51. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1972-03-01 / 3. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 9 cross means peace for the individual, for any troubled soul who will come to find his peace in Him who died on the cross. I. When we say that the cross means peace for the world we do not mean that the cross has brought world peace. Quite the opposite, I am afraid. All in the name of the cross the church of the crusaders brought war, not peace, and threw army after plundering army across Europe into the Holy Land. All that in the name of the cross. How can we say it has made peace? Of course, we can make some show of argument in its favor. There is the curious, rather pathetic attempt of the church of the eleventh century to bring a Christian peace to the world. The Peace of God, it was called. The church ordered the warring princes of Europe not to interfere with the rights of non-combatants, not to harm pilgrims and merchants and farmers, not to cut down trees and destroy fields of grain. It was an attempt to make a war a private little game between princes, a sport for gentlemen, and not the all-devouring disaster that it is today. When you blame the church for crusades, remember to credit it with the Peace of God. But even that was not real peace. No, it is not world peace that the cross brings, but rather peace for the world-, peace in two sences. In the cross we see a sovereign God overruling all disorder by the order and peace of His own perfect will: and in the cross we have a present anticipation of future peace. The first is peace on a cosmic scale. Brooding above the eddies and whirpools of this small restless world there is peace in the sovereign will of God. All our times are in His hands. At the very moment when chaos reached its climax in the death of Christ on the cross, by the unfathomable will of the living God that climax of chaos, the cross, became the foundation of our peace. For even the terrible cross is ordained of God, and in the order of His universe it becomes peace. The cross lifts the curtain of the ages and lets us see that when the powers of darkness, like clouds swirling out of the pit, threaten to snuff out the Light of the world, at that very moment the Light is declared gloriously inextinguishable. When Satan battles with the Son of God, even as he nails Him to the cross, victory is with the Son. And that means peace — a peace far greater than this little world of ours can comprehend, a peace beyond time in eternity, peace on a cosmic scale. “ ... in him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” The victory on the cross is only a foretaste of the blessed time when the Christ whom the cross could not hold will return as conqueror and prince of peace; “when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not rise against nation, and they shall study war no more” (Isa. 2:4). Of course, that time is not here yet. The fight is not over. But peace in a very real sense is here already, for peace anticipated can bring peace. It is something like the peace and assurance that a doctor brings into a home made frantic by sudden illness. The doctor has come, and it is all right. Is the child all well? No, but the doctor has come, and the anxious parents relax as they watch him about his work, steady and calm and sure. The danger is not past, but peace is already in the home. That is one way the cross brings peace. God has come into the world. The struggle is not over, but the cross is empty, and Christ lives, and He has overcome the world. This is my Father’s world, 0 let me ne’er forget That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father’s world, the battle is not done; Jesus who died shall be justified, And earth and heaven be one. II. But is that enough? How is that peace made real to us now? Is there not a danger that a peace which must he big enough for the stars and for eternity will be so vast and abstract that it will completely miss you and me, struggling as we are in our little moment of time? Is there not a chance that peace which must be always anticipated may never come true? After all, we are living in the present, not the future. There is a difference between the peace of God’s ultimate victory over all, which is sure but cosmic; and the peace of our salvation, which is very personal but not sure for all, as Jesus weeping over Jerusalem made very clear. He did all He could to make it sure. He came even to the cross in a deed that says more eloquently than any words that God loves us and that the peace He would give us personal peace, peace even under the thrashing tail of the dragon, for that is exactly where He came to win us our peace. He made peace in suffering through the blood of His cross, and not all the struggles and sorrows of history can take that peace away. We may not fully understand it. God’s ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. Probe deeply enough and all God’s ways are mystery. But we do know in part. That’s what the Word of God
