In the beginning…the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said…. (Genesis 1:1, 2)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.’ (John 20:19 ff.)
In Genesis 1 we encounter a God who delights in order and rhythm. This order and rhythm results in an ecosystem containing animals, birds, fish, earth, sky, rivers, seas, lakes, rain, humanity, and God that is “very good.” That is in a state of peace.
John connected the man named Jesus, from Nazareth, with the order-creating, peace-catalyzing voice of God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The first thing the resurrected Jesus said to his terrified disciples was: “Peace.”
This statment of Peace was not an invitation to inactivity or a ‘naval-gazing’ style spirituality. It was an invitation to mission: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Yet, it was an invitation to mission in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus was sent to represent the Father to humanity. We are sent to represent the Son. Later in Genesis 1 we learn that humankind were made “in the image of God, He made them, male and female.” We are the walking, talking, creating, loving icons of Jesus and thus of the invisible Creator.
To fulfill our purpose and thus to know God’s peace, we need to learn to hear the voice of our Maker, the voice of Jesus, the voice of the Holy Spirit.
This needn’t be a mysterious, mystical endeavour. God speaks in all of creation. Yet, more clearly and more fully, God speaks in Holy Scripture. The work of the Holy Spirit is seldom separated from God’s Word in Scripture. In fact, when the Holy Spirit was given to the church, it wasn’t a random occurance. It happened during the feast of Pentecost. The Jewish feast that praised God for the gift of the Law.
Maybe not everyone has time to delve into the totality of scripture. Perhaps it’s enough to read what we can in a spirit of love and devotion. Caring enough about the Maker of Peace to read His Word carefully. To memorize it. And to submit our lives to its illumination.