Christ, our peace

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace" (Eph 2:13f)

We are hopefully used to the idea that we cannot find our righteousness in ourselves, but have to find it in Christ. We know that this means among other things that:

• We are (now) perfectly righteous in God's eyes, no matter what we think or feel about ourselves;
• Sin remains in our life, but we are progressively being made righteous by the Holy Spirit's application of Christ's righteous resurrection life;
• As Christ is the only righteous one, he is our model for what righteous living looks like. That is what is helpful about the WWJD slogan. Jesus, and his cruciform life, is the definition of righteousness.

But what is true of righteousness is also true of peace (wisdom, etc).

• We have peace with God and his creation, even if we feel that God is at war with us and the world is all against is. We may rarely feel very settled and tranquil in ourselves, but we are (now) perfectly at peace in God's eyes;
• There remains hostility towards others and towards us, and much of life is chaotic rather than tranquil, but the Holy Spirit is giving us the peace of God, and that is slowly becoming integral to us, even if we're not aware of it;
• But part of the reason we may not be aware of the peace we already have is because we have a false idea of what peace looks like. Perhaps we think it looks like stillness, or a deserted beach with the sun coming up over the horizon. But if Christ is the one who has, and is, perfect peace, we should look to him to know what peace looks like. He is at war with the devil, mourning over evil, and even when they are defeated will be as active and creative as he has always been.