Blessed are the Peacemakers

Blessed are the Peacemakers. Matthew 5.9

Have you ever climbed to the top of Half Dome1, Gangirwal2 or even Mount Kenya3? If so, you have some sense of ‘arriving’, right? Well, you and I are about to arrive at the crest or the top rung of the ladder of the Beatitudes.

In truth, I could personally revisit the Beatitudes again and again—that is how much they have grabbed and challenged me--so beautiful, yet so vital to living and loving the way Christ would have us.

Note the order – We last considered, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’, which had to precede ‘blessed are the peacemakers’. Making peace can never come at the cost of purity or righteousness, but rather comes out of it and must be framed within the context of it.

What is a peacemaker? A person who brings about peace, especially by reconciling adversaries.4 Peacemakers are those through whom the entire Beatitudes course again and again—sometimes in order, sometimes out of order, sometimes singly, sometimes all together. They have the character of the King—they are peacemakers.5

The whole matter of peace is one of perspective.

Your mate might be fighting a war in some far flung place on the planet; your African country may be torn in two by battling factions; your Iraqi nation may be under siege, with yet another battle over the the important city of Mosul…

On the other hand, perhaps you live in a sheltered area of a country, untouched by war; so then, when you think about the matter of peace, except for what you see on the news, read on the internet or see on the front page of a newspaper as you pass by a news-stand, you most often think about peace in the context of your personal life—your relationships, your marriage, your family, or your workplace. Perspective … always enlightening, is it not?

How apropos that it was Jesus who said, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Jesus was our Peacemaker. When he made this proclamation on the afternoon on that hillside so long ago, he knew that he was bringing peace to the world such as it had never known. He was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy some 700 years before his birth: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.6

It would not be long until Jesus prepared his disciples that he would soon leave them, and that they would be better off without his physical presence, because then and only then, would the Comforter—the Holy Spirit—come to them, and to all Christ-followers after them. And come he did!8

From then on,

those who followed in the dust of the Rabbi, our Jesus,

had the Holy Spirit living within,

empowering them to know peace and become peacemakers.

Is that not so beautiful? On that hillside Jesus knew his coming would make it possible for his beloved to truly know peace—forever.

Thoughts to ponder – would you say that you are a peacemaker? Why, why not? If so, how do you go about making peace where there is conflict? What is the Christian’s responsibility in peacemaking?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Christine
PastorWoman.com

1 – Half Dome, Yosemite National Park

2 – Gangirwal is Nigeria’s highest mountain

3 – Mt. Kenya is Africa’s second highest peak at 17,058 feet

4 - Wikipedia Dictionary

5 - The Sermon on the Mount, R. Kent Hughes

6 – Isaiah 9.6

7 – John 16.24

8 – Acts 2.4a