This is a very favourite text with people that know very little of the
depths of Christianity. They fancy that it appeals to common sense and
men's natural consciences, apart altogether from minutenesses of
doctrine or of Christian experience. They are very much mistaken. No
doubt there is a surface of truth, but only a surface, in the
application that is generally given to these words of our text, as if it
meant nothing more than 'he is a good man that goes about and tries to
make contending people give up their quarrels, and produces a healing
atmosphere of tranquillity wherever he goes.' That is perfectly true,
but there is a great deal more in the text than that. If we consider the
Scriptural usage of this great word 'peace,' and all the ground that it
covers in human experience; if we remember that it enters as an element
into Christ's own name, the 'Peace-Bringer,' the 'Prince of Peace'; and
if we notice, as I have already done, the place which this Beatitude
occupies in the series, we shall be obliged to look for some far deeper
meaning before we can understand the sweep of our Lord's intention here.
I do not think that I am going one inch too far, or forcing meanings
into His words which they are not intended to bear, when I say that the
first characteristic of the peace, which His disciples have been passed
through their apprenticeship in order to fit them to bring, is the peace
of reconciliation with God. The cause of all the other fightings in the
world is that men's relation to the Father in heaven is disturbed, and
that, whilst there flow out from Him only amity and love, these are met
by us with antagonism often, with opposition of will often, with
alienation of heart often, and with indifference and forgetfulness
almost uniformly. So the first thing to be done to make men at peace
with one another and with themselves is to rectify their relation to
God, and bring peace there.
We often hear in these days complaints of Christian Churches and
Christian people because they do not fling themselves, with sufficient
energy to please the censors, into movements which are intended to bring
about happier relations in society. The longest way round is sometimes
the shortest way home. It does not belong to all of us Christians, and I
doubt whether it belongs to the Christian Church as such at all, to
fling itself into the movements to which I have referred. But if a man
go and carry to men the great message of a reconciled and a reconciling
God manifest in Jesus Christ, and bringing peace between men and God, he
will have done more to sweeten society and put an end to hostility than
I think he will be likely to do by any other method. Christian men and
women, whatever else you and I are here for, we are here mainly that we
may preach, by lip and life, the great message that in Christ is our
peace, and that God 'was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.'
We are not to leave out, of course, that which is so often taken as
being the sole meaning of the great word of my text. There is much that
we are all bound to do to carry the tranquillising and soothing
influences of Gospel principles and of Christ's example into the
littlenesses of daily life. Any fool can stick a lucifer match into a
haystack and make a blaze. It is easy to promote strife. There is a
malicious love of it in us all; and ill-natured gossip has a great deal
to do in bringing it about. But it takes something more to put the fire
out than it did to light it, and there is no nobler office for
Christians than to seek to damp down all these devil's flames of envy
and jealousy and mutual animosity. We have to do it, first, by making
very sure that we do not answer scorn with scorn, gibes with gibes, hate
with hate, but 'seek to overcome evil with good.' It takes two to make a
quarrel, and your most hostile antagonist cannot break the peace unless
you help him. If you are resolved to keep it, kept it will be.
May I say another word? I think that our text, though it goes a good
deal deeper, does also very plainly tell us Christian folk what is our
duty in relation to literal warfare. There is no need for me to discuss
here the question as to whether actual fighting with armies and swords
is ever legitimate or not. It is a curious kind of Christian duty
certainly, if it ever gets to be one. And when one thinks of the
militarism that is crushing Europe and driving her ignorant classes to
wild schemes of revolution; and when one thinks of the hell of
battlefields, of the miseries of the wounded, of mourning widows, of
ruined peaceful peasants, of the devil's passions that war sets loose,
some of us find it extremely hard to believe that all that is ever in
accordance with the mind of Christ. But whether you agree with me in
that or no, surely my text points to the duty of the Christian Church to
take up a very much more decisive position in reference to the military
spirit than, alas! it ever has done. Certainly it does seem to be not
very obviously in accordance with Christ's teachings that men-of-war
should be launched with a religious service, or that _Te Deums_ should
be sung because thousands have been killed. It certainly does seem to be
something like a satire on European Christianity that one of the chief
lessons we have taught the East is that we have instructed the Japanese
how to use Western weapons to fight their enemies. Surely, surely, if
Christian churches laid to heart as they ought these plain words of the
Master, they would bring their united influence to bear against that
demon of war, and that pinchbeck, spurious glory which is connected with
it. 'Blessed are the peacemakers': let us try to earn the benediction.