Journey Through Holy Week With the Archbishop of CanterburySample

Most of us probably like the idea of being a peacemaker. In Advent, we enthusiastically read that Jesus will be known as the ‘Prince of Peace.' But the reality of Jesus’ way of peace is challenging and sometimes seems to go against all our instincts.

The disciples are with Jesus when he is arrested and their first impulse is violent retaliation or defence. But Jesus has no time for a lose-lose cycle of violence. He says ‘No more of this!’ and heals the slave injured by the disciples’ attack. The Jesus who told his followers to ‘turn the other cheek’ is walking the talk. The kingdom of peace cannot come through violence. The means does not justify the ends. Two thousand years later, Martin Luther King would echo this, saying ‘One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.’

It's easy for us to judge the disciples for missing the point yet again. But we too can so easily try and fit Jesus into a box of our own making. Jesus’ kingdom of peace is one that makes the comfortable uncomfortable, that involves surrendering our own egos. It sometimes means turning over the tables in the temple, as well as turning the other cheek.

The story of Jesus’ arrest is a healthy reminder to all of us to keep coming back to the full picture of all that Jesus said and did when we want to understand what peace looks like – not to choose the simple parts that fit our own expectations.

Let’s take a moment to pause and reflect:

• What words or actions of Jesus surprise you or challenge your ideas about him?
• Where does your community need the counter-cultural way of peace that Jesus invites us to walk?