Today, as I write this, the newsfeed is filled with the aftermath of yet another shooting at a school, where 19 little children and two adults were killed and a lot of others wounded. I want to scream, “What goes through the mind of someone that makes it ok to shoot at little children?” Instead, I weep as I listen to the tearful cry of a father who just wants his daughter to be alive.
The morning news is always bad. Every day the headlines scream of war, inflation, legal attacks on human rights, gerrymandering, political posturing, corruption, white supremacy, mass murders using military-grade weapons, extreme drought, torrential rain, earthquakes and landslides. This is not how I thought things would be as I live into my old age. It feels like the end of the world, the end of my hopes, the end of all that I had yearned for and was almost in sight, only to have it all snatched away.
My heart is very troubled. I’m guessing that the disciples felt just as troubled when they realized that Jesus had died on that cross, that he wasn’t going to raise an army and overthrow the Roman Empire that held their tiny country in an iron fist, that he wasn’t going to be their king after all, that their lives were going to continue to be marked by poverty, struggle, and the sound of Roman armor clanking in the streets of Jerusalem. This was the exact opposite of good news.
But Jesus reminds me that there is a different kind of news that is even more real than the death-and-disaster machine wants me to believe in. Even when things are about as terrible as they can be, even when we tremble on the edge of utter destruction, Jesus brings me good news. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says, because the Spirit is in you, and you are in the Spirit, and we are all in one another, forever and ever.* Because nothing can separate us from the love of God, my heart can be at peace. And when my heart is at peace, there is work to do so that other hearts can be at peace, too.
–Deborah Sokolove, Seekers Church
- What is troubling your heart right now?
- What is the good news that can bring you peace?
- What can you do to help others be at peace?
