22nd March 2026
The Things that make for Peace
As we move from Lent into Passiontide, the focus of the church shifts from the wilderness to Jesus' journey to the cross, a story that we will be telling on Palm Sunday and throughout Holy Week. As we reflect on the brutality inflicted upon Jesus by both religious and political leaders, on the anger of the shouting mob, wearied by decades of inequality, poverty and lack of power, on the military violence underpinning the society of the Roman Empire, we might well feel that little has changed in 2000 years. As I write, the war in Iran and the wider Middle East shows no sign of de-escalation. The global fall-out from this conflict alone threatens widespread harm, a harm that will, inevitably, cause more suffering to the poor than to the rich. And further wars rage across the world, with all their attendant misery.
When I visited the Holy Land in 2018, we followed Jesus' Palm Sunday route from the Mount of Olives down to the city of Jerusalem. When we began at the top of the hill, we could see the city laid out before us, ready for the taking. But, a little later, we paused at the place where, according to tradition, Jesus wept over the city (Luke 19:41-44). At that point, there was no view at all: it was as if the city itself had put up a massive wall to keep us out.
Of course the city looks very different now than it did in the 1st century, and of course, the place where Jesus wept might have been different too. But it is significant, I think, that an episode where we think of Jesus being welcomed in triumph and joy as king is followed so closely by one in which he weeps. Luke records Jesus as saying "If you, even you, had only recognised on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes." He prophesies a time when Jerusalem will be crushed completely - "because you did not recognise the time of your visitation from God".
I am struck by that phrase "the things that make for peace." The suffering that results from endless wars does not have to be inevitable. Human actions have consequences. Most historians now agree that the build up of military forces in the years immediately before the First World War made some sort of conflict inevitable. Once the tanks (now drones) are in place it doesn't take much to issue the order to use them. And so, I read Jesus' next words about the destruction of Jerusalem less as a punishment and more as an inevitable consequence of the people's choices.
But this surely means that there are "things that make for peace", peace-building actions that can have consequences too. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount "Blessed are the peacemakers". How greatly we need those peace-makers in our fractured world! How we need to pray for those people who, even now, are engaged in the "things that make for peace"!
Ultimately, we know that the "things that make for peace" will triumph, because Jesus triumphed, "by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20). In our weary, war-torn world today, how can we follow Christ's costly way of peace?
