Peace Disturbed

(This post was originally shared with the community on June 24, 2020.)

This week when I was walking past FIT near my office I saw this quote painted on the wall:

“Artists are here to disturb the peace.”  – James Baldwin

This made me think of Matthew 10:34 –

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

The Lord Jesus is the ultimate Artist, because He is the one who created the world and all that is in it.  We are His works of art.

And yet, when Christ came to earth, He disturbed the peace.

That entire Matthew 10 passage is a description of the division that comes because of Christ.  He is truly a “divider of people.”

Right now in our world, our nation, and our community we are witnessing a disturbance of peace.

Perhaps your own life is experiencing a disruption of personal peace.  All of us have gone through times of disruption like that.  Perhaps there are more to come.

Matthew 10:34 reminds us that times of disruption are not out of God’s control or even out of His will.

He is the one who brings this lack of peace to the world, and even to our own lives, so that we might acknowledge our own sinfulness and spiritual bankruptcy and see that Christ alone is our hope for peace with God, with others, and with ourselves.

Perhaps this week we can allow Christ to disturb the peace in our life, and meditate upon what it is that He is seeking to accomplish in us through times of disruption.

Maybe if we look closely enough we can see the design behind the disturbances.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Pastor Joel Grassi

Verse of meditation for the week:

“All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.”  John 1:3