The Things that Make for Peace

Black lives matter. What if we begin every devotional with these words as our prayer this week? You may experience them as a prayer of confession, of praise, of intercession… Black lives matter.

“And when he [Jesus] drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” - Luke 19:41-42

Jesus weeps.

Earlier in his life, we see him weeping for his friends who’ve experienced a great loss. Now he weeps for the city, his city that does not know the things that make for peace. Today perhaps he weeps with us - for the losses we’ve experienced over the last days, weeks, months, perhaps years, and for the pains we’re going through even now as a community still learning the ways of peace, of wholeness - the ways of shalom.

“There can be no justice without peace and there can be no peace without justice,” is how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, or there’s the short version - “no justice, no peace.”

How do you sense Jesus weeping with you, with us this morning? Let’s take a minute to sit with him in that space. What do you sense Jesus teaching about the ways of peace? Perhaps there are things once hidden to us being revealed now. Are we willing to see? Let’s talk with Jesus about our willingness to see and speak up for truth in a fresh way, in hopes that it leads toward shalom.