Luke 24:36   While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

That is what I would like to say to you this morning as well, “Peace be with you.”  It is the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s and so I would wish you peace.  “Well that’s nice Tim. You can wish us peace all you want but I sure don’t feel very peaceful.”  It does seem that every family has the some kind of tragedy.  It seems as a congregation we move from one challenge to the next.  Certainly, our community is not very peaceful now.  Some are concerned with their jobs and what in the world is going to happen next?  Our nation is going to have to decide on a new president next year.  And I suspect that is not going to be a peaceful time.  I’m not looking forward to all the political commercials in 2008.  Even in the big picture of the world; we are still at war, and terrorists are still plotting, a former prime minister in Pakistan is assassinated. Who knows what is going on in the environment?  Can the Cowboys win the Super Bowl?  It is an unsure world.  So, how can I say to you this morning, “Peace be with you.”?

I can say it the same way Jesus said it.  It wasn’t a pleasant time to be alive in the days of Jesus either.  Jerusalem in the first century was a powder keg waiting to blow up.  It did in 70 AD. Jesus had just been killed.  Their leader, the messiah was dead.  The disciples were hiding in the upper room afraid the Romans would hunt them down and crucify them too.  Politically, the world was in the iron hand of the cruel Romans.  The Jews were divided on what to do.  There were some who said Jesus was alive, but how?  What was going on?   But then Jesus appeared in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

How could Jesus say peace?  Luke, in the closing paragraphs of his Gospel, paints a picture of peace. He tells us how to be at peace while living in a less than stellar world.  Sound good?  Need a little sanity in an insane world? I say, “Peace be with you.” In the same way Jesus said it.  Let’s read the end of Luke and find some peace.

Luke 24:37-43  They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.  He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?  Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."  When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.  And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?"  They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

Luke, finally, resolves the tension of chapter 24.  Remember, the women had found the tomb empty but they did not see Jesus.  The two disciples on the road to Emmaus had their holy heart burn, but had just caught a glimpse of Jesus when he broke the bread.  When they returned they heard Peter had also caught a peak at the resurrected Jesus.  But, finally, Jesus is in their presence and talks and touches and eats with them. Like in a movie, the good guy wins against all odds and you breathe a sign of relief.  Jesus is really alive.  He is not a ghost or some disembodied apparition or anything like that.  He is real.  They touch him and hug him and eat with him.  Jesus was really resurrected back to life!  My Lord lives!

This moves me to be able to have peace in my life.  I need to be reminded, occasionally, that Jesus is alive.  He is alive! Vicariously, I can touch Jesus with the disciples in the upper room.  I can be Cleopas and say, “See, I told you so!  Look, I told you he is alive!”  I can jump up and down with joy and amazement!  My Lord is alive!  If Jesus is alive, then all my hopes are alive!   If the one I serve can come back to life; if he is real; then I know that one day I will be real too!

What does Jesus do to make it real for his disciples?  He eats with them.  If the Emmaus meal is the 8th in Luke; which makes it the beginning of the new creation, then this is symbolic of the meal I will eat with Jesus when I am resurrected!  One day I will be just like my Lord.  One day he will bring me back to life, just like him!  One day I will eat the big banquet in the sky with Jesus in my new body!

Philippians 3:20-21   But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

I live in peace now, regardless of the turmoil around me because, one day I will be at the big banquet table in my new Jesus-like body for eternity.  My peace is based upon the big picture. But hope gives me peace.  Wow! I’m feeling better already.  Are you beginning to feel a little more peaceful?  But there’s more than the future that gives me peace.

Luke 24:44-45   He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."  Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.

It was all part of God’s plan.  From the days of Adam and Eve, there was a plan for the snake’s head to be crushed.  From the days of Abraham, there was a plan that the son would save the world.  From the days of Moses, God was preparing a people for the Messiah!  From the days of David, there would be a shepherd whom we could live in without want.  From the days of Isaiah, there would be one who would save us by his stripes.   Jesus opened their eyes to see the plan.  The death and the resurrection was all a part of the big picture; the big plan.

God is in control of his world.  It doesn’t seem like it, sometimes, but he takes the “bad” and makes it good.  What was the worst thing that could have happened to the disciples?  Jesus dying on a cross.  But God reversed that bad and made it good.  It was all a part of the big plan.

That is where we need to have our minds open to the Scriptures.  We need to be in the Scriptures so we can see the wondrous workings of our creator.  He takes disaster and makes it good.  He takes our mistakes and makes us better.  He takes our hurts and makes us stronger.  He takes our struggles and makes us wiser.  He takes our deaths and gives us more faith.  I can live in peace, when I understand and really believe God will make it right!  It is all a part of the big picture.  I know my God from his Scriptures and he makes it all good.  I am feeling more peaceful because of the future I am going to spend with him and because of the past, where I can see how God works his plan.  What else?

Luke 24:46-49  He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Jesus said, 1,974 years ago, the Gospel of his death and resurrection was going to spread from Jerusalem to all nations.  The message of forgiveness was going to go from Israel in 33 AD to Los Alamos in 2008; unless he ends it before Tuesday.  Isn’t that amazing?  The prediction of the spread of Christianity to all nations is wondrous.  That gives me some reassurance, but the peace is found in that last verse: 49.

The power from on high.  Next year we are going to continue this story and we will see this power come to the disciples and fill them with courage and witness.  They will begin to spread the message from Jerusalem all the way to Rome.  Acts ends in Rome, but the power of the message did not.  The power from on high still is with us at the ends of the earth; Los Alamos.  But my peace comes from knowing I am part of this process.

I am part of the witness that spreads the gospel.  I am part of this clothed with power.  I, right now, am doing what Christ predicted.  I am preaching to one of those “all nations!”  Knowing I am presently, in the present, concurrently, right now, in this moment, as I live and breathe, doing what God wants me to do, brings me peace. 

Do you feel the same?  Does knowing that your life is of value to God and he has a purpose for you give, you a sense of peace?  Not peace like lying beside a lake and watching clouds fly by, but peace like, I am who I am intended to be.  Peace like getting a job done, right.  There is a kind of peace that comes from accomplishing something; a peace of purpose.  I am a witness for my Lord.  That is what I am supposed to be.  We are going to work extensively on this next year; “You will be my witnesses.”   That is why I am excited about our study of Acts next year.  We are going to learn to be glorious witnesses!  Sound Good?  Peace comes by being his witnesses! 

Jesus said, “Peace be with you.”  Because he knew they could have peace.  Just like Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge was able to learn the peace of Christmas from the ghost of Christmas past, present and future, we learn peace from the past, the present and the future.  I think this is cool. 
-We learn peace from the past as we see from Scripture there has been a plan in place from the beginning and we are a part of that historical big picture.  We see God’s working in the past!
-We see from the present, as we continue that plan, with the power from on high, who we are designed to be.  We are his witnesses. That is who we are designed to be.  We find peace as we live in big picture!
-In the future we know we will share in the resurrected body of Christ as we share in the eternal banquet. We keep the eternal big picture in our minds.

As we live in the big picture, we have peace.  But watch what happens as we live in the big picture.

Luke 24:50-53  When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them.  While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.  And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. 

As we live in the time of Jesus in heaven; as we live in the time of the big picture; as we live in peace with his blessing; we worship with great joy and stay continually in his temple praising God.  Wow.  That is who I am and so I can say to you this morning, “Peace be with you!”