For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. (Ephesians 2:14-16)   I was once at an ecumenical gathering where one of the giants in leadership among the group, a learned Reverend Doctor, declared that Christians have no business talking about peace.  "We Christians are the problem!" he said.  "From the crusades, to colonial campaigns, to bloody religious wars during the reformation, to residential schools—Christians have little track record to draw on when it comes to peace." He's not wrong.  Christians haven't often been agents of peace and reconciliation.  Not even in our own lives.  How many times haven't you or I added bricks to the walls of hostility that divide us from others?  Even our efforts at good produce unintended harms more often than we'd like.  So maybe this Christian leader is right and we don't have anything to say when it comes to peace.  We're just as much part of the problem as the next person. And yet, the statement of this Christian leader also somehow rings hollow.  If followers of the Prince of Peace can't talk about peace, who can?   It is an urgent question.  Violence continues to erupt all around us, most recently embodied in the war in Gaza.  Can we speak peace into this situation, tainted though our actions have been?  Closer to home, there are relationships that are broken and breaking.  Can we speak a word of reconciliation—of forgiveness or confession—despite the fact that we ourselves have helped fortify walls of hostility? When it comes to these questions, Paul sets us back on the right foot.  He affirms that yes, left to ourselves, we are indeed dead in our transgressions.  Our history is littered with sin, discord, and division.  Thankfully however, peace was never about our action.  It is about the action of Christ.   He is our peace.  He is the one who tears down the dividing walls of hostility and destroys the barriers.  He is the one who unites deeply divided ethnic groups into one new humanity within his church.  And he does it through his cross where all the hostilities we can muster are put to death—whether the hostilities of our past, present, or future.  All of them die in the death of Christ on the cross.  His victory over human hostility is total.  None of it survives, such that what remains, is peace.  The peace he gives to us all as a gift in this new resurrection life. This is the reality in Christ which will be made fully manifest at his second coming.  For now though, amidst the continuing hostilities of our lives and world, take heart that we Christians can still speak of peace.  The way we do it is not by pointing to ourselves, but to Jesus—reminding ourselves and others that "he is our peace."  And, where Jesus is present among us and his cross evident through us, glimpses of that peace still come.  

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