2 Thessalonians 3:16

2 Thessalonians 3:16

The Lord of Peace, and the Peace of the Lord.

I. The deepest longing of every human heart is for peace. There are many ways in which the supreme good may be represented, but, perhaps, none of them is so lovely, and exercises such universal fascination of attraction as that which presents it in the form of rest. It is an eloquent testimony to the unrest which tortures every heart, that the promise of peace should to all seem so fair. Rest which is not apathy, rest which is not indolence, rest which is contemporaneous with, and the consequence of, the full wholesome activity of the whole nature in its legitimate directions, that is the thing that we are all longing for. The sea is not stagnant though it be calm; there will be the slow heave of the calm billow, and the wavelets may sparkle in the sunlight, though they be still from all the winds that rave. We want, most of all, peace in our inmost hearts.

II. The Lord of Peace Himself is the only Giver of peace. Christ is the "Lord of Peace" because that tranquillity of heart and spirit, that unruffled calm, which we all see from afar and long to possess, was verily His, in His manhood, during all the calamities and changes and activities of His earthly life. He sorrowed; He wept; He wondered; He was angry; He pitied; He loved; and yet all these were perfectly consistent with the unruffled calm that marked His whole career. So peace is not stolid indifference. Nor is it to be found in the avoidance of difficult duties, or the cowardly shirking of sacrifices and pains and struggles; but, rather, it is "peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation," of which the great example stands in Him who was the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, and who yet in it all was the Lord of Peace.

III. The peace of the Lord of Peace is perfect. "Give you peace always." That points to perpetual, unbroken duration in time, and through all changing circumstances, which might threaten a less stable and deeply-rooted tranquillity. Christ's peace is perpetual and multiform, unbroken, and presenting itself in all the aspects in which tranquillity is possible for a human spirit.

IV. The Lord of Peace gives it by giving His own presence. When He is in the vessel the waves calm themselves. So, if we are conscious of breaches of our restfulness, interruptions of our tranquillity, by reason of surging, impatient passions and hot desires within ourselves, or by reason of the pressure of outward circumstances, or by reason of our having fallen beneath our consciences and done wrong things, let us understand that the breaches of our peace are not owing to Him, but only to our having let go His hand. It is our own fault if we are ever troubled; if we kept close to Him, we should not be. Keep inside the fortress, and nothing will disturb.

A. Maclaren, Paul's Prayers,p. 37.

References: 1 Timothy 1:1. Expositor,1st series, vol. ii., p. 59. 1 Timothy 1:2. P. Brooks, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxix., p. 300. 1 Timothy 1:4. H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xiii., p. 132.