Nachamu Ami, 
Part 3 Passing the Peace


“Shabbat Shalom!"

"The Peace of the Lord!” echoes through sanctuaries every weekend. Have you heard such phrases this week? If you had, they probably came with a smile, a pat on the shoulder, a hug, or double handhold. Sometimes, as in our church, the Passing of the Peace lasts long enough for some to share heartaches and receive comfort.

Nachamu ami, or in English, “comfort my people.” These words came to God’s chosen people as its society wobbled on the crumbled rocks of libertarian-excused amorality and multicultural paganism. Assyrians stood at the border, Northerners ready to war, conquer and enslave the small kingdom. A thousand years later newer generations, descendants of divisive enemies face the same evil chessboard. Only some stand on a tiny plot of land while many surround for the kill.

Where is true peace found?

Humanists try to limit the ideal "peace" to an absence of conflict between humans. Hold hands. Sing a capella “Kumbaya.” Close your eyes. Visualize daisies of congeniality. Yet, eyes closed or wide open, we continue to reel from urban gang-banger murders. Drug cartels continue kidnapping- bloodletting wars. Suicides here and everywhere grieve and shock us. Regional factions fight over water rights. Ad hominem words spew and wound like an unregistered assault weapon. Some vested warmongers have the audacity to slip into a relief organization, a hotel, or open markets to detonate many persons.

Despite this worldwide bloodlust, the Word of God speaks a fait accompli. God has given us peace, a peace the world does not understand, a peace not for this world, a peace of wholeness for every soul broken and apart from God.

Which is why every weekend our family attends a local service. For after a week of iniquities in thoughts, words, and deeds, we go to heed the Word that absolves and mends our relationships through merciful reconnection with our God. In crumbling times, let us sing and mean of peace a hymn a father wrote after his four girls perished in an Atlantic crossing:

“For me, be it Christ, Be it Christ hence to live.
If Jordan above me shall roll
No pang shall be mine, for in death and in life
Thou will whisper Thy peace to my soul.”
-Horatio Spafford

Is it so well with you?
“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” says your God.
“Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.”
Isaiah 40:1-2(NKJ)