The Promise of Peace – May 31, 2026, Trinity Sunday

Isaiah 61:1-4, 10-11, John 14:15-27
May 31, 2026

Today, we’re back in the Upper Room.  Jesus is with his disciples, and he’s trying to prepare them for the time ahead when he would be gone.  And as I often say, it’s hard for us to imagine what this was like!  It’s hard for us to imagine what they were all feeling, and how hard it was for Jesus to say these things.  And he said a lot!  If you have a Red Letter Bible, this is where you find the most red letters!  There are pages of them here!  (A Red Letter Bible has the words of Jesus in red.)

Well, one of the things Jesus told them that night is right in line with our celebration for today.  This is Trinity Sunday.  And here we have Jesus telling his disciples that he wouldn’t be with them much longer.  And then he said this.  “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.  But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

Right there we have the Trinity!  Right there we have God the Son, saying that God the father will send the “Counselor,” God the Holy Spirit.  That’s the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!  There it is in one verse, even although the actual word “Trinity” is not used here.  And by the way, that word is not found anywhere in the Bible!  Yet, it is at the heart of our faith!

Because yes, our faith is “Trinitarian.”  But yes, the Trinity is something that’s not very easy to understand.  I hope you heard what Kari said a couple of weeks ago.  She talked about all the training and education she had, and yet she still found it hard to explain the Trinity.  Well, my ears perked up when she said that, because it’s hard for me, too!  In fact, I think it’s hard for anyone!

As you’ve heard countless times before, we worship one God in “three persons.”  (We sing that in the great Trinitarian hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy!”)  But!  We do not worship three gods.  We are “monotheists!”  We’re not “tritheists!”  Yet it’s still hard for us to understand the whole “Three in One” thing.  And it’s especially confusing, because, for about 30 years, God the Father, and God the Son did appear as separate beings!  Jesus was separate from the Father.  And he often went off by himself and prayed to his Father!  Then, of course, on the cross, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

So, the Trinity is not easy for us to comprehend.  But if you think about it, sometimes it’s easier just to say things about something, than it is to actually explain something!  For instance, think about God’s love.  It’s much easier to say that God loves us than it is to explain why God loves us!  Because his love for us is beyond our comprehension!  But, just because it is beyond us, doesn’t mean it’s not true!  That’s so important to remember!  We don’t have to understand things to believe them!

So, in the Trinity, we can know that God has chosen to reveal himself to us – and to relate to us – in these three forms.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And we can be glad of that!  And we can make it the foundation of our faith – even though we can’t fully comprehend it!  Do you get that?

Well then, speaking of things that are hard to comprehend, Jesus says something else here.  And this is also hard to fathom.  He says “Peace I give to you, not as the world gives.”  I want us to think about that.  But I don’t want to get too far away from the Trinity, because the Trinity is the context in which Jesus was telling them all of this.  And I think this idea of “Peace, not as the world gives” goes with the Trinity!  The Father sends the Spirit, and Jesus – the Son – gives his peace to his disciples.  It’s all Trinitarian!

So, I want us to think about the Trinity, as we think about this.  “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, but not as the world gives.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid!”  What does that say to us today?  We live in a world where there’s a lot of talk about peace.  But that talk seems to stand in stark contrast with all of the conflict that’s actually happening – in a lot of places!  And I’m talking about conflict that makes the news, and conflict that doesn’t!  (There’s a lot more happening in this world than just Ukraine and Iran!)

I think it’s hard to talk about peace in such a troubled world!  Isn’t it?  Doesn’t it seem contradictory – or at the very least, ironic?  And what are we, as God’s people, supposed to be saying about it?  As I thought about that this week, I was reminded of the passage from Jeremiah 6, where God says this, through the prophet Jeremiah.  He says, “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace!” (Jeremiah 6:14.)

That was in a time just before the Babylonian invasion.  And that, of course, would lead to the people’s exile in Babylon!  One author describes the time leading up to that invasion as a time when the nation was “outwardly religious, but inwardly corrupt.”   They had the appearance of religion, but their lives were anything but religious!  And that statement about “healing the wound of the people lightly” was an injunction against the religious leaders, who were giving the people easy answers to difficult questions.  Or as the author put it, “putting cheap band-aids on deep wounds!”

Sometimes I wonder if God’s words in Jeremiah aren’t also prophetic in our time!  Sometimes it seems to me that people today are saying, “peace, peace,” when there is no peace.  And it makes me wonder what we, as God’s people, should be saying about it?  And that’s not easy to know!

Well, as I think about this, I keep coming back to these words of Jesus, words about a peace that Jesus said comes from the Spirit that the Father will send.  “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives.”  In those words, we are reminded that peace is not simply the absence of – or the cessation of – conflict.  The promise of peace that God gives us is an inner peace, a peace that we have even in the midst of conflict!

That’s a lot like something else you’ve heard me say.  You’ve heard be talk before about seeking Joy – no matter what the circumstances of our lives!  The idea is that we can have Joy even though life isn’t always happy or cheerful.   This is like that.  This is a matter of seeking and finding peace – peace through Jesus – even in a troubled world.

That’s what Jesus was offering his disciples that night.  He wasn’t saying their lives would be easier and more peaceful when he was gone.   On the contrary!  He knew they wouldn’t be!  Things were about to come to a head that would lead to his death!  And that would cause them all kinds of anguish and turmoil!  And he knew that, in the long term, things would not be so easy for them, either!  In fact, shortly after this – in chapter 15 – he told them that, because they were his disciples, they would be persecuted! (John 15:18-20)

And these guys weren’t naïve!  I’m sure they knew that things were coming to a head.  They knew that things were about to happen that wouldn’t be so peaceful!  They saw the animosity of the religious leaders.  They heard Jesus’ harsh words to them.  And they all lived under the thumb of Rome.  So how could Jesus know about all of that, and still give them this promise of peace?  Doesn’t that stand in great contrast to the conflict in the world then?  And doesn’t it stand in contrast to our world today? 

The answer to that lies in the fact that God has chosen these three forms – three persons – to relate to us.  He is God the Father, the great and all-powerful creator.  He is God the Son, the redeemer, who lived as one of us so he could fully understand us.  And he is God the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and sustains us and give us peace, even in all the difficult times in our lives!

So the peace he gives is about all those three things.  God has the power!  We see it in creation all around us.  God has redeemed us and made us part of his kingdom.  And God has chosen to live in our hearts and be present with us every day.  That is the formula for the peace that is “not as the world gives.”  That is peace as God gives it.

That is his promise!  And I’d like to end with the words of Paul, who described this so well in his letter to the Philippians.  He said to them, “May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Philippians 4:7)  And may that peace keep our hearts and minds as well.

Prayer

Eternal God, help us to know your promise of peace.  Help us to know your peace that passes understanding.  Keep us in that peace, no matter what happens in the world around us.  We are glad that you have created us, that you have redeemed us, and that you sustain us.  And we give you thanks and praise, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.