Hello!

I hope you had a blessed week. I had the opportunity to preach yesterday and the lectionary brought us to Matthew 10:34-42, where Jesus, the Prince of Peace, famously says that He did not come to bring peace, but a sword!

If you want to read the sermon, I’ve posted my manuscript to X:

Anyway I had a few thoughts that I wanted to share with you about this passage.

It strikes me that Jesus is our Prince of Peace - heralded that way by Isaiah, and the by Angels at His birth - and yet here He explicitly says He came to bring the sword.

This is such a shocking and difficult thing, I think, for many to hear. I know when I first read this passage in my study, I laughed out loud. Great Prince of Peace we got, huh?

But I think this is difficult because we have this idea of peace in the world that we want to shoe-horn Jesus into.

We think that peace means that we won’t have any problems. Or that we won’t have enemies. Or that everything will just be hunky-dory and I’ll have a good job because I am highly favored, or something like that.

The truth is, Jesus promised us the exact opposite. He promised us strife and tension. He promised us a life of difficulty.

The peace He brings us is not Peace for this world. It’s not peace in the horizontal, as the Lutheran Fathers would say.

Rather, Jesus promises us peace in the vertical.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace because He promises us peace with God.

This is a hugely important point, and one we cannot, as Christians, afford to miss.

Peace with God explicitly means enmity with the world. But that is a cross worth bearing as long as we have assurance of our eternity with the Lord.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I’d love to hear yours!

In Other News

I posted a new article on Lutheran Answers!

How could Jesus have been in the grave 3 days?

A common question I think people have is how could Jesus have been considered to have risen after 3 days, when He was in the grave for like a day and a half max?

Well! I answer that. Read below:

Anyway, that’s all I got! Until next week!

Make sure you leave a comment or hit reply to tell me your thoughts! I’m interested in hearing what you have to say.

-Remy

PS - Is Monday a better day for these?