I have this fantasy of the major politicians, dictators, and generals of the world all gathered together in the General Assembly room of the U.N. None of them knows how he or she got there.
You see they were all pursuing their individual schedules when suddenly they were miraculously transported and now, here they are in the same room. No briefing binders, no staff, no comfy seats proclaiming their territory. They are all frantically scurrying about in search of allies with whom they can bunch together.
Jesus enters and stands at the speaker's podium. None of them recognizes Him. No one saw Him come in. But each of them is possessed of a deepening sense of the supernatural.
"Peace, a peace you cannot attain... a peace you do not deserve to attain... SUCH A PEACE IS, NONE THE LESS, MY GIFT TO YOU."
And before they can say anything, He continues, "Do you want it? Are you willing to respect, to trust, to share, to bury the past, to listen to your people, to listen to the voice of Allah, of Jehovah, of God?"
"Are you willing to accept the universal dignity of the human person, to treat extreme indigence and vulnerability as an evil... and wealth and power as a sacred trust? Are you willing to lead by placing goodness and truth before political gain?"
But before He can go any further, I see His hands being bound, His mouth being taped. I see them reaching for the hammer and the nails and the cross...again!
He alone offers us the gift of peace...real peace. Do we want it?
I don't honestly know. What I do know is that truly grounded peace, whether in our hearts, homes, offices, schools, parishes, cities, nations or world, has but one unique source. Jesus Christ. And nothing can ever change that universal reality.
