As many of you know, I love video games. I spend a lot of my down time playing them, they help me clear my head and think about something else for a little while. Their stories take me to another world (or several, for sci-fi games) and give me an experience I never could have here in the real world. I love the escapism of video games, but sometimes they give me very real frustration. I find “bugs” that make the game not work or end up being something that costs me time because I have to redo things in the game and while you would think that this would just be an excuse to play more it is really frustrating to progress and end up having to start something over which you had accomplished already! These “bugs” are often fixed through a process called patching, someone who made the game continues to support it by adding the fixes that the various users bring to their attention. Some of these fixes are pretty major while others are just making sure a particular door is sitting right on its hinges. All of them are necessary for the game to be its best version.

I think that the Christian life is a little like those video games sometimes. I have a version of life that seems to be working well, when all of a sudden, I find a “bug” or glitch in the life I am living. I then need to assess the problem and see if it was user error (maybe I was just trying to use it in the wrong way!) or if the issue lies deeper in my code. If the issue is something wrong with my “code” (my heart is misaligned, or I haven’t slept enough, or I am not spending the time I need to with Jesus for our relationship to grow) I have to report this error to the developer of my life so He can fix it. Christ designed us to live a certain way, because of some bad code that got added by an early user (see Genesis chapter 3 for more details) we have to deal with some “bugs” that happen now and then. Christ is so gracious as the developer of our lives that He has continued to support this broken version even though it wasn’t His actions that caused the issues! He desires for us to have the best version of our lives and is willing to sit down with us and help us find the fixes for the “bugs” that pop up in life. He has offered us a way to restore what has been broken through His sacrifice and wants us to accept His offer for ongoing support and care as we figure out what living without the “bug” of sin in our lives can be like. Will you accept that help? Or do you want to continue to live with the “bugs”?

Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

The word peace shows up over 370 times in the Bible. Jesus includes peacemakers in the beatitudes as those who will be seen as children of God. Jesus was a peacemaker himself. He came to bring an end to the enmity between us and God. He sought restoration and healing for this relationship through the Cross. His pain and suffering were caused by our sin. Seeking this peace between God and man cost Jesus everything.

Peacemakers are the ones who stand in the space between. They seek the points of conflict and look for resolutions. They put their wellbeing on the line for the sake of peace. They hold the tension of conflict in order to draw people together. They are often misunderstood and looked at as fools who hope beyond reason. Peacemakers are children of God who seek the image of God in others. The point to things that connect rather than things that divide.

In a culture that seems so intent on division it is hard to be a peacemaker. It is hard to work for restoration and reconciliation in a world where conflicts define us. When image is an amalgam of causes and responses we have a hard time getting people to look at the things that make them the same. When we are always looking for the thing that makes “us” different from “them” it is hard to function as a peacemaker. Christ sought peace for us before we even acknowledged our need for it:   ‎ “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (ESV, Romans 5:6-8)

In light of the resurrection of Jesus we have the chance to examine our lives and look for places in need of reconciliation. We can function as those who seek peace in our lives and the lives of those around us. We can invite people to accept the peace offered by Jesus. We can live as those who are blessed by Christ in the beatitude above, children of God and makers of peace.