When peace like a river attends my way

“When peace like a river attends my way” are words from a hymn I sang in my boyhood home congregation many times. As a young boy, I not only learned the words of many Bible verses, I learned the words of many hymns and gospel songs. My church was a singing church. We sang at the opening of Sunday school; we sang several hymns in worship service; Sunday evening service was a time to sing favorite songs. For me the singing was more important than the sermon. The words of those often sung hymns still roll through my mind with truths of the Christian Faith.

On the TV screen, in the newspaper and in a variety of journals, turmoil, violence and chaos are the headliners. Some seem to think that things have never been so horrible and ugly. I doubt that assessment. I remember WW II, the Korean conflict, the stupidity of Viet Nam and the insanity of the U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. They all refuse to play second place to the developing Trump era. I suspect that our capacity for fouling oceans, atmospheres and the human body have not yet peaked.

My family, my church, and Jesus himself taught me well. Peace like a river still flows through my soul and I go on to the chorus of the hymn. “It is well, it is well with my soul.” The good gospel will have its way. We will not be overcome by evil; evil can and will be overcome with good.

I often take note of the Bible readings from the common lectionary. For June 24 the Gospel lesson is from chapter 4 of the Mark gospel. It is the story of Jesus calming the waters of Galilee. The disciples and Jesus were caught in a storm. The disciples were afraid. Jesus was sleeping through the episode. Jesus awakened and spoke a word to the seas, and the waters calmed. I do not read the story as history. Earlier in the chapter, the writer tells us that Jesus did not speak to his audiences except through parables. Did the Mark writer intend the story of Jesus calming the waters to be read as history or as yet another parable? The Mark writer was certainly not an eye witness of Jesus of Nazareth. He was a follower of Jesus one to two generations after the death of Jesus. He was a second hand story teller. I strongly suspect that the Mark writer was a story teller, not a reporter of history. Whether the story was created by the Mark author or whether it was a story he had heard from others, does not matter.

That being the case, what is the point of the story? I read it as a story about staying calm in the midst of a storm of chaos. As the study of the historical Jesus expands and intensifies, Jesus clearly becomes a political, social and religious activist. He challenged the political and religious leadership of his own day. I have reported and many times repeated a simple fact of history. Jesus was killed for being an insurrectionist. His final entry into Jerusalem was not a triumphal entry but a protest march. His so called cleansing of the temple was historically a kind of street theatre in which he protested the corruption that had engulfed the operation of the Jerusalem temple. But there is another side to the Jesus story.

Jesus was a man of deep and profound religious beliefs and convictions. He regularly participated in synagogue meetings. He also at times withdrew from the crowds to spend time alone with his Father in Heaven. He talked with God and did a lot of listening to the voice of God. He was a student of the writings of his religious traditions. He took Torah very seriously and pondered its meanings.

My best understanding of Jesus from Nazareth is that he was an activist who operated from a calm and peaceful heart, cultivated by a tight relationship with the God of heaven and earth. Further, I believe that this ought to be the collective make-up with his followers. We are to be devout worshipers and lovers of God. We are also to love our neighbors dearly. We are to be servants of both God and neighbor.

In today’s world, I love my country, but I do not like a lot of its behavior. America is a stormy place. I detest our love of wealth and power. Military might gives a false security, and wealth leads to vicious racism and class divisions. Both wealth and military might are affronts to the Christian gospel. But the flow of peace that comes from God is undeterred.

Peace like a river will attend our way.

The End

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.com.