Shalom is found in the true message of Easter
Editor’s note: Tim Durkee’s Easter column did not run in its entirety last Sunday. Here is the column in full.
This past Easter, our family gathered together. As opposed to last year, our family, like other families, has suffered some hardships; granted others have some worse than ours.
Not long ago, Psychology Today published a selfhelp article with advice on how to achieve “inner peace.” The author struggled both to define exactly what this was as well as how it is achieved.
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a book review by Julian Baggini of a book written by Samir Chopra regarding anxiety; Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide. In it he explores what he states is our “natural state” of anxiety. He examines four systems of thought that have approached how humans mitigate anxiety; Buddhism, European existentialism, Freudianism and repressed conflict and materialist alienation explored by Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse.
Interestingly, he does not explore metaphysics, the spiritual solution to the anxiety that confronts mankind. There is no doubt that the greatest search within us is the search for anxiety free existence.
The message of Easter provides a solution to the anxiety that infects our lives. The Resurrection is the most consequential event in human history.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis; if the Resurrection did not occur, then Christianity is of no consequence; if the Resurrection did occur then it is of monumental consequence; what it cannot be is of moderate consequence.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is of eternal consequence for the individual and thus mankind. It provides the only remedy for anxiety.
That remedy is peace. “Peace” is not just the opposite or absence of anxiety, tension or fear. It is a state of being. It is not limited to the moment. It is the active presence of God in a life
The Western definition of “peace” is the absence of conflict. The Biblical “peace” first described in Exodus is “Shalom.”
Some scholars define “Shalom” as a restoration, a state of the way things should be, making things good, making things whole, an overall inward sense of fullness, tranquility and completeness in mind and body.
Our Creator and Designer had a design in mind. That design was that man was to be intimately connected with God and to experience this “Shalom.” Shalom defeats circumstance. Shalom is the proverbial shelter in a time of massive storm.
Part of the experience of Shalom is a recognition and a faith that God is always purposeful. There are no accidents. Shalom comes not from an indifference to the events of life, but a recognition that God is control.
We may not always understand His ways, and He has no obligation to explain them, but the faith and confidence in His control brings about shalom as we live lives in an intimate relationship with God.
Our biggest mistake is believing this fallacy; “If God were real and caring then God would ___________.” That is defining God on our own terms, and it destroys any hope of Shalom.
Mankind, due to free will, has chosen a different path, divergent from God. Man left to himself cannot generate any real values or meaning, only moral relativity and arbitrary law and unanswered questions of the meaning of existence.
Man, made in the image of God, has a purpose — to be in relationship with God, who is there. Man forgets His purposes and thus he forgets who he is and what life means. If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special.
I am no theologian. I try to be a Christ follower, but it is a struggle for me.
What I have found in 67 years of life that my times of anxiety, conflict, uncertainty and pain have been when I have strayed from God’s purposes and design. I have lost Shalom. If one desires a “religion” that is easy, do not pick Christianity.
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ provides the forgiveness for this divergence and transgression, and it is the only way that mankind can reestablish this intimate relationship with God and experience Shalom. Humans cannot achieve Shalom apart from God, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
True Shalom consists in living moment to moment with a personal relationship with God made possible by the grace of Jesus Christ. Resurrection based living leads to shalom, which rests in an accountability to God and so extends to ensuring the well-being of others.
The decline in religious practice in the United States is a well described event.
I wonder, is the increase in turmoil that has seemingly simultaneously increased, due to the loss of Shalom in the individual?
Largely, our culture has forgotten God. It is time to replete the significance of God in our lives and its impact for the here and now and eternity.
Find Jesus. Find Shalom. Then be His good in our community.
Reimagine self. Reimagine Rockford. He IS risen. Shalom.
Dr. Timothy Durkee Guest column Special to the Rockford Register Star