If you are feeling stressed this morning then let me recite a prayer for you that you should probably memorise and use when things wind you up a bit too tightly.  “Lord, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...the courage to change the things I cannot accept...and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those that I had to kill today.  Help me to be careful of the toes I step on today...as they may be connected to the feet that I may have to kiss tomorrow.  Help me always to give 100% at work... 12% on Monday, 23% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday, and 5% on Friday.  And help me remember when I'm having a bad day that it takes 42 muscles to frown, 28 to smile...but  only 4 to extend my arm and smack someone.”  And if that prayer should not do the trick remember that the reverse of ‘stressed’ is ‘desserts‘!

Stress, of course, is an epidemic in our fast-paced, 24-hour-opening, gas-guzzling, logged-on, tweeted, prescriptioned, jet-powered, obsessive, addicted, high-energy, high-cholesterol, high-sodium, road-raged, conflict-ridden, jazzercizing, bowflexing, South Beach dieting, low-tolerance, anxious, MP3-ed, blue-toothed, high-definition, i-phoned, voice-messaging, globally-warmed, web-surfing, channel-hopping, tail-gating, muzak-ed, over-mortgaged, corporately-sponsored, politically-manipulated, commercially-driven, world-weary, battle-scarred, ulcerated, Prozac-ed, spiritually-anorexic, ethically-malnourished, perfectionist maelstrom that we call life.

The late columnist Erma Bombeck summed up the stress of modern living when she confessed, "I did as I was told. I was fussy about my peanut butter, fought cavities, became depressed over yellow wax build up .... I was responsible for my husband's underarms being protected for 12 hours. I was responsible for making sure my children had a well-balanced breakfast. I alone was carrying the burden for my dog's shiny coat.... We believed if we converted to all the products that marched before our eyes, we could be the best, the sexiest, the freshest, the cleanest, the thinnest, the smartest, and the first in our block to be ‘regular‘. Purchasing for the entire family was the most important thing I had to do."

Stress, of course, is nothing new.  They had it back in Bible times.  In fact, it was way more challenging than the stress you and I face.  People were, by our standards, materially impoverished.  Their life expectancy was 40 years less than ours.  They didn’t enjoy modern healthcare.  They had big families, poor education, and no welfare state.  They often lived under the cruel domination of occupying forces that had the freedom to exploit and abuse the locals at will.  If the so-called sophistication of our modern society is stressful, then the constant prospect of poverty, disability and death brings a different kind of stress.

Yet into that stress, the strain of daily life in 1st century Israel, strides Jesus.  And he announces to his friends, “peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid”.

Now, as I thought it about this week, I came to the conclusion that peace is intimately related to the subject of today’s retreat.  Understanding.  The second quality of the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah in the Old Testament lesson.  He wrote, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, from his roots a branch will bear fruit.  The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”

Understanding - in our language to understand is to ‘grasp the full meaning of something’.  And it meant pretty much the same in the Old Testament too – fully comprehending a thing or an event.  So here’s Isaiah prophesying the coming of the Messiah – the great Saviour of God’s people, and he says the Anointed One will have this great gift from God – this profound ability to see beneath the surface and know what’s really going on; the gift to discern the motives and the intentions behind people’s actions; this supernatural awareness of God’s plans for himself and for the world around him.  This gift from the Holy Spirit to understand what life is all about and what is on the heart of God.

And of course, Jesus, the Messiah, the one prophesied by Isaiah, fulfilled the job description perfectly.  He had in abundance this God-given ability to notice what everyone else would miss.  He could spot hypocrisy, love, and the work of God in a way that many found liberating, some found compelling, others found unnerving and still others found intolerable.

I want to suggest to you that one of the by-products of understanding is peace.  If we have an understanding of who God is and if we can grasp the extent of his love, the truth of his promise that he is with us in our daily trials then peace will follow. 

Peace in the Bible is more than just the absence of something bad.  It is the presence of something wonderful.  The Old Testament word is ‘shalom’, the New Testament word is ‘eirene’.  Both mean a personal sense of all-round well-being, safety, salvation, fulfilment.  In other words, peace for Jesus is nothing less than the perfect reign of God coming to dwell in the lives of his followers.  And in the gospel reading from John just now he looks forward a short while to the coming of the Holy Spirit as the source of this all-over sense of peace, this state of spiritual fulfilment.

How we need that peace in this restless and anxious world.  We could call it “the silence of the soul”.  How’s your soul this morning?  Is it noisy in there?  Are there concerns and worries shouting for attention and drowning out God‘s voice of love and assurance?  Are there hurts and bad memories throbbing in the background to your life, like the hum of a jet engine or the whirr of a fridge?  Is there that little voice whispering constantly to you, “you’re not good enough, no-one loves you, God hasn’t forgotten your sins, your mistakes have ruined your life and you’ll never recover”.  The peace of God gives us the silence of the soul that we so need and desire.  Paul says that this peace “passes all understanding”.  It is beyond human comprehension because it can rule hearts that have every reason to worry, every reason to feel guilty, every reason to feel like God does not love them.

Duke University did a study into the subject of "peace of mind."  They concluded that there are eight factors that are usually shared by people who possess it.

1) The absence of suspicion and resentment.

2) Not living in the past.

3) Not wasting time and energy fighting conditions one cannot change.

4) Forcing oneself to stay involved with the real world.

5) Refusing to indulge in self-pity when life hands one a raw deal.

6) Cultivating the old-fashioned virtues of love, humour, compassion and loyalty.

7) Not expecting too much of oneself. 

8) Finding something bigger than oneself to believe in. And we, of course would identify that something as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Someone has said “be anxious in nothing, prayerful in everything, thankful in anything. Then: peace.”

Jesus contrasts the peace that he gives with the peace that the world gives.  How are they different?  Well, the peace of Christ reigns in our hearts despite our circumstances.  Christians who have gone to their deaths for their faith have known that peace.  Followers of Christ who have known tremendous suffering in their bodies and minds yet have experienced a deep assurance that everything is well have known that peace.  The believer who faces the pain of bereavement, betrayal, sickness, poverty or any negative change in her life but does so with the understanding that God is somehow, even if she can’t explain how, working out his perfect plans - that believer knows the peace of Christ.  The world, as Jesus puts it, cannot give that peace.  The world says “if you have financial security you can have peace.  If you have a nest egg or a nice pension tucked away or have your home and possessions insured, then you can have peace.  If the doctor gives you a clean bill of health when you have your check-up then you can have peace.  If your family is safe from harm them you can have peace.  If your relationships are happy and smooth then you can have peace”.  But, all those things are beyond our control.  So, are we going to give up control of our hearts and minds to whatever happens to occur in our lives?  Friends, the great news is that the peace Christ gives does not depend on our circumstances.  Things change, money comes and it goes too, relationships blossom but also end, health is fleeting.  But the assurance that all is well despite whatever the world might throw at us, can only come from an understanding that God is in control and is working out his purposes.

This is the peace of the psalmist who wrote “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.’  You can’t get much more disturbing than that.  And it’s the peace of St Julian of Norwich.  She lived in England in the 14th century.  Now, this was a time of chaos and disaster for the English people - economic suffering, the effects of war, and the catastrophic toll of deaths caused by the Great Plague.  But in the middle of that calamitous suffering Julian wrote this, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”.  200 years later a pastor named Martin Rinkart ministered in the plague-ravaged city of Leipzig.  In 1637 he performed 4,000 funerals, including that of his wife.  The suffering was so bad that a writer at the time reported that up to forty people could be seen fighting in the street over a dead crow or cat.  And yet this Martin Rinkart will forever be remembered for these words, “now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices.  Who wondrous things hath done, in whom his world rejoices...  O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us, with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us; and keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills in this world and the next.”  He wrote number 396 in the Episcopal hymnal at the height of this disaster.  Money, health, and even relationships can’t give that peace.

The irony is that peace of Christ which comes through understanding that God is in control is so great that it passes understanding.  But for now let us open our hearts to the peace of God which passes all understanding.  Let’s renew our faith in Christ and experience once again the deep-down assurance that all is well, despite our circumstances.  And on throughout this day may you grow in your understanding of God’s great plan for you and his constant care.  Let me finish with some words of the one-time Harvard professor and Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen which serve as an encouragement at the start of any quiet day.  “I realized that I was caught in a web of strange paradoxes.  While complaining about too many demands, I felt uneasy when none were made. While speaking about the burden of letter writing, an empty mailbox made me sad. While speaking nostalgically about an empty desk, I feared the day in which that would come true.  In short, while desiring to be alone, I was frightened of being left alone. The more I became aware of these paradoxes, the more I started to see how much I had fallen in love with my own compulsions and illusions, and how much I needed to step back and wonder, "Is there a quiet stream underneath the fluctuating affirmations and rejections of my little world?"