Recognizing the Ways of Peace

When I am old, and I consider the great moral challenges of my life, I wonder if I will have recognized those challenges at the time or only after it was too late.   The passage from Luke describes such challenges as the “time of your visitation from God.”  In that passage, Jesus is so emotionally distraught over the violence and injustice of the city of Jerusalem, that he weeps as he approaches it.   If only,” he laments, “you had recognized the things that make for peace,” your judgement day could have been avoided. Jesus' tears challenge us to recognize in our own day “the things that make for peace,” so that, years from now, we do not have to live with the guilt of what we could and should have done. This little passage confronts us with the sobering reality that there are pivotal moments in our lives that can be considered divine visitations, moments where we are confronted with fundamental moral and spiritual choices that we cannot escape.