So Much More than “Hello”
October 18, 2023
Fr. John Riccardo
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen. For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.
(1 Thess 1:1-5b)
“Grace to you and peace.”
What timely words for our world right now, as the conflict continues and heightens seemingly by the hour in the Middle East, and the war in the Ukraine rages on.
Ancient writers tended to have a standard, rather formulaic introduction when they corresponded with each other. It’s often thought, mistakenly, that the introductions in Paul’s letters are simply borrowed from the culture around him. To be sure, Paul is a product of his time, like the rest of us. But the reality of God breaking into history in a shockingly and unexpected way in Jesus changed everything for him.
History for Paul is His-story, where the leading actor in the world is the Triune God. Whereas once Paul had thought that the world would come to an end when the Messiah came, and all would be made new, he came to see the cross and resurrection of Jesus as happening in the middle of history. Ever since the ascension of our Lord we have been living in a time where two tectonic plates are colliding — the triumphant kingdom of God and the defeated-but-not-yet-destroyed kingdom of darkness. The daily news of war, violence, injustices of all kinds — not to mention our own ongoing struggles to put to death “the old man” in each of us — should be more than enough evidence of this ongoing collision.
Paul’s letter to the Church in Thessalonica is one of his earliest letters of and the entire New Testament. Paul had been there for three weeks, preaching the gospel in the synagogue on the sabbath. To what end? Some people came to believe in Jesus, others became violent. Soon, unrest started, a mob formed, and people were dragged through the streets to the authorities. “These men,” the crowds screamed about Paul and Silas, “have turned the world upside down” (cf. Acts 17:1-9). Indeed they had. Caesar was not the real king, Jesus was. And is.
Because this same Jesus had defeated the powers of Sin and Death, because He had triumphed over the principalities and powers that had held hostage the entire human race since the fall of our first parents, Paul could write what he did to that small community in Thessalonica shortly after he left: “Peace.”
This peace is the same peace that Jesus had said to the apostles in the Upper Room on Easter Sunday (cf. Jn 20:19, 21). This peace is not like the peace the world gives (cf. Jn 14:27). What does that mean? It means that even in the midst of unrest, angry mobs, riots, uncertainty about the future, God’s peace is able to calm us in a way that passes all understanding (cf. Phil 4:7). Paul had learned and was learning this in his life as a disciple. No matter what happened — mobs, prison, stoning and being left for dead, shipwrecked as he traveled the seas to tell others about what God had done for the world in Jesus — Paul was unshakable. Jesus was Lord, and there was no other. He held and holds the world in His hands.
Perhaps most especially, given the news coming out of the Middle East, God is able to change men who hate into men who love. Paul knew this. He hadn’t simply seen it happen to others. He experienced it in his own life. It happened to him. He had been a violent, arrogant man, hell-bent on killing those he considered the enemy. Until he met Jesus.
Let us beg St. Paul in these unsettled days to pray for peace in the land he once walked, and to intercede in a mighty way for those who are now as he once was.