The war against terrorism continues with skirmishes in Afghanistan and speculation about an attack on Iraq.

Despite cease-fire talks, Palestinians and Israelis continue to kill one another daily.

Shining Path guerrillas are suspected in a bomb attack near the U.S. Embassy in Peru. Nine people were killed in what some fear will be the reemergence of violence in that country.

Then there was, just a week ago, the bombing of a church in Pakistan. Some suspect it was al Qaeda’s response to the war on terror. Others don’t. Either way, trouble brews there.

Of course, that is only a partial list of people at war—tensions run high between India and Pakistan, the government of Sudan continues to kill its own people, factions within India continue to battle.

One could argue that if we ever needed peacemakers, we need them now. Certainly we need the women and men of which Jesus spoke when he said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God."

But I have to tell you that Jesus’ blessing of peacemakers seems a bit remote. After all, what are we to do in the face of the world’s warring ways? The reality is that there is little you and I can do to affect what is happening in Afghanistan or the Middle East. Oh, we can pray. We can write letters to our nation’s leaders. We can give to organizations that help those who have been displaced by the violence. But we are not likely to be peacemakers on the world’s stage.

But then again, neither were those who first heard Jesus speak these words.

Imagine the scene. Jesus is delivering the Sermon on the Mount. Before him are his disciples, a motley collection of fishermen, tax collectors and the like; some women who probably shouldn’t even be seen in mixed company; and a crowd of the curious, the sinful, the bored. No one among them has any real pull. No one of real stature stands before him. There is nothing to suggest that any of these people will amount to anything, much less be peacemakers on the world’s stage.

Beyond that, they are in the midst of Pax Romana—the Roman Peace. It was a period of more than 200 years in which Rome’s power dominated the known world, providing those under its rule freedom from conflict with other nations. It was a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity, of untold blessing.

And yet Jesus tells this scraggly bunch of followers, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." And we have to wonder what he had in mind, what he was calling them to be or do?

The answer rests in the reward those who are peacemakers are to receive. Jesus said they "will be called the children of God." Technically, the word translated "children" is "sons." It has been changed to be inclusive, and that is important. But in Jewish thought the word "son" often connoted more than a biological or familial relationship. It often meant, "partaking in the character of." It means that the "son" shared the same nature as his father. To call me, in Jewish thought, the son of Donald Silas Tuttle would mean that I share the same character as my father. As Haddon Robinson has noted, "If someone is called ‘son of God’ in Jewish thought, he or she is displaying God’s character." Or as another writer put it, to be called a child of God is to be doing the work that God does.

And what is the work of God?

It is the work of reconciliation. It is bringing people into a restored relationship with God and with one another.

So in this beatitude, Jesus was calling his disciples, then and now, to be peacemakers, to be people who reconcile others to God and to one another.

Of course, that is exactly what Jesus, the Son of God, did.

Today we mark the beginning of Holy Week. It starts on a joyous note with the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. But we know what is to follow. On Holy Thursday he will be betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and abandoned by the rest. On Good Friday the bar of his cross will be placed upon his shoulders and he will go—willingly—to Golgotha. There he will be crucified. There he will die—all so that the distance between a holy God and a sinful humanity can be bridged. He will go to the cross so that your sins and my sins can be forgiven, so that you and I can be reconciled to God. He will go to the cross so that those who have had their sins forgiven can live at peace with one another.

Jesus, the one we call the child of God, will make such peace possible.

That motley crew of disciples that listened to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount learned the lesson of Jesus’ life well. There are two characteristics that are clearly visible in the early church. One is a passion for evangelism.

• On Pentecost, Peter stands and recounts the story of what God had done in Jesus Christ, inviting all who could hear his voice to believe the Good News, to repent of their sins, to be baptized and experience peace with God.
• Later he would stand among those near the temple, telling those who had come to worship God that peace, true peace, came from confessing one’s sin and following Jesus Christ.
• When he and John were hauled before the Council, they did what they knew to be the work of God. They sought to reconcile the members of the council to God by sharing with them the work of Jesus Christ.
• Later Philip would preach the Gospel to the Samaritans and then to an Eunuch from the court of the Ethiopian queen Candace.
• And still later, Paul and Barnabas and their colleagues would travel throughout the Mediterranean world telling people that the way to peace with God was through cross of Jesus Christ.

Throughout the Acts of the Apostles, the followers of Jesus display a passion for bringing people into the peace that comes from being reconciled to God.

But that is not their only peacemaking. The second mark of the early Christians was its desire to reconcile people to one another.

• On Pentecost, thousands welcomed Peter’s message and were baptized. They were not all alike. There were Parthians, Medes, Elamites. There were people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Asia and Egypt. There were Romans, Jews, Cretans and Arabs. No doubt they were people with long histories of mistrust and estrangement. Yet those who welcomed peace with God lived together in harmony. They shared what they had. They lived as people reconciled to one another.
• When some in the church at Jerusalem complained that the Greek-speaking women were being ignored in the daily distribution of food, what did the disciples do? They made peace. They asked the Greek-speaking Jews to select seven of their own to oversee the distribution of the food. They brought reconciliation, peace, between the groups.
• And still later, when some among the Jewish Christians set roadblocks to keep out Gentile converts, what did the disciples do? They made peace. They brought Jews and Gentiles together into one body, the Church.

The disciples learned their lessons well because they devoted their lives to helping people experience peace with God and peace with one another.

We cannot do much to end the conflict in Afghanistan or the fighting in Israel and Palestine. But there are people all around us who need peace just as badly. They are women and men estranged from God. Husbands and wives whose relationship is broken, children who no longer speak to their parents, parents who no longer talk to their children, friends and co-workers who got sideways with one another and have never allowed whatever happened to be forgotten. God calls his children to act like it and to help people come to know him and love him, to experience his grace and revel in his peace. God calls his children to help people reconcile with those with whom they are estranged. God calls us to be peacemakers and to receive the blessing that comes with it.