Peace be upon you.’ Our Lord's greeting to his disciples after his resurrection from the dead is one of peace: for a new life has begun for all who believe in him, a life , peace. The old conflicts are over, the war is won; man is restored to God's friendship, he is reconciled, redeemed. And this is to work of Christ our Lord: he has triumphed over sin and death through his own dying, and the barriers that separated men from God are broken down, the barriers of sin which no merely human power could ever destroy. And peace begins: the peace of Christ himself communicated now to all whom he has redeemed.

But the peace that our Lord brings to man is very different from the peace that is so often on men's lips, the peace that is simply the absence of conflict, an interval between wars. His peace, he tells us, is his legacy to those who believe in him—'My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you…. But not as the world gives …'.