Suppose we had a time machine and we traveled back in time to talk to Simon Peter before he met Jesus. And what if we asked him, “What would a peaceful life look like to you?” I wonder what he might say. Maybe he’d say, “Well, a peaceful life would be one where my fishing business would continue to thrive. I would catch lots of fish each day, sell them all, and support my family comfortably. My wife and I would live in harmony and raise our children to be good people and to marry good people, and give us lots of grandchildren, who would go home with their parents at the end of the day. That would be a peaceful life. And then, after building the fishing business into a successful organization, retire, and hand that business over to my sons, and after watching the grandkids grow up to have families of their own, pass away quietly, surrounded by my loving family. That’s what I call peace,” he might say. But then if we traveled into Simon Peter’s future and looked at the life of St. Peter after he met Jesus we would see that his life didn’t turn out that peaceful at all. We might step out of our time machine at the council of Jerusalem, which we read about in the Acts of the Apostles today. We would witness dissension among the disciples, arguing, and debating. And there would be Peter in the center of it all, trying to be a leader. Trying to be be the rock that Jesus named him. And if we got back into our time machine we could follow Peter’s life and see him arrested, imprisoned, killed. So Peter did not get a peaceful life. And yet, in the gospel today we hear Jesus tell his disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” What happened to Jesus’ promise of peace? Did Jesus fail to carry through on his promise to Peter and the other disciples? Because Peter’s experience was not unique. All of the disciples spent the rest of their lives getting arrested, being accused of blasphemy for trying to spread the gospel, living lives that were anything but peaceful. Being a disciple of Jesus had turned their lives upside down. And if we got back in our time machine and traveled all the years that have gone by since Christ’s death and resurrection, we would see countless generations of saints and martyrs whose lives were far from peaceful. Where is this peace that Jesus promised to give to his disciples? This is an important question; because if Jesus promised peace to his disciples, he’s also promised it to us. But our lives often don’t seem very peaceful. Bullying on the playground, sudden catastrophic illness, corruption in business and government, religious freedom threatened both here and in other countries, terrorism and war. Even in the church there are disagreements, just as there were in Jerusalem all those years ago. Where is the peace we have been promised? Answering that question begins by looking first at the word itself, peace. In Hebrew, the word is shalom, and it has great depth of meaning. Shalom, or peace, is one of those words like love that’s used in many different ways. Sometimes we use peace to describe a situation in which countries are not at war. If countries aren’t engaged in battle, then we say they’re at peace.