“Peace be with you,” he
said. John 20:19b(NLT)
I‘m definitely a Thomas kind of guy. Thomas didn’t want to believe what seemed too
good to believe until he had seen Jesus like the other disciples
had seen Jesus. It’s not that he didn’t
have faith; Thomas had stronger faith than the other disciples before Jesus was
arrested. The Pharisees had threatened
to stone Jesus to death, and Jesus announced he was going to Jerusalem to
confront them. The other disciples
protested loudly that it was too dangerous.
But Thomas just said, well, let’s go and die with him.[2] That’s faith!
Thomas was no doubter, but he also had no sense of
timing. When Jesus appeared to the
disciples on the evening of resurrection day Thomas was the only one of the
bunch to miss church.
I’ve often wondered just why Thomas missed meeting with
the group on that evening. My best guess
is that he was pretty resigned to the fact that it was game-over. The Pharisees had won, Jesus was dead, and
there was nothing left to do but start figuring-out a life beyond following
Jesus, because there was no more Jesus to follow.
And then there’s the other wonderment – why did Thomas
come back to the group a week later. It
had to be that some of the other disciples went and got Thomas…brought him back
into the fold. They had seen the
resurrected Lord, and they shared the good news with him. Thomas’ faith had flickered, and his friends
brought him back.
Somewhere in that there’s a sermon for any church with as
many inactive members as active ones!
Today is the eighth-day – resurrection plus one week! We are waiting like the disciples, door shut,
Thomas, the backslider has been reclaimed, and we’re remembering the last time
we saw Jesus enter the room. We recall
his first words, “Peace be with you”. Jesus said those words three times in our
text, and each time they brought a different kind of peace…
Saving Peace
There is a peace that rescues. The disciples had shut the doors for fear
that what had happened to Jesus would happen to them. When suddenly Jesus was present with them,
that fear vanished with the realization of victory.
My family watched the movie “The Passion” with its two
grueling and graphic hours depicting the arrest, beating, trial and crucifixion
of Jesus. Afterwards, when Jesus
appeared to the disciples, he had the marks of his suffering, but it was
obvious those marks didn’t have him anymore.
There is a peace that is surreal when the darkness of
disaster and defeat are replaced by the morning light of victory. When Jesus said “peace be with you” he was
saying, “I am with you – your victory, your peace…I am here to save.” Even the name “Jesus” means “God saves”. Saving Peace, and…
Sending Peace
“Peace be
with you. As the Father has sent me, so
I send you.”
This second kind of peace Jesus brought with him is sending
peace. The Father sent Jesus
into the world to seek and to save that which was lost – us![3] He told the disciples, and he also tells us,
that in the same way the Father sent him to the mission of reconciling all
people to him, Jesus sends us to that same mission.
A story is told of a woman who wanted peace in the world
and peace in her heart, but was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the papers and get depressed.
One day she decided to go shopping, and she went into a
mall and picked a store at random. She
walked in and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus because he looked just
like the pictures she'd seen on holy cards and devotional pictures.
She finally got up her nerve and asked, Excuse
me, are you Jesus?
I am. Do you work
here? No, I own the store.
Oh, what do you sell here?
Just about everything, Jesus
said. Feel free to walk up and down the
aisles, make a list, see what it is you want and then come back and we'll see
what we can do for you.
She did just that, walked up and down the aisles. There was [for sale] peace on earth, no more
war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean
air, careful use of resources. She wrote
furiously. By the time she got back to
the counter, she had a long list. Jesus
took the list, skimmed through it, looked up at her and smiled. No problem. And then he bent down behind the counter and
picked out all sorts of things, stood up and laid out the packets.
She asked: What
are these?
Seed packets, Jesus said. This is a catalog store.
She said: You
mean I don't get the finished product?
No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I
give you the seeds. You plant the
seeds. You go home and nurture them and
help them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits.
Oh, she said. And she
left the store without buying anything.[4]
Sometimes it is easier to dwell on saving peace than on the
peace which compels us to go into all the world with
the good news.
But he said “peace” to them once more…
Symbiotic Peace
Jesus came
and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
This was the eighth day…a whole week later than the first
time Jesus said “peace” to them. This
time he came back when Thomas was there.
Thomas may have felt pretty second-class as a disciple. But Jesus came back and spoke the same
wonderful word to him…. “Peace”!
We all come to Jesus at different times and in different
walks – but his peace is still his peace.
Symbiosis is: a
cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship between two people or groups.[5] To be “symbiotically-peaceful” is to get
along with each other in the kind of love God planned for us.
Three times Jesus said “peace” to his followers –
· Saving peace
that covers our sins and saves us from hell
· Sending peace
that commissions us to go bring people to the fold
· Symbiotic
peace that conjoins us and holds us together in a bond of brotherhood and the
selfless love of God.
Together this saving, sending and symbiosis-making peace
is the whole point of Easter. It is what
Paul meant when he told us that God was in Christ to reconcile the whole world
to himself[6]
– and has given us that very same mission.
Peace is the work of reconciliation – first I am
reconciled to God with his saving peace, having been rescued from my sins. Then I take part in rescuing others because
of his sending peace. And I am taught to
live in symbiotic God-love, the peace that passes all understanding.
It is a matter of living in peace. This is the sum total of what saving, sending
and symbiotic peace means in the human family.
So…Pass the Peace brothers and sisters….take a moment and
pass the peace; take this lifetime and pass the peace!
Let the church say Amen in the Name of the Father,
Because of the Son, Cooperating with the Spirit…Amen!
Go to WORSHIP VIDEO
[1] Title
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
[2] John 11:16
[3] Luke 19:10
[4]Migan McKenna in Parables, cited in
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spiritual Literacy (NY: Simon & Schuster,
1996), 359.
[5] Encarta dictionary
[6] 2 Corinthians 5:19
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