Jesus came among them and
said, “Peace be with you.” (John 20: 19b)
Peace. It sounds like a simple greeting. Shalom.
Eirene. Those are the words that would have been spoken by Jew and Greek as a greeting
when they encountered someone on the street or in the marketplace. But it means
more than just the absence of violence and strife or fear and anxiety. It also
means the presence of wholeness and
well-being. It is a positive greeting that wants the other’s life to be filled
with good.
This morning we have heard that greeting come from the
lips of the risen Jesus, who bears in his resurrection body the wounds of
crucifixion. Therefore this greeting takes on an even deeper meaning. The one
who had endured the cross, instead of calling down the armies of heaven against
the Romans and all those who had acted with such brutal savagery against him,
spoke those words of peace.
The risen Jesus repeated the greeting, “Peace be with
you,” twice, emphasizing the importance of his words. His greeting goes back to
earlier words in John’s gospel when Jesus promised his disciples the Holy
Spirit: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you
as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be
afraid” (John 14:27).
Christ’s greeting of peace was spoken to quell the
fears of his disciples. The disciples feared
the loss of their beloved leader. They feared the possibility that they may have
to endure the same ignoble fate as Jesus. They too may be arrested and tortured
and put to death on an obscene cross. They too may have to suffer intolerable
cruelty. So Jesus speaks words of peace into their fear.
And
For Jesus had sent them out into a hostile world as
surely as he had sent those first apostles, a word which means “sent ones.”
Following his peaceful greeting Jesus told the disciples, “As the Father has
sent me, so I send you.” This was Christ’s missionary charge to his disciples.
And that mission entailed forgiveness. They were to live as a forgiving people within
a world of fear and hatred, vengeance and violence:
“If you forgive the sins of
anyone, their sins are forgiven.” (John 20:23)
And Jesus blew his breath, the breath, of the Holy
Spirit upon them as a new creation, creating a new community and empowering
them for their peaceable mission to the world.
He breathed on them and said,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22)
So Jesus sends his peace and Jesus sends his Holy
Spirit to empower his people for mission. The early church for whom John was
writing heard the words of Christ’s peace amid their fears of the world around
them. They were to go into that frightening world with Christ’s peace and
forgiving grace.
I believe that John’s gospel addresses us today as
surely as it did the early Christian church and those first disciples. We hear
Christ’s word of peace amid our post-9/11 world with its fears connected to
terrorism, to a nuclear threat that seems to have re-emerged, to a realisation
of how unstable and fragile is the world’s economic system, and the prospect of
irreversible climate change made worse by human abuse of the earth’s resources.
In the midst of the fears and anxieties of our world
we hear Christ’s word of peace. And we remember that the breath of Christ’s
Spirit has been blown on us. We have been sent to the world, just as
Jesus was sent, and the apostles were sent, and the church to whom John was
writing was sent, with the healing word of forgiveness. And, as with them, so we
too go out with more than a greeting, more than an inner peace to calm our
fears. We go out empowered by Christ’s Spirit as a healing, forgiving people to
be a new community on a peaceable mission to a fearful world.
So how should we live?
Often when people talk about peace on the Radio or
Television they play John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. I am sure his desire for peace
was good and genuine but it lacked reality.
‘Imagine’ speaks of the absence of things he didn’t like: “…no heaven …no hell …nothing to kill or die for and no
religion too …No need for greed or hunger….” But peace doesn’t exist in a
vacuum. Peace is not the absence of something, like war or
violence; it is the presence of
something. To properly eradicate the
negative we have to replace it with something positive. So, for example, if we
deal with greed we have to replace it with generosity.
Francis of Assisi understood this, many
years ago. A well known prayer is
attributed to him; its truth prevails and has proved the test of time - almost
a thousand years!
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love:
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
Divine Master, grant that I may not so
much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to
eternal life.
In the power of Christ’s Spirit, that is how we are to
live.
It is great news that Kathryn is going to be confirmed
this morning. In the act of confirmation, I will pray that she is filled with
the Holy Spirit to become a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. Her commitment
this morning will declare that she is one with all of us here as we seek to be
God’s community of love, offering God’s peace, Shalom, Eirene, wherever we may
be.
Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be
with you.” Amen.