Acts 4:32-37 Psalm 133 1 John 1:1–2:2 John 20:19-31
I don’t know about you, but I feel like Thomas has had a bit of a resurgence in the last few years. In my childhood years, and even into adulthood, Thomas was always known by that moniker Doubting Thomas, and he was always used as an example of how not to behave. Do not doubt but believe, was the message. Until recently. And recently I have noticed this rising tide of people defending Thomas, even sticking up for him. Even just last week, someone said to me, ‘Thomas made the first profound acclamation – My Lord and My God – the biggest claim in all the gospels’. Its only taken 2000+ years, but Thomas’ reputation seems to finally be shaking off its tarnish. So, it wasn’t Thomas who grabbed my attention in this morning’s reading. Instead, I am struck by Jesus’ arrival and the kind of greeting he gives to his disciples…
This morning, we meet them, huddled in the upper room, for fear of the Jews, and I suspect that having denied, betrayed, and abandoned Jesus the disciples were really wallowing in their shortcomings. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think they were passing around blame for the death of Jesus, trying to make the other’s faults greater than their own; like, ‘if Judas hadn’t betrayed him, it would’ve been ok’ and ‘Peter, if you hadn’t denied him first, I was going to say I knew him’. They all screwed up. There would be enough blame to go around.
And then, even while they’re locked away, it is here, amid doubt, fear, heartbreak, and blame, that Jesus came and stood among them. Jesus: no respecter of locked doors, or self-pity, or hiding, comes and stands among them. It is here he appears to his disciples and says, ‘Peace be with you’. Peace. They’ve denied and betrayed and deserted and made fatal mistakes in their following of him…and Jesus’ first words to them are, Peace be with you.
His final word, if they had been there to hear it, was ‘finished’. That was it, the end of how things had been, how they once were. It Is Finished. And now is the dawning of the new world; all that was is gone and the new beginning is one of peace. Absolute, all consuming, fear swamping, peace.
And as I thought about this earlier on this week, I reflected once more on how much we need that same greeting, same promise, same hope, right now, at least as much as those first disciples did. Maybe more.
Yesterday, I scanned the front page of the BBC news website where I read:
- Ukraine has carried out a drone attack against targets in southern Russia and claims to have destroyed six Russian planes at an airbase in the Rostov region.Eight more aircraft were badly damaged, while 20 service personnel could have been killed.
- 7 Aid workers have been killed in Gaza, adding to the at least 33,000 Palestinians in this current conflict. And those who remain are being purposefully starved
- New York and Taiwan have both been hit by earthquakes in the past week
- A French student has been murdered by his fellow classmates,
- And the world’s biggest iceberg – nearly 4000sqkm – is drifting to who knows where…
Closer to home, I have a friend who was unable to deal with life any longer and chose death instead, along with loved ones waiting for test results or surgery, and you can insert your own scenarios here too, and the list goes on. And the only thing that might make any of this better is that elusive peace.
So is it any wonder that, when Christ conquered death, when life became everlasting and darkness lost all power to the source of light, is it any wonder that his first words were PEACE. Peace be with you. It’s going to be ok. That is the promise.
Peace in place of war
Peace not conflict
Peace among world leaders and countries
Peace between classmates
Peace as universal language and currency
Peace for our planet as it struggles to breathe without choking
And peace for our friends and relatives and ourselves, as we wait for that diagnosis, or treatment or relief.
Peace be with you, Jesus said. Peace be with you.
Peace is often portrayed as a gentle breeze, lapping waves, or a silent bird drifting by but is not peace – that is calm. Peace is other, it is countercultural, it says fear doesn’t get to win, despair doesn’t get to win, doubt, blame, anxiety, war, violence, discrimination, or darkness – none of these get to win. Peace trumps them all.
Peace is a gift – a fruit of the spirit – it is given to us and grows in us and is dependent on Jesus – the prince of peace. Peace, apart from that is merely an absence of the things we want to avoid. But we don’t follow a God of absence, we follow a God of deep and real presence. And that presence is peace.
Tonight we gather again to pray for peace; to say ‘we recognise we are in trouble and we don’t know how to make it better but we believe that you do Lord, and we are pleading for it’. We will gather in our own ‘upper room’, as the disciples did, and wait for Jesus to come and rescue us from the mess we have made, universally.
Our waiting is not passive or in vain. It is active waiting, with a faith that we know the One who can make change. We know the one who brings peace, who is peace.
We gather for our friends and relatives and fellow humans in Gaza or Ukraine or in hospitals or prisons, for those who look ahead and can only see a bleak future, and we plead for peace. When we don’t know how to help, gathering and praying to the one who is peace, brings peace, promises peace, is something we can do.
And whenever we share the peace with one another or take the prince of peace into our hands at every mass, may we pause for a moment and commit to pray for peace for the world, that the living Christ may come and stand among us, among them, and say ‘peace be with you’.
Amen.
Holy Adventures 