Preached to the Congregational Church in Exeter, U. C. C., on the second Sunday of Easter, April 7, 2002, by Michael L. C. Henderson, pastor.Genesis 8:1/-3a, 13-19; 9:8-11; I Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31 Peace be with you.
–John 20:19, 21, 26
Here's a bit of ecclesiastical historical trivia. Last Sunday was Easter Sunday. Today is also Easter Sunday. Next Sunday is Easter Sunday too. In fact, there are seven Easter Sundays every year, because Easter is not just one day, it's a season that lasts seven weeks, the so-called Great Fifty Days of Easter, leading up to the Sunday of Pentecost, a word which means "fifty." It's only fair that Easter should get more space on the calendar than Lent gets.
Here's some more trivia. In the 5th century, the two weeks starting on Palm Sunday and ending today, with Easter Day in the middle, were known as the Festival Fifteen Days. Sort of the holiest of the holy days. And St. Augustine records that the Roman Emperor Theodosius made the following law: during the Festival Fifteen Days, all disputes and contentions were punishable crimes. But on the Monday after the second Sunday of Easter, which would be tomorrow, everybody could resume fighting and strife as usual.
This is the sort of thing that happens when you mix religion with political power, and when God heard about it, I imagine God yearned for the good old days before the Roman Empire got religion, when the Christians were hiding in caves.
It didn't work, of course, this law against disputes and contentions. In a sermon for this very Sunday Augustine lamented that the faithful were using the quiet of these holy fifteen days to brood over plans for future strife, instead of cultivating a spirit of gentleness in themselves. Some of us may be similarly engaged at this very moment, right here in church.
Peace be with you, Jesus said. He said it three times in today's Gospel reading. And we say it to each other every Communion Sunday, don't we? The peace of Christ be with you. And also with you. I wonder if that produces any better results than the emperor Theodosius' legislation.
But how do you make peace happen? If you have any ideas, please convey them to our Secretary of State as soon as possible. He needs all the help he can get as he tries to make peace happen in, of all places, the so-called Holy Land. That's the place where instead of saying Hello or Good Morning, people use the standard greeting Shalom. Peace. Not just any peace, either, but the peace of God. As the everyday form of greeting in that place, I would think shalom serves only to accentuate the tragedy of it: highlighting ironically the absence of peace, the impossibility of peace.
On the other hand, maybe God's peace is strictly an interior tranquillity — peace of mind, serenity, that sort of thing. That would take away some of the ironic sting of saying Shalom in Jerusalem. But do we really think that's all Jesus meant when he said Peace be with you?
There's nothing tranquil about Thomas. Doubting Thomas we call him, but I think we've got him wrong. This man isn't coolly skeptical, he's in pain. He had company in his misery, which misery loves, but now everybody else is happy, which of course only doubles his misery. They've all deserted him. The gap between Thomas and the other disciples isn't so much in the head — it has more to do with the heart.
Jesus said Peace be with you and he (Thomas) wasn't there. God's peace was given to them, given twice no less, and he (Thomas) wasn't there. He wasn't there when the breath of God breathed the Holy Spirit into them. He wasn't there when it mattered. That wasn't his fault. But the others are changed by what happened when he (Thomas) wasn't there, and he can see the change, but it's not happening to him.
You know how it was with these disciples, you've heard it so many times: All through their time with Jesus they were at best bumblers and blusterers, and at worst cowards and traitors. Until after he's dead. But when he rises and they meet him risen, they are instantly transformed into witnesses, apostles, heroes of faith and endurance and love and all that good stuff. Overnight they are the Body of Christ. Except Thomas.
You have to wonder what really happened to them that night in that room where Thomas wasn't. You have to wonder what's the magic in saying Peace be with you, what's the magic in breathing on them. But it's not magic. Resurrection is what happened to them, and resurrection isn't a magic trick. It's a gift from God. And it came to them in person.
That's where Jesus went on Easter Day. He could have gone to the Praetorium to teach Pilate a lesson, or to the palace to have a word with Herod, or to the temple to tell Caiaphas a thing or two. He could have asked the Roman soldiers to please give him back his clothes. But he went and found them where they were hiding in a locked upstairs room "for fear of the Jews", which means, of course, for fear of themselves, and God knows they had plenty of reason to be afraid of themselves. He went and found them sweating with fear and guilt, breathing each other's breath, and he gave them something new to breathe: forgiveness.
He didn't say, "I forgive you." He didn't need to. He enacted forgiveness just by going to them. Joining them. Joining them with his wounds — no magical disappearance of those! — but without reproach and with expectations, with a call: You, yes you, are my witnesses, you are my body, you are my priesthood, you are my beloved, you are my people, you are my church. Yes, you. I have no illusions about you, but I still choose you.
And the wounds, the pain, the betrayal, the failure, the death? Oh, they're all real as real can be. But as you see, they do not have dominion over me. And as you will see, they do not have dominion over you either. And Thomas, that goes for you too.
After the flood God said, "Never again. I establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off." The rainbow sign. That was the birth of forgiveness. Forgiveness hasn't died, in spite of all the people who have buried it. But that is their forgetfulness and ours. Jesus was a good Jew even in resurrection: He remembered the rainbow sign. He remembered forgiveness. And forgiveness is the indispensable heart of peace. The outrageous, impossible heart of peace. Here and in Jerusalem.
Amen