Peace Be With You!

Sermon preached at Mission Bend UMC on April 24, 2022. Read John 20:19-31

One day an artist was commissioned by a wealthy patron to paint something that would depict “peace.” After a great deal of thought, the artist painted a beautiful beach scene. There was white sand and crystal-clear blue water. The waves felt like they were alive and the birds, the birds were flying with ease and majesty. It felt like you could walk right into the scene. The artist gave the picture to the patron but was met with a look of deep disappointment. "This isn’t a picture of true peace. It isn’t right. Go back. Try again.

The artist went back to the studio, thought for several hours about peace, then went to the canvas and began to paint again. When the artist stepped back from the canvas, there was a beautiful picture of a young mother, holding a sleeping baby in her arms, smiling lovingly at the child. Surely, this is true peace.  The artist hurried to give the painting to the wealthy patron. But again, the patron refused the painting and asked the artist to try again.

Returning once more to the studio, the artist was feeling an exceptional sense of rejection. Discouraged, tired, disappointed, and angry, the artist then prayed for divine inspiration to create an image of true peace. Suddenly an idea came. 

The artist rushed to the canvas and began to paint as never before. When the painting was finished, the artist hurried to bring it to the hard to please, patron.

The artist barely breathed as the wealthy patron stood staring into the image for what seemed like hours. With a pensive whisper, the patron said, "Now … this is an image of true peace." 

If you were to paint a picture of true peace, what would your painting look like?

This artist painted a stormy sea pounding against a cliff, the fury of the wind lashing out at enormous rain clouds, whipping back and forth against the dark and gloomy sky. Streaks of lightening zig-zagged across the image. The sea was roaring in turmoil and chaos, waves churning, the dark sky filled with the power of the furious thunderstorm.

And right there, in the middle of the picture, under a cliff, the artist had painted a small bird, safe and dry in her nest snuggled safely in the rocks. The bird was at peace right in the center of the storm that raged about her in sheer chaos. 

Stormy Chaos! Do you remember the time that Jesus was asleep in the middle of a raging storm, and the disciples cried out in fear? Jesus spoke into the chaos and said: “peace be still,” and the storm dissipated. 

In our reading today, it is a little different, isn’t it? Jesus does not take the storm away. Instead, he offers the disciples an ever-deepening “peace” while the storm still rages around them. They are gathered in community, together because of their shared grief. 

They are in hiding because they are afraid of what will happen to them because they are Jesus followers.  In truth and in time, early Christian history tells us that 10 of the 12 original disciples, and many other followers of Jesus, WERE martyred because of their faith in Jesus Christ. 

Have you ever felt the kind of “peace be with you” peace that Jesus is offering here? Peace that comes in the middle of your fear, your chaos, the storms of your life, the grief that comes from losing someone you love. Have you ever felt that kind of peace? 

The truth is that kind of peace, God’s peace, the peace that Jesus offers the disciples in that locked room, doesn’t depend on our circumstances but on our faith. 

The word that is translated “peace” in the New Testament is the Greek word “Eirene.” Jesus would actually have said Aramaic Hebrew, “Shalom.” 

Rabbi David Zaslow says Shalom comes from a Hebrew root-word that means “wholeness.” In the Hebraic way of thinking, wholeness is the joining together of opposites. That’s why “shalom” is offered both when we come AND when we go. 

Friends, as followers of Christ, we are wondrously linked together through the hidden connections of our comings and goings, our beings and doings, our inner lives and our outer lives, in our agreements and in our disagreements. In the Ubuntu theology of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, my humanity is bound together with your humanity. I am what I am because of what we all are together. When one suffers, we all suffer. And when one is made whole, we all experience a deeper wholeness. 

When we realize this relational truth, we begin to long for wholeness in our lives, in our communities, in our world. 

That deep longing for wholeness is the source of peace expressed as “shalom.” 

When my daughter, Katie, was very young, I asked her one day, “What is your favorite part of the worship service?” She was very thoughtful about her answer, I could almost see her going through the service in her mind, and finally she said, “the passing of the peace.” Now my daughter is a very quiet person, and she was shy in her younger years, so I was really surprised. I asked her to tell me what she experienced in the passing of the peace that made it her favorite part of the worship service. She said, “well, most of the time adults don’t pay any attention to me, it’s almost like I’m not there. But when we pass the peace, I feel like they really see me and when they look in my eyes and say, “peace be with you,” I feel loved. 

What Katie was experiencing in that community was shalom. 

Shalom is what Jesus offered the disciples.  The risen Christ walked into that locked room and saw them in all their chaos and fear and grief, and he loved them. When he showed them the scars on his hands and in his side, they felt the sacrificial love of God come alive! Can you imagine the joy of that? 

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

Jesus meets the disciples where they are, in all their fear and strengthens them with his presence as he calls them out. 

What I love the most about Jesus is that Jesus is always goin’ be Jesus!  Right after the JoyJoyJoy, he commissions them for their mission, empowers them with the Spirit, and encourages them to be faithful to their beliefs and to their mission. 

With each of the three “Peace be with you,” Jesus offers, he leads them, and us, deeper and deeper and deeper into true discipleship. 

And discipleship, my friends, is not for the faint of heart, but for the faithful!

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

The first peace is the peace of Easter Sunday. We have journeyed deep into the remembrance of Maundy Thursday, the Darkness of Good Friday and the Silence of Holy Saturday … only to wake up on Easter Sunday morning and celebrate! Christ the Lord is Risen, every year, year after year, without fail! Christ the Lord is Risen! Hallelujah! 

Amen? Amen!

When the risen Christ first appeared in that locked room and speaks, those disciples experienced a relief that against all odds, death had not won; after all of the blood, the nails, the thorns, the beating, and the cross …  Jesus IS alive! 

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

The second peace is the “not so fast” kind of peace, because Jesus didn’t show up just to make the disciple feel better. 

This is the peace that lasts beyond that initial rush of joy … this is the peace that holds us together when we remember that there are challenges that lie ahead.

When Jesus then speaks the second “Peace be with you” he says, God sent me, so I am sending you! Go into the world and share the Gospel with everyone you meet: God loves you so much that if you will just believe in Jesus, you won’t perish but you will have eternal life. And even better than that, God loves everyone in the world so much that anyone who believes in Jesus will not perish will have eternal life and not just any kind of life but life abundant!

There’s the challenge but here’s the gift: we are not alone: Jesus breathed on those disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” 

Do you believe in Jesus?  Then YOU have received the Holy Spirit to empower you to go into the world to share the love of God through your own witness. So, what’s your story and who can you share it with? 

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

So, the third peace, maybe it’s the “are you kidding me” peace. It’s a week later, after Jesus has commissioned and empowered those disciples with the Holy Spirit … and they are still locked away behind closed doors. It could be the “it’s not as easy as it sounds” peace, because it really isn’t easy at all. 

But it could also be the “communal reconciliation” peace. Thomas has basically said, “I’m not moving until I get what you got.” Congregations and Communities of Faith often do not do well with dissidents, direct challenges, and conflict. Sometimes we allow our conflicts to create doubts in one another.  Those conflicts then create an inward turn, one that keeps us from the mission we’ve been commissioned and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do.  

And so, we have who I call Thomas the Dissident. We often call him “doubting” Thomas but all he really asks for is to experience what the other disciples have experienced.  Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus until he calls her name. Even though she had told the disciples what she had seen, they weren’t so sure. They needed to see Jesus for themselves. So does Thomas. 

So, in order to bring peace to the community so they can get on with their mission, Jesus is more than willing to offer his wounds again. And I think that what he says next, “No more disbelief. Believe!” is an invitation for us to get on with our own mission, whatever that may be, to put our faith into action!

The Greek root of the word Jesus uses here, translated “believe” is pist. While overwhelmingly rendered as the noun faith or the verb believe, the deeper meaning in this Greek word is “trust.” Trust is highly relational and exists on a spectrum of growth. Belief is just the beginning and as our belief grows into trust, it is manifested as faith in action! 

When Jesus offers Shalom, Eirene, Peace, to the community of disciples, they have been immobilized by fear after Jesus’ crucifixion and paralyzed by conflict. Death is at their doorstep. 

For what Jesus is sending and empowering them to do — to put their faith into action by continuing his mission, spreading the good news of God’s grace and love for all, they must come to a place of deep trust, a place of Shalom, resting in the center of chaos that is now their life. 

Do you believe in Jesus?  Do you trust Jesus?  

We may not have death at our doorstep today, but we, too, are sent and empowered by the Spirit to walk right out that door and trusting God, to proclaim God’s love made known in Jesus Christ!

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

   Alleuia & Amen!