Peace be with you.

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, Year A – based on John 20:19-31.

“Peace be with you.”

Jesus appears among us today to say these very familiar words: “Peace be with you.” But what does this greeting from the risen Christ mean? It certainly stands in contrast to the mood of the scene Jesus enters: his disciples locked in their house and afraid.

We are all told, time and time again, from childhood onward, it seems – by the ones who love us… by parents or friends, and in our faith story by angels and by Jesus himself  – “Don’t be afraid.” Because we are so like the disciples so much of the time…trapped in fear and mistrust.

The most famous character of our gospel today has become the icon of mistrust… of faltering faith…of doubt. Poor Thomas gets a pretty bad rap.

But I’m not going to talk too much about Thomas – partly because pretty much every other character in this resurrection journey has their own doubts and their own need for proof…which makes me inclined to cut him some slack.  But, more than that, I think Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples in that locked-up house bears powerful implications for our life as followers of the risen Christ today… So, I think we’ll keep our focus on that room of fearful followers and on Jesus’ greeting of peace and what it appears to mean.

Most of us know what it is to try to build a barricade between ourselves and something we fear. When I thirteen, I was a big fan of the television program The X-Files (still am, actually). It was a smart and creepy kind of show with all sorts of monsters and mutants and conspiracies and mysteries. One episode featured a villain that could contort his body and fit into tiny spaces, making him able to enter and escape places without detection.

Now, I like to think I was a brave thirteen year old…but after that episode, when I got ready for bed…I admit… I locked my bedroom door. Then, I locked my windows…Then, I blockaded my closet door with my desk chair…closed the heating vents…and I opened every drawer in my dresser, desk and nightstand…before I crawled into bed.

Granted, that’s only funny because what I was scared of wasn’t real. What the disciples were afraid was all too real. The threat to their safety could, indeed, have been lurking just outside their locked door.

So, too, for us. There are things we fear, things we hide from…or wish we could hide from…and those things…well, they aren’t funny.

But, in the gospel today, we hear how our risen Lord and Savior walks right through the barricades we’ve put up, and appears in our places of fear and hiding: like a father who crawls all the way under the bed and empties out the closet to show his son that there are no monsters…and then sits with him until his breathing slows and he is safely sleeping; or, like a friend who comes over after a frantic 2 a.m. phone call…to keep heart-pounding sleeplessness at bay…and sit vigil through an anxious night. And, with Jesus, we don’t even need to cry out in fear or pick up the phone for him to come rushing to us. He just appears.

The appearance of Jesus in the disciples’ locked house makes me think of those pretty pastoral paintings…maybe you’ve seen or even owned one…It’s of a country cottage with a big wooden door, lit by lamplight in the dark of night…with Jesus gently knocking, just waiting to be let in…

Well, today…Jesus isn’t waiting for anyone to let him in. He just busts right through the door when we’re too afraid open up. And thank God he does.

It seems like Jesus is constantly meeting his friends and followers in their fear and doubt and distress in these chapters of John – and not just Thomas, for sure. He met Mary, weeping in the garden that morning…and when she didn’t recognize him, he called her by name.  He comes to the disciples, locked away in fear – apparently not comforted by Mary’s claim that she had just seen Jesus, back from the dead. And, when Thomas is late to enter the scene, yes…Jesus continues to show up and answer fear and doubt with his presence and peace.

His peace. Now, this is the really fun part…What is this peace about?

Jesus shows up in the middle of the cowering crowd of disciples…and says “Peace be with you.” He shows them his wounds, and they rejoice to see that it is really him… truly alive and with them again…

But then…Jesus does something a bit curious. He repeats himself. “Peace be with you,” and he this time elaborates: “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you...”

Read a certain way, I think it sounds like Jesus is repeating himself because he’s not sure the disciples heard him correctly the first time. It’s almost as if he wonders what they’re all still standing around for: “I said, ‘peace be with you’…I am sending you to keep doing the work the Father sent me to do…Do you get it?  ‘Peace be with you’ means ‘Go!’ Get out of here! I’m alive. You don’t have to be afraid…So, get on with it!” (I owe this interpretation to Vitor Westhelle, professor of Systematic Theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.)

Jesus comes to us where we are…when we fear, when we doubt, when we mistrust.  Locked doors and hearts don’t keep him out. Yes, he is patient with our slowness to catch on…but he shows up with the purpose of calling us out into the journey of faith and mission.

He breathes on the disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit, but this greeting of peace and gift of Spirit have a motion and direction. They are not meant to stay locked inside the doors of safety. They are not meant to be confined to what is comfortable.

Jesus has walked the way of the cross, has returned from death, has shown us his wounds. His peace and spirit meet us in our wounded-ness and fear now to heal and transform us, so that the wounded-ness and fear of the world might also be healed and transformed…and so we might be a part of it. We are Holy Spirit bearers now, too. We are not meant to stay locked up in fear or paralyzed in our wounds. Christ comes to us where we fear so we don’t have to stay there anymore!

And we hear echoes of this promise and this missional movement in worship every week. Soon, we will share the peace together, share Christ’s very words with one another, so we can come to Christ’s feast as a reconciled community. And once we have shared that meal, and been strengthened and made courageous by Christ’s presence with us and for us today, we will hear a word of peace again, but with a charge: “Go in peace. Serve the risen Lord”

One pastor I worked with jokingly said he preferred the idea of sending the assembly from worship by saying, “Go in peace. But GO!”

The going is key, you see. The serving is key, as well, of course…I mean, wouldn’t it be something if we were all so charged up about the work of the kingdom, that once we heard the words, “Go in peace,” we just bolted for the door…to get out there and start doing it?

So, as we hear Christ’s greeting of peace in that locked-up room and look on his wounds today, what might “Peace be with you” mean for us now? What are Christ’s peace and the Holy Spirit urging us to go and do?

Perhaps it is something as simple as writing a card to a friend or family member we haven’t seen for a long time. Or something a little less comfortable for some of us, like greeting someone begging on the street with a kind word and the offer of a shared meal instead of turning our eyes away. Perhaps it means donating ten dollars, or whatever amount we can afford, to the Lutheran Malaria Initiative for mosquito nets to help end malaria in Africa. As a congregation, can we be called beyond our comfort as a community…to keep discerning more and more how we can be Christ’s body in this city, even if it might mean doing something new or letting go of something old?

It is no small shift to move from a fear-filled locked-up room to such a courageous mission as this. But, that is what freedom in Christ allows us to do – be a part of the transformation we and this world need so desperately. Christ send us to others, just as surely as Christ comes to us and sends others to us.

More than anything, though, one thing is clear: Christ’s peace and the Holy Spirit are not about sitting still or staying put. They are on the move, and so are we.

So, as we have been gathered and nourished with God’s Word, let’s go now to be fed and encouraged at God’s table by the very presence of our risen Lord among us.

And then, in the peace of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit…Let’s get out of here! Let’s go in peace and serve our risen Lord!

Peace be with you!

Thanks be to God. Amen.