Today is a sort of unusual worship service as I said, Easter is a time of celebration, and when at least in my planning of worship, the season of Easter is full of the sense of celebration that Easter brings. What it also normally brings is me being on vacation the week after Easter, but we are not fully to that sense of celebration, and we’re not gathered together, and I am here, and the person who was supposed to be preaching is still in Albuquerque with his daughters and I even changed what I was planning on preaching on after Easter in order to better reflect our time and space. And so we start with a worship series, entitled the heart of the matter, and I’m thankful to Marcia McFee for creating the idea in a fairly short period of time, and it begins with what is the traditional reading for this Sunday, which is the passage from John and the story of doubting Thomas. And although this message is not about Thomas, let me say that Thomas has gotten an extremely bad rap over the millennia with this particular moniker being given to him. I mean we don’t say denying peter or even betraying Judas, but we always talk about doubting Thomas even though the story does not justify that reality.
First, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb, and she eventually sees Jesus and it is in John’s account that she reaches out to touch him, and Jesus doesn’t allow her to I think in order to keep social distancing. But then she says to the disciples “I have seen the Lord.” But do they believe her, it certainly doesn’t appear to be the case, because we then told that that night, where our scripture started this morning, the disciples are locked up in a house full of fear. If they had believed in Mary’s testimony it doesn’t seem that would have been the case, as we’ll see shortly. And the story says they were fearful of the Jews, and in that we have to hear fearful of some leaders, because what were all the disciples? They were Jews, and so we need to be reminded how quickly these things can lead to anti-Semitism that was not intended by the writer. But back to the story, Jesus then appears to the disciples and gives his greeting, “Peace be with you.” And then I think there should be an ellipsis because it appears as if something is missing, as the passage says “After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.” But why would Jesus do this, unless the disciples had asked for it in order to prove that he was really Jesus, not just some random guy walking through a locked door. And I think that because it says after Jesus had done this, “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” That is they hadn’t believed the testimony of Mary, and they didn’t believe it was the Lord until they had seen the wounds.
But for some reason, Thomas was not there that night locked up with the disciples; perhaps it was his turn to run to the store to see if they had any toilet paper or paper towels yet. Or perhaps he was not afraid and so was out doing what needed to be done. And when Thomas gets back what do they say, “We have seen the Lord.” Exactly the same thing that Mary and had said, which the disciples didn’t believe, and Thomas says that unless he sees the marks on his body, and then adds and puts his fingers in the wounds, then he won’t believe. Now except for the touching the wounds part, he has not set his level of belief any higher than any of the others. So why is he called out as the doubter?
But a week later, the disciples are again gathered together, and Jesus appears, but notice that this time we are not told that the doors are locked, something important to come back to, and Jesus again greets them, and then tells Thomas to put his hands into the wounds. He does not chastise Thomas for this demand. There is no indication that Jesus is looking down on him. Instead he accedes to the request that Thomas makes, and although the most common translations have Jesus saying to Thomas, “do not doubt but believe.” A literal translation of the Greek is “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” That is the question is not about doubt, but about belief. Now should Thomas have believed the testimony he received from the other disciples? Yes, probably, just like they should have believed Mary, but they didn’t either. But Thomas’ response, his confession of faith, of “my Lord and my God,” is one of the Christological high points of the gospel of John and even the whole New Testament. This story is not one of rebuke and admonishment, as is so often perceived, but a story of hope and promise, and even more importantly, it’s not even truly about Thomas. It’s about Jesus, and belief in the testimony given about his resurrection, and so I want to return to Jesus and the focus of this message which is on the greetings that he gives to the disciples.
Three times Jesus gives the greeting “Peace be with you,” to the disciples. Now this can be seen as a simple welcome, as “shalom Aleichem”, which means something like peace be upon you in Hebrew is used as a greeting. But there is something much deeper in this greeting as well. When we hear the word peace, we normally think of an absence of violence or war, that everything is quiet or people are at rest, or there is lack of conflict between people, that we’re all getting along. And this is one of the times when our immediate understanding of a word can help us with a basic understanding, but it can also get in our way of understanding the text because that definition doesn’t get us far enough into the true meaning that is being conveyed here. So Jesus isn’t just saying may there be no conflict or war, because there are repressive ways to bring about peace, as the Romans demonstrated in that peace came about through repression, of saying, you’ll behave or we will kill you, demonstrated by their executing Christ himself. That is Pax Romana, their way to peace, but that is not the peace that Christ is offering. As he says in John, in what is known as the farewell discourse, “My 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.” (14:27) Jesus’ peace is not the peace of the world, which can bring about fear and troubled hearts, but something more.
If you were here in Advent, or the days leading up to Christmas, and we were talking about the titles attributed to Christ, one of them was Prince of Peace. As Isaiah was using that term, he was using Shalom. And while there are lots of meanings for the word, some of it being the cessation of war, but it also has a meaning of safety or well-being and contentment. Not just for yourself, but for others as well. But in Greek, which is what all the gospels were written in, the word for peace is Eirene, which again has the connotation of absence of war. But, more importantly for our purposes and for the gospel message, it also has the connotation of wholeness and well-being, the restoration of relationship between people and God but also between people. It is about healing and wholeness, about living in and approaching the world with the peace of God and the knowledge that we are in God’s hands.
And it is obvious that the disciples do not have this peace because we are told that they were behind locked doors, why? Because of fear. But Jesus had told them I am giving you my peace so do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid. But they were living in fear, and so Jesus appears and twice tells them, peace be with you. And then a week later, he again appears, and we are told that the doors are shut, but they are not locked and we are not told that they are afraid. That means that something has happened in that space in between. They had been afraid, and now they no longer are, and I think that distinction is incredibly important. But Jesus still greets them with “peace be with you.” Perhaps it’s a reminder, perhaps a booster shot or an inoculation against falling back, or maybe it’s because Thomas wasn’t there the first time and he needs to know. But the peace of Christ being with them, or them knowing it’s there, is important, but that’s not all.
In the first visit, after the second time he says “peace be with you”, Jesus also gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so remember that the giving of the Holy Spirit that we celebrate at Pentecost, at the end of May this year, is the account given by Luke Acts. John tells a different story, and so here the Holy Spirit is given immediately after the resurrection, and Jesus breathes the Spirit into the disciples, and the usage of that term breath here is clearly supposed to make us think of, and remember back to, God breathing the breath of life into the first humans in the second creation story in the second chapter of Genesis. And perhaps also the breath of life given to the valley of dry bones in the vision from the prophet Ezekiel. This is the gift of life that is given to the disciples, and to us, and it is no coincidence that immediately before Jesus tells the disciples that he is giving them peace, not like the world gives, that he has also promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit, who will be God’s witness here on earth, to remind us of Jesus’ teachings and to be with us.
And so the peace of Christ is with us, the life of Christ is with us, the breath of God is with us whenever we breathe in and out. And so as we have been focusing on our breathing, it’s about taking that deep breath of the peace of Christ and letting it fill us and calm us, to focus us being present with Christ and calling for the power of the Spirit to be with us, to bring us healing and wholeness, to move us away from troubled hearts and hearts of fear, to instead having hearts of peace. That is one of the gifts that we receive from God, and it is one of the things that is at the heart of the matter of who we are as Christians. We are people of peace, people of wholeness and healing, not just in ourselves, but in offering that to the world. Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus says. Not the peacewishers or peacedesirerers, but the peacemakers. Those who not only offer healing and wholeness to the world, but are at peace in and with ourselves, who breath in the breath of God, breath in the peace of God, breath in the power of God, and in turn breathe out the same to a broken and worn and weary and fearful world.
And so I want you to think about what brings you peace? Where do you find healing and wholeness? When your heart is troubled and fearful, what needs to happen to change that? What needs to happen so that you may move, as the disciples did, from fear to peace? Jesus, the risen and resurrected Christ, is coming to us and saying Peace be with you, and I do not give as the world gives, I give the peace and harmony, the forgiveness and mercy, the grace and glory, the generosity and gratitude, the love and compassion of God the Father and the breath and presence and power of the Spirit. I give this things to you,” Christ says, “I give them to you, so breath them in, let them seep into your deepest soul, let them envelope every cell in your body, until my healing and wholeness, my peace, is who you are and how you live, and to know that not even fearfully locked doors can keep out the grace of God, so that you may indeed have a heart of peace.” I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
Based on a worship series designed by Dr. Marcia McFee, Worship Design Studio
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