"Peace Be With You!"

(Scriptures: Acts 4:32-35 Psalm 133, I John 1:1-2:2 John 20:19-31)

Where to go from here? The disciples had had such high hopes. They had walked followed Jesus through his public ministry, watched him heal, listened to him teach, saw him go up against the religious authorities. They had walked alongside Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem, watched him throw the money changers out of the Temple. All that had been just a few days ago, but it felt like it was a lifetime ago. Jesus was arrested – Judas had ratted Jesus out while he was praying – rushed through a trial that was like a bad parody of a show trial, and executed.


Where to go from here? For the moment the disciples weren’t going much of anywhere. Concerned that the authorities might be hunting them down too, they were hidden behind doors that were locked and bolted. Some of the women had come with some crazy story about an angel and an empty tomb, but the disciples dismissed this talk – after all, women are always having vapors and becoming hysterical. Aren’t they?

Maybe not this time. Or maybe the disciples were having a case of the vapors themselves. Because now Jesus was standing in front of them – how could he be alive, and how’d past that locked door – and he’s saying “Peace be with you.” He not only greets them, but commissions them: “As the Father sent me, so I send you,” says Jesus. He breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Ghost.” In a sense, Jesus breathes new life into these frightened disciples. And so their mourning turns to joy.

Except for Thomas. Thomas wasn’t locked behind closed doors with the other disciples when Jesus appeared – perhaps he was braver and more willing to venture out in public. So the disciples tell Thomas what they saw, and Thomas reacts as all the disciples had reacted when they heard the women’s tale about Jesus appearing to them – by dismissing it. “Unless I can see and touch, I will not believe.”

A week later, the disciples are back behind closed doors – even though Jesus commissioned them and sent them forth, it seems they didn’t go very far – and this time Thomas is with them. And Jesus appears to them all, and allows Thomas to touch the print of the nail in his hand. And like the rest of the disciples, Thomas’s despair turns to joy. And Jesus offers a blessing that applies to all of us – “blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Thomas’ doubts were not the last word for him. Indeed, Thomas went on to carry the faith to many; by tradition, Thomas brought the Gospel to India. While Christians are very much a minority in India, there are many congregations who trace their origins to the work of Thomas. All these who heard the Gospel from Thomas are those who did not see, and yet have believed. As are we.

Our Gospel reading describes Jesus by his appearing turning despair into joy, fear to hope. How many of our neighbors – how many of us – are like those disciples, locked behind doors of fear and despair. We’ve experienced a devastating loss – the death of a family member, serious illness, loss of employment. Or we, or our neighbors, have stumbled into self-defeating, even self-destructive behavior that has created distance from others, has shut down possibilities, has seemingly locked our neighbors or ourselves away from hopes for anything better. Where do we go from here?

Will our actions be driven by fear, or by faith? Fear shrinks us, makes us smaller, keeps a locked door between us and the life to which God would call us. Faith calls us to grow and stretch and reach out, to stumble out of the tombs of despair into the sunlight of God’s love. Remember that at the death of Lazarus, Jesus ordered the stone rolled away, and mourning turned to joy. Death did not have the last word – not for Lazarus, not for Jesus – and not for us who are commissioned as followers of the Risen Christ.

During times of tragedy – such as the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago today, such as the deaths of those firefighters who died in a burning warehouse last week – we wonder

“Where was God” and ask why. Mark’s Gospel tells us that even Jesus was not immune to these questions, as he cried on the cross, in the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And yet as Christians we believe that, even when God does not spare us from times of tragedy, God also does not abandon us to tragedy. Even in times of devastating loss, we can find peace in trusting that for those who died, death does not have the last word, that our departed have heard from Christ the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”; have been welcomed into the embrace of a loving God.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Must a Christ die in torment in every age to save those who have no imagination?” As Christians we believe that Christ died once for all. Yet every society, including our own, perpetrates acts of injustice and hatred that crucify the hopes of the poor and disadvantaged. When our hopes and dreams are crucified, it takes the eyes of faith to look for a resurrection. When we experience those Good Friday moments in our lives, it takes the eyes of faith to say, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Before his experience of the risen Christ, Thomas thought that, as the saying goes, seeing is believing. It was only after his experience that Thomas could turn those words around, to spend the rest of his life acting on the thought that believing is seeing. Believing – believing in the saving power of Christ – is seeing.

Before seeing the Risen Christ, Thomas said “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” After experiencing the Risen Christ, Thomas could only say, “My Lord and my God.” May we, like Thomas, be surprised by joy by the experience of the Risen Christ in our lives. Amen.