Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the greeting Paul liked to use in his
letters to the churches with whom he corresponded.
In these weeks since Easter Sunday I
have been thinking about the kinds of feelings the disciples of Jesus might
have experienced after his resurrection. As I said last week, fear was among
those feelings, possibly even fear of the resurrected Jesus. But also guilt.
They had failed Jesus spectacularly. They let him die.
Not that they could have prevented it,
of course. In fact, they had tried on various occasions to stop him from going
down the path he was going. He would not be stopped. There wasn’t anything much
they could do, short of dying with him.
They weren’t personally responsible
for his death. But that didn’t mean they weren’t feeling personally
responsible. Perhaps you can identify with that sort of feeling – if you have
ever failed someone. Is there anyone here who has not, somehow, failed another?
When we love someone, we feel some
responsibility for them. And we feel guilty. Sometimes so guilty that it
surprises us to find that the ones we have failed actually still love us.
There may have been some of that going
on for the disciples of Jesus during these post-Easter days. If they were human,
and if they loved Jesus, they felt some guilt. So when Jesus appeared to them
as they huddled in that locked room and said to them, “Peace be with you,” I
don’t doubt they were shocked on more than one level.
They were shocked in the same way any
one of us would be if Jesus walked through our locked doors and greeted us. It just
wasn’t something they expected. But they were also shocked, I think, by his
words to them: “Peace be with you.”
He said it twice, just to make sure
they heard him. And to assure them he hadn’t misspoken – he really meant it.
And then he came back the next week to say it again. Because Thomas hadn’t been
there the first time, and Thomas needed to hear it too. Peace, Thomas. Peace be
with you.
I’m not sure we always understand just
what this means. It means a whole lot more than flashing a peace sign. It means
I forgive you. It means I still love you, in spite of what has passed between
us, we’re good; nothing stands between us now. We’re whole, you and I. But
peace was not among the things they were expecting.
We use that word all kinds of ways,
even flippantly. The peace sign is just a fashion statement. It means nothing.
We pass the peace in our congregation, but sometimes that means nothing more
than sharing tidbits of gossip with each other or confirming when the next
committee meeting will take place.
“They have treated the wounds of my
people carelessly, saying ‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” We hear from
the prophet Jeremiah. Too often we use that word carelessly, because we don’t
want to have to understand what real peace will demand of us. To treat the
wounds with care, to dress the wounds with love.
When Jesus brings greetings of peace
to his beloved disciples in that upper room, his disciples who abandoned and
betrayed him, he is bringing them so much more than we are inclined to hear. He
brings them forgiveness; he restores them to wholeness. Peace.
And he comes to them again at the
lakeshore, while they are out fishing. They went back to what was familiar, fishing,
perhaps thinking that it would be their future. They were not dead, and
apparently were going to be alive for some indefinite length of time, so they
would need to figure out what was next. Fishing was an obvious choice – for
people who didn’t yet see the full extent of the change that had been wrought.
It didn’t work out well for them that
night, though; they caught nothing. They might have seen this as a sign, or
not. No doubt there had been other nights when they came up empty. At any rate,
Jesus again appears to them, and we can see that they are still not comfortable
with the post-resurrection Jesus. Silence. It seems like Jesus is doing all the
talking.
But after the meal he turns to Peter.
Simon, he calls him now – his former name. The name he had before Jesus
anointed him as the foundation upon which his church would be built. Simon, he
says, do you love me?
Then Simon Peter and Jesus begin a
little dance. Simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Then feed my sheep.
Simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Then feed my sheep. Simon, do you
love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Then feed my sheep.
Three times they repeat this, varying
the words slightly. And Peter’s feelings begin to resurface during this dance –
his guilt, his love, his shame, his hurt, his sense of helplessness, even
hopelessness. Lord, he says, you know everything.
Everything – you know what I did, of
which I am ashamed. And you know my shame, too. You know all of it, so you know
how much I still do, and always have loved you.
As painful as this was for Peter, it
was necessary. He needed to face all of this for him to be fully redeemed.
Redemption doesn’t come cheap. It costs something.
Grace costs something. We know what it
cost Jesus – his suffering and death, a journey through hell and back. We know
this grace he brings is not cheap.
But do we know that it costs us
something too? And do we know what it costs? It costs us our complacency; the
denial of our complicity in the sin of the world; any privilege of hate. We
give these things up for the sake of grace and peace.
Christ came to his disciples three
times, John says, enough times to offer them his forgiveness, to offer them a
chance to redeem themselves, to offer them a path forward. Grace and peace, he
gives to them – through his broken body and the blood he shed – so that they
may have life in abundance.
Christ came to them three times, John
says, but he comes to us still, offering these same gifts.
May you receive these gifts:
May you know that as much as we bear
responsibility for the brokenness and the hurting of this world, we are
forgiven.
May you be blessed with the knowledge
of your part in all things – the sin and the healing of the world.
May you hear the call of Christ to
extend his forgiveness, to love his people, to feed his lambs.
And may grace and peace be yours in
abundance.
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