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This account takes place after a week of upheaval, after a week of turmoil,
of running, of hiding and after an earth-shaking loss. These friends of Jesus
saw their world end with the torture and execution of their leader. They are
truly frightened for their own lives and are hiding, their hearts beating like
frightened rabbits. They are fugitives being hunted.
All that they believed to be true, apparently is not. They have one foot on
the promise of a dead savior, and the other planted firmly on the harsh
reality of the Roman punishment that’s seeks to find them.
They must have felt like we did in those times when we too did something
that caused us to shake with fear. We did something wrong or used bad
judgement and are just waiting for the shoe to drop – not knowing what to
do or where to go. My mother’s famous words still ring in my ears: “just wait
until you father gets home.”
At the time, we had strong feelings of fear, of uneasiness; sometimes we
can oftentimes remember them years after they become the stories that we
still tell at family gatherings. You all have your own; you just cannot forget
them.
Ramp that up 1000-fold and that’s the psychology of this day; but it all
changes in a moment. Fear turns into relief and another layer of unbelief
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settles in as Jesus appears. His sudden and unexpected appearance must
have been hard to process – to take it all in. Are they dreaming? What was
in that wine?
It must have been like being in a car accident. Time seems to slow down.
Oftentimes, it is sudden and unexpected, and you cannot process fast
enough what is happening all around you. You don’t remember where it
started or how you ended up where you are; it seems surreal until you
settle back into reality. And even then, sometimes, you cannot remember
anything about the accident; it is a blank.
This is the impact of this moment. Jesus was dragged through the streets
(we saw that). He was nailed to a cross and suffered until he was dead
(we saw that), so did his mother. He was buried in a tomb and it was
sealed up. (we saw that) but now He is not; the mind says – how can this
be? BUT… here he was.
He came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you."
When he had said this, [to counter unbelief] he showed them his hands and
his side.” It was him, Jesus. He had broken the locks and doors of death
as He said we would and came to them when they needed Him most.
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Jesus did not come to accuse; He came to invite. He did not say: “What
Happened?” “Where were you?” “I warned you ahead of time, why did you
mess up?” No: his gives them His peace: He says, to them and to us in our
own time: “what you’ve done, whoever you’ve betrayed, or let down, or how
far you have roamed away from me, … Peace be with you.” Their fear
must have melted away; he was back.
It is often said, that the mind lives in a world of its own, and can make hell a
heaven or heaven a hell. It all depends on perspective and point of view.
Books and websites promising peace of mind are some of the best-selling
books and searches on the Internet. In many ways, we live in a world of
fear – searching for that elusive peace in any place we think it can be
found.
We must hunt hard for good news on TV. We are surrounded by reports of
violence, afraid of strangers, worried about the future, uncertain about the
economy. We equip our houses and cars with alarms and cameras these
days. We know what it is to be uneasy; sometimes, we find ourselves in our
own locked room after the crucifixion – ducking and covering.
In this Gospel, Jesus counters the evil in humanity with a peace only He
can give. The same evil that led to his own suffering and death, the same
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evil that forces his disciples to hide. It is the same evil that is still loosed
upon our own world in so many forms that we hear about its effects
everyday somewhere. However, beginning in this room of fear, Jesus offers
hope for humanity in his offer of peace.
It would be wonderful, if Christ could appear to the whole world at the same
time, in every city and village and say, “Peace be with you,” “my peace I
give to all of you,” and all conflicts large and small in every corner of the
earth would end in that moment. We would then be living in a place that, I
suspect, we would not recognize.
He came through locked doors once – he will do it again; he said as much.
Just as Jesus’ body is no longer subject to the limitations and rules of time
and space, so, too, our belief in him is not subject to the rules of logic and
proof. Experience of him and what He can do is enough.
The truth of Easter is that all of humanity is blessed with a God who can
defy the human locks of logic, of scientific explanation, of disbelief. He is a
God who can break through our own personal prisons – to find us hiding
and set us free with a peace that changes lives, that changes families.
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The appearance of the risen Lord did not reveal a flawless body innocent of
suffering. It revealed a healed body innocent of sin.
Jesus didn't wait for the disciples to figure out that they didn't need to be
afraid anymore. He didn't wait for any of them to do anything different, or to
be anyone different. He just showed up.
Belief in the risen Lord is not dependent on feeling his wounds (as Thomas
first thought), but on believing he feels ours.