John 20: 19-22 | Peace Be With You

On a rainy afternoon in 1978 I was running an errand for our church. A friend was in the passenger seat, and as we went through a busy intersection, the car in front of us braked suddenly. I punched at my own brakes, but they had little effect. My car hydroplaned straight into the back of the car in front of me.

Now, I was sixteen at the time. I had just gotten my driver's license a couple of months before, and I had never been in a car accident before--not even a minor one. Fortunately no one was hurt, although my friends Willy was sent to the hospital just to be safe. I called the church where my father was working and they said he'd be right there.

So I stood in the rain, looking at the wreckage of my father's car, terrified of what he was going to do to me when he arrived. I hadn't been spanked in a couple of years, but I was still scared of being punished. When my Dad did arrive, he looked grave and concerned. He summed up the wreckage with a glance and made a beeline for where I was standing. I thought I was going to wet myself, I was so scared, and when my father got within earshot, my stream of apologies began.

But my father didn't appear to hear any of it. As soon as he reached me he threw his arms around me and cradled my head against his chest, audibly thanking God that I was all right. That's when I really started crying.

He asked if I had been banged up any, and I told him Willy had gone to the hospital, but I thought he was okay, too.

"You're not mad?" I asked. His arm was tight around my shoulders as he looked at the smashed front end of his Pinto station wagon. "Happens to all of us," he said, "I'm just glad you're safe."

Rarely had I ever felt I had blown it as big as I did that day. And I learned a lesson about cars, I think, since I haven't had another accident since; but the most valuable lesson I learned was taught to me by my father, who did not condemn me, even though I had blown it, knew I had blown it, and was afraid because of it. Instead, he told me not to worry about it, that I was infinitely more valuable than any hunk of metal, and that being afraid and making mistakes was as much a part of adulthood as it is childhood.

I thought of this incident thinking about how the disciples must have felt huddled in that upper room after Jesus' crucifixion. They must have felt that they had blown it, big time. Here they had given three years of their lives following a teacher that they feared had turned out to be a fraud. They must have relived much of their history together, armed now with a critical perspective they had lacked before. How could they have been so gullible? Jesus' words had been revolutionary, certainly, but they certainly were convincing at the time. Now they were not so sure.

The modern tragedies of Heaven's Gate and The People's Temple are not isolated incidents. People have always been taken in by a charismatic preacher and a fervent hope of a better world to come. And the disciples felt taken in. And now what did they have? They had one dead rabbi, a stolen body, a crazy colleague insisting that she saw Jesus risen from the dead, and half of the city in an uproar and on their tails. No wonder they holed up in fear! They were afraid for their lives! After all, they killed Jesus, what was to say they wouldn't stop there?

So they huddled there, feeling like failures, like dupes, like wanted men, like it was the end of the world. And then a familiar voice, saying, "Peace be with you."

Peter must have jumped out of his shorts! Suddenly, Jesus, the old Jesus, in the flesh, was in the room with them, and telling them not to be afraid--to be at peace! There was no question that it was him. There were the wounds, and well--it was HIM.

Imagine the feelings that must have been somersaulting through these guys! At one moment they were feeling like failures for having believed this Jesus guy at all. And the next moment, they were feeling like failures for NOT believing him! Imagine Peter, especially, who had denied him three times, and doubted like the rest of them whether they had just wasted the last three years of their lives. And now here was this same old Jesus, just like he said, inexplicably, miraculously amongst them again.

They must have felt ashamed, for Jesus to have found them huddling in a locked room, hiding from the world, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, where THEY had gone wrong, doubting his word, doubting themselves.

But Jesus was not angry. He did not condemn them. He didn't yell at them or tell them they were miserable excuses for disciples. Instead he said, "Peace be with you." "Don't be afraid, everything is going to be all right."

And then he breathed on them the Holy Spirit, so they would never be alone again. So they would never need doubt God's power and mission in their lives, in their ministries. Except for John, every one of the disciples went to their graves via a violent martyr's death. This could not have happened on their own power. These guys were convinced: convinced by the living Christ breathing into their faces in a locked upper room; convinced by the nailprints in his hands and feet; convinced by the comforting stirrings of the Holy Spirit of God burning in their breasts, stirring their courage, supplying their mouths with words, leading them into dangerous and fruitful ministries.

They did not face death because of some feel-good theology about things always looking better in the morning. They walked into their deaths with courage because they saw the victor over death, and received from his very mouth the same power and promise this Jesus possessed.

The disciples were convinced. And we are here today precisely because they were convincing! Because the power of Love was greater than their fear. Because the power of Love was greater than their shame. Because the power of love was greater than their loss. Because the power of Love has shattered death forever, and they knew it!

But on that night, in those frozen moments when they were paralyzed with their own doubt and fear, the power of Love was so great that it forgave them. The power of Love embraced them as they were, scared and hurting people, pulled them to love's breast and said, "Peace be with you." The power of Love that knows what it is to be human, to be limited in our faith and knowledge, that knows what it is to despair.

It is that power of Love that seeks us out today. That calls us each individually by name and tells us "no matter where you have been, no matter what you have done, no matter how far you have run or how overwhelming your fear: Peace be with you."

Jesus calls us to this table today not because we have been worthy, but because we have been afraid: afraid to trust our intuitions, afraid to let our lights shine in front of the world, afraid to trust that the Jesus who called a brooding bunch of terrified women and men in an upper room two thousand years ago is the same Jesus who sends us forth today with courage and the power of the Holy Spirit.

When I remember back on my car accident, on how my father responded to me out of kindness and concern rather than wrath, I understand why, when Jesus taught the disciples to pray, he taught them to call God Father, not because he wanted to teach them that God was male, but because he wanted to get across to them the soft-hearted goodness with which God views us, the devotion and commitment God has towards us.

For Jesus came to show us what God is like: not a God of wrath or of mindless obedience, but a loving parent who wants only the best for us, who wants to empower us to create a new thing in us: a loving community, and who comes to us in the times of our greatness weakness and need and says, "Hush, all is well. Peace be with you."

Let us pray.

Risen Christ,
whose absence leaves us paralyzed,
but whose presence is overwhelming:
breathe on us with your abundant life;
that where we cannot see
we may have the courage to believe
that we may be raised with you. Amen.

(Prayer by Janet Morley)