Show Notes
In this second week of Eastertide, we reflect on Jesus’ return to his disciples after His resurrection and His peace that passes all understanding.
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Episode Transcript
Just as the first disciples did not immediately comprehend all that changed as a result of Jesus’ death and resurrection, so we mark the second week of Easter, reminded that we have yet to fully grasp the magnitude of this divine intervention. We look to God to show us more, that we might better reflect His light and love to the world around us.
A reading from John’s Gospel, Chapter 20, beginning in verse 19.
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
You’re about to announce a major new initiative to your team. Do you start with an inspirational address intended to motivate them? Do you begin with a list of goals to challenge them? Do you outline the rewards for success to incentivize them? First things matter. They speak of priorities and principles. So, as we continue in the afterglow of Easter celebrations, we should pause to consider the first thing the resurrected Christ did on appearing to his disciples before giving them the Holy Spirit and giving them the great commission: He gave them his peace. This peace is not peace as the world understands it, which is merely an absence of conflict. After all, armed so-called peacemaking forces may prevent violence from breaking out, but they don’t eliminate its roots. God’s peace, which Paul reminds us in Philippians 4, passes understanding, meaning it doesn’t make sense, humanly. It is foremost about God’s presence. Only when we are at peace ourselves, can we then hope to be peacemakers Jesus called us to be. That peace is rooted in and anchored in Easter, in being restored to peace with God through Jesus’ death and resurrection and the forgiveness of our sins. That leads to peace with ourselves, coming to terms with our fallenness and failings, which in turn enables us to offer the same forgiveness to others as we find peace with them. Signs of a world in conflict are all around. Wars in far corners of the world, cultural and political divisions in our country, perhaps discord in your own home or family. The prospect of peace can seem remote. But it starts with us and with Jesus in our very hearts. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart. May the risen Lord give us his peace this week as we go into our daily worlds, secure in His acceptance and forgiveness.
A reading from the 118th Psalm, verses 14-29:
The Lord is my strength and my defense;
He has become my salvation.
Shouts of joy and victory
resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!
The Lord’s right hand is lifted high;
the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”
I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the Lord has done.
The Lord has chastened me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.
Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.
I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
The Lord has done it this very day;
let us rejoice today and be glad.
Lord, save us!
Lord, grant us success!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
From the house of the Lord we bless you.
The Lord is God,
and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I will praise you;
you are my God, and I will exalt you.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
A prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
And finally, a reading from John’s Revelation, Chapter 1, verses 4 through 8.
John,
To the seven churches in the province of Asia:
Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
“Look, he is coming with the clouds,”
and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”;
and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”
So shall it be! Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
