John 20:19-31
He is risen! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The peace of the Lord be with you! Peace be with you!
What is peace? In 1967 there was an intentional peace rally organized against the Vietnam war in which MP’s and other military personnel, are seen in pictures and in videos, sighting in their targets (the protesters), standing at the ready to shoot while the peace advocates are pictured as putting flowers in the barrels of the soldiers’ riffles. I was a sophomore in High School at that time, but this one particular image of a pretty, college age girl putting a daisy in the barrel of an MP’s riffle barrel has stuck with me. This was three years before the Kent State massacre when at an antiwar protest four unarmed college students were killed while advocating for peace in Vietnam. When I was younger, I couldn’t understand why there was such an animosity shown towards those who simply wanted peace; (that was) when I was younger!
I understand now that peace, was not then and is not today, always seen as a moral or loving concern, or even a Christian concern; peace is a political concern, with economic, racial and fear ramifications or concerns (in other words peace scares people more even than war). Those soldiers, who were pointing their guns at the unarmed protesters and received those flowers, were representing a part of society that didn’t want peace, who were afraid of peace and the soldiers themselves, riffles in hand, were, most of them afraid that they might have to pull their triggers and afraid of being overrun by an unarmed but larger group of people. These soldiers, whether they liked it or not, were representing the political agenda of the then president and congress. The politicians who pushed this agenda had sided with the economics of the companies who were getting rich because of the war and were driven by the fear of letting communism go unchecked.
Peace was then, as it often is today, seen as subversive; let us not forget that Jesus was not executed because he healed people or preached, but because he did not cow-toe to the authorities of the Temple and he advocated for peace; he upset the balance, between the poor and the rich, by healing the poor, feeding the poor and preaching to them a message of love and forgiveness and hope and peace; Jesus was executed as a subversive. Jesus had the audacity to greet people with four simple words, “Peace be with you” and, the people began to think that peace was in fact possible through him. I don’t think we in the church see those four simple words, when we say them to each other as Christians in the passing of the peace, as subversive but comforting; we generally do not consider the great power of these words, but maybe, just maybe, if we really mean “peace be with you” we might see them for what they are, a powerful expression of love and acceptance by Jesus and between Christians who don’t always look like each other, who have different political beliefs and who often speak different languages; this kind of acceptance and love, when lived out, upsets the balance of society as set by even our own democratic government.
In the twelve verses that make up today’s Gospel reading, we hear the resurrected Jesus say to his followers “peace be with you” three times. Jesus said those words as a greeting, but for Jesus they were not just a simple form of pleasantry; for Jesus they had real meaning; he truly wanted them to feel God’s peace; they were words with spiritual meaning, but were just as often heard as having political and other implications. Not everyone wants the kind of peace that Jesus offered; not everyone would be happy to see everyone at peace; not everyone feels that they would benefit from such peace; many people do not want to relinquish their advantages to achieve peace; economic equality is a dream mostly of the poor and oppressed; political equality is a dream only of those who have little or no power; as followers of Jesus, we pray for peace; I pray that such peace will become a dream of yours, as it was for Jesus! But, remember it can be seen as subversive. Many react to the prospect of such peace with a fearful outburst!
Understanding the implications of peace, can help you understand how peace and equality can be scary to those who have and who are in power? Those four simple words spoken by Jesus to his followers, after his resurrection, not only brought comfort, but initiated a spiritual revolution, with political, economic, racial and religious implications. Following his greeting of peace, Jesus gave to his followers the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peace! The peace Jesus offered his followers and the world was meant to change the world; Jesus’ peace threatened Israel as it was governed by the Temple priests in Jerusalem and it threatened the power of Rome and its rule by its soldiers. Jesus was a subversive according to those authorities, not because he said or did anything wrong but because he offered peace and love. Such peace and love could cause the powerful to relinquish their power and the powerless to experience equality; such peace and love could cause the rich to give up their wealth and the poor to share in that wealth; such peace and love could break down the barriers of race and nationalism and allow all of us to see in the others, sisters and brothers.
Jesus said, “peace be with you, as the Father has sent me so I send you; Jesus was, Jesus is a subversive who wants us to, like him, preach the message of peace and love and do the work to establish an environment of peace and love for all people. We who are Jesus’ followers, are afraid of such a subversive change to our lifestyles. We want peace and love, but we, like those before us, are afraid of this peace and love, because of what we are called to do for it. A little later on, in the service, I will say, “the peace of the Lord be with you” and you will be expected to share that peace with those around you, and with your family and with other church members on the internet, and with neighbors that are in ear shot, and with me, and with those family members from whom you have become alienated and also with strangers. Do you have it in you, as did Jesus, to speak those words and mean them, even before they are said to you?
Jesus wants peace for us: Jesus wants to share his love with us; can we handle it; do we have the courage to put a daisy in a riffle barrel pointed our way and so share that peace and love unconditionally as did Jesus? That, in part, is what it means for us to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Jesus’ resurrection gives us a reason for joy and celebration, but it comes with a heavy responsibility to joyfully carry our crosses as we share Jesus’ peace and love; the peace of the Lord be with you! Later go out from your place of comfort and share that peace!