Peace be with you!

 

… Jesus came and stood
among them and said, “Peace
be with you.”

John 20:19

When I was four years old some neighbor kids set up bases in the front yard of our friend John’s house so that we could play baseball. Because it was John’s yard and because he owned the bat, he got to hit first. As he stepped up to the plate his mom stuck her head out the door and said, “Oh no you don’t! You kids go down to the park and play. You’re going to break a window doing that.”

When she shut the door John said, “Let’s keep playing. My dad’s at work. He won’t know. Let’s just make sure we hit the balls away from the house.”

As you might imagine, on the very first pitch, John hit a lazy pop fly that crashed right through his parent’s second story bedroom window. And just as that ball was sailing through the air, John’s dad pulled into the driveway in his ‘61 Buick.

In an instant all of us were running full speed, scattering in all directions and leaving John standing there alone with his bat in his hand. Not one of us hung around to tell John’s parents that it was our fault, too. I’m sure we were all a block away before his dad’s car door even shut behind him.

I sometimes think about that day when I read the gospel accounts of the passion of Jesus, because just when he needed his friends the most, they turned and ran like a bunch of scared kids and left him standing alone before the authorities.

They were with him when times were great, soaking up the adoration of the crowds and feeling as if they were a part of something wonderful. But when it was time to stand and be counted, they disappeared into the neighborhoods of Jerusalem or headed back to Galilee.

When Jesus was crucified, the disciples were nowhere to be found. In the four gospels, only John mentions anything about them, and he tells us that only one disciple was there at the cross. Not one of the disciples had the courage to stay and ask Pilate for Jesus’ body to give it a proper burial. Someone else wrapped his body in linens and carried it to the cemetery.

And so, three days later when the women came running up to them breathless, telling them that they had been told that he was not dead but had risen, can you imagine what must have gone through those disciples’ minds? Peter ran to the tomb, wanting to see for himself.

I have to wonder if there was more to his doing that than just hope. I wonder if he did it out of fear as well. If Jesus was alive, then he knew that they hadn’t cared for him in death. They had to have been terrified at the thought of coming face to face with Jesus after everything that they had failed to do for him in the previous days.

If Jesus was alive, it meant that a whole new world was at hand. And it meant that it had happened without them. In fact, it meant that it had happened in spite of them. They had given up their right to be called his disciples when they abandoned him. And so, for me, one of the most important moments in all of scripture happens when Jesus comes and stands among those frightened and ashamed and confused and weary disciples and breathes on them and says, “Peace be with you.”

One can only imagine the burden that was lifted off of their shoulders in that moment. Jesus is with them, and despite all of their failings and their lack of faith in him, he wants them back. He is still willing to call them his disciples and to consider them his friends.

This is a remarkable moment. This one moment, in my mind, connects the gospel story to the rest of the New Testament that follows. This moment, as Jesus comes to them following his resurrection, is the piece of the puzzle that ties Easter to the amazing story that follows.

These disciples failed Jesus in his final days, but his love and his forgiveness overwhelmed them and renewed them and gave them everything that they needed to become apostles. It changed them from what they had always been into what they now could be.

From this moment on they were courageous. From this moment on they were relentless. From this moment on they were filled with joy in their calling. From this moment on they were consumed by the Spirit and nothing was going to stand in their way.

The good news of the gospel, for us, is that even when we run away from our calling as Christians, our Lord still comes to us and breathes on us and says “Peace be with you.”

Even when we live as if the resurrection never happened, God still comes into our lives and forgives us and calls us to be his followers. Just as the disciples were transformed by the peace of God, we are now transformed from people who live in fear to people who live in the light.

Peace be with you. And may you feel blessed and renewed by our resurrected Lord.

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Tom Murray of the Lutsen and Zion Lutheran Churches.