Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the greeting Paul liked to use in his letters he sent to churches.
In these weeks since Easter Sunday I have been thinking about the kinds of feelings the disciples of Jesus might have experienced after his resurrection. And, as I said last week, it is possible that fear was one of those feelings. They may have been afraid for a number of reasons. Among other things, they had their own personal guilt to deal with, because they had failed Jesus spectacularly. They let him die.
Not that they could have prevented it, of course. Even though they had tried a few times to stop him from going down the path. He would not be stopped. There wasn’t anything much they could do, other than die with him, and how would that help, they probably wondered.
They weren’t personally responsible for his death. But they could have still felt personally responsible, as we do tend to feel responsible for the ones we love. Perhaps you can identify with that sort of feeling. Because all of us, in various and sundry ways, have failed another. And we feel guilty. Sometimes so guilty that we are surprised to find that the loved ones we have failed still love us.
And there may have been some of that going on for the disciples of Jesus during these post-Easter days. If they were human, and if they loved Jesus, they felt some guilt. So when Jesus appears to them as they are huddled in that locked room and says to them, “Peace be with you,” I don’t doubt they were shocked on more than one level.
They were shocked in the same way any one of us would be if Jesus walked through our locked door and greeted us. It wasn’t one of the things they had been given to expect. But they were also shocked, I think, by his words to them: “Peace be with you.” We didn’t pay much attention to these particular words last Sunday, but let’s think about them now.
What does it mean when you wish someone peace, as Jesus did in these circumstances? It means I forgive you. It means I still love you.
What does it mean when you and I share the peace of Christ with one another on any given Sunday? It means we’re good; nothing stands between us. We’re whole, you and I. It means pretty much the same thing it meant to the disciples back then. But peace was not among the things they were expecting back then.
He said it twice, just to make sure they heard him right, and to assure them he hadn’t misspoken – he really meant it. And then he came back the next week to say it again. Because Thomas hadn’t been there the first time, and Thomas needed to hear it too. Peace, Thomas. Peace to you too.
We use that word all kinds of ways. Now and again, the peace sign becomes a popular fashion statement – on t-shirts, scarves, anything and everything – until it grows boring and people stop buying it. The word peace is used very lightly at times, and other times it is as serious as life and death.
But when Jesus brings greetings of peace to his beloved disciples in that upper room, his disciples who abandoned and betrayed him, he is bringing them so much more than we are inclined to hear. He brings them forgiveness; he restores them to wholeness. Peace.
And he comes to them again at the lakeshore, while they are out fishing. Their lives were in limbo – the past was over, and the future was not at all clear to them yet. So they turn to something familiar – fishing.
It didn’t work out too well for them that night; they caught nothing – a not unfamiliar situation. There had been other nights when they came up empty. And just like that one time, when they first met him, there was Jesus again, telling them, “Try the other side,” and they did. And they hit the motherlode.
They make their way to Jesus on the shore, where he has prepared a meal for them. Take this bread; drink this cup.
After the meal he turns to Peter. Simon, he calls him now – his former name. The name he had before Jesus anointed him as the foundation upon which his church would be built. Simon, he asks, do you love me?
Simon Peter and Jesus begin a little dance. Simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Then feed my sheep. Simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Then feed my sheep. Simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Then feed my sheep.
Three times they repeat this, varying the words slightly. And Peter’s feelings begin to resurface during this dance – his guilt, his love, his shame, his hurt, his sense of helplessness, even hopelessness. Lord, he says, you know everything.
Everything – you know what I did. And you know my shame, too. You know all of it, so you know how much I still do, and always have, loved you.
As painful as this was for Peter, it was necessary. He needed to face all of this – all the ways he failed Jesus – he needed to face it to be fully redeemed. Redemption doesn’t come cheap. It costs something.
Grace, which Jesus brought them in abundance, costs something. We know what it cost Jesus – his suffering and death, a journey through hell and back. We know this grace he brings is not cheap.
But do we know that it costs us something too? Cheap grace is false, it is not worth the little amount of time and effort it requires. The grace of Jesus will cost us something.
Our complacency, for starters. We cannot remain complacent. It is not possible to let Christ into your heart and remain unmoved by the suffering of the world. The cost of grace includes admitting our own complicity in the sin, the brokenness, of the world. We give up the ease of not caring.
When we accept Christ’s grace, we start down a path in which we surrender the privilege of hate. Christ calls us to love our friends and our enemies too. The delicious taste in our mouths when we utter words of contempt, this is a pleasure we must give up. We give these things up for the sake of grace and peace.
Grace and peace, he gives to them – through his broken body and the blood he shed – so that they may have life in abundance. Life in abundance, we will have, when we accept the cost of his grace.
May you know that as much as we bear responsibility for the brokenness and the hurting of this world, we are forgiven.
May you be blessed with the knowledge of your part in all things – the sin and the healing of the world.
May you hear the call of Christ to extend his forgiveness, to love his people, to feed his lambs.
And may grace and peace be yours in abundance.
_________________________________________________
Photo by Diana Măceşanu on Unsplash
