The gospel for the first Sunday after Easter (John 20:19-31) opens,

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ 

In addition to fearing the authorities, the disciples in that upper room were probably exhausted, hungry, ashamed, uncertain about what to do next, then, suddenly, Jesus stood among them. Only everything changed!

The translation of Christ’s first words to his disciples…Peace be with you… is hobbled by the English language. There is no be in the original Greek. In English, peace is only a noun. But it derives from a Greek verb, eirene.This recognition spices up Jesus’ words and makes them more dynamic even if we do not have a word to convey the complete sense. The closest we can get to this is to translate his greeting as Peace to you. Imagine it as simultaneously a gentle command or a form of invitation to enter into a state of intense, focused rest. 

Some dictionaries define ‘peace’ as “the tranquility of order”.  When Jesus greeted his disciples that first Easter, he invited them to a new world order. establishing for them the way things ought to be. When the Father raised him from the dead, his “life again” legitimized and vindicated his work of curing, feeding, teaching and forgiving. But here was something greater: peace as a way of being, as a way of knowing with tranquility, that all was well when one aligned with Jesus the Christ …and a promise of eternal life. Not just in the memory of others but in full consciousness. 

A metaphor is being in love, whether with a person of the same age or with one’s own child. One looks at the world through their eyes and experiences and feels ‘double’ the joy of encounters by virtue of seeing everything from their perspective. Except that in this case the one though whose eyes we will see will be Christ’s. 

Aside from these abstract notions of peace, the reality was that Jesus’ disciples had all deserted him, one way or another…Judas and Peter were only the most spectacular failures among them… Beyond the joy they may have wondered whether Jesus might have returned in judgment on them. His peace blessing addressed them and their shame and regret at having abandoned him and washed it away. His peace forgave them and gave them an antidote to their shame and guilt. 

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After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. 

Jesus’ hands and side bore the scars of his recent crucifixion. They were evidence of the torture and suffering. They were also evidence that this person standing before them was truly Jesus, who had been dead. 

Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

Jesus’ words to his disciples combined peace and forgiveness. This pairing seemed intentional. Moreover, it was something that they were to share with anyone.

Recall that he had previously sent them on a ‘training mission’ with the instruction 

… the Lord appointed seventy and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town …where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘…Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!”… Whenever …people welcome you… cure the sick …and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you (Luke 10:1-9)

To the previous gifts of healing of the body and preaching he now added the gift of forgiveness which came with a sense of peace: healing for the soul. 

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But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.

Thomas’s skepticism is understandable. Only Lazarus had come back from the dead…and that was amazing… but Jesus had been the one who raised him. When Jesus died, who was there to raise him? Jesus’ unseen Father seems to have still been a shaky notion, at least to Thomas. 

When Jesus reappeared a week later, his first words, again, were Peace be with you. This post-resurrection greeting was a more affirmative way of saying ‘do not fear’ to his disciples, who must have been startled by his sudden presence. In addition, it initiated Thomas into the new and peaceful order that came with the assurance of Jesus’ resurrection. 

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Jesus’ invitation to put your finger here and see my hands …and side tells us several things beyond the evidence that it was really himself. First, the need for proof suggests that Jesus was not completely recognizable to his disciples, even though he looked like the person they had known prior to his death. Something in his appearance seemed different. (Next week’s commentary will look at this post-resurrection phenomenon more extensively.) Next, Jesus knew what Thomas had said, even though he was not with them when Thomas had expressed his doubts to the other disciples. Beyond that, the resurrected Jesus still included the scars. They were more than proof that he had been crucified… One imagines that Thomas looked at both the palm and the back of Jesus’ hands to confirm that the wounds showed the complete penetration of the nail, and he looked down at Jesus’ feet… The scars were a continuing sign of Jesus’ love, not a disfigurement but, in a way, an enhancement of his appearance. 

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Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

Jesus’ words reach out beyond his immediate context to us, today: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. We don’t see him today or his scars. We believe the testimony of those who saw him. 

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  • Imagine the word peace a verb. Think of it as an invitation. Define that verb. What would you mean if you ‘peaced’ people? 
  • Put yourself in the place of the disciples in the upper room on that first day of the week. Consider your state of mind and body in the moments before Jesus appeared. Imagine the instant when you saw him. How would you have responded in the minutes immediately following?
  • How do you imagine the scars on Jesus’ hands and side? Would they be red and scabbed? Would the sight of them make people turn away as they understood the violence and the pain they represented? Or would they, as some artists have portrayed, be a source of light, ‘beauty marks’?  
    Peace
    Michael