St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes, Vicar
Third Sunday of Easter/Year B: Luke 24:36-48
April 18, 2021
At the conclusion of the liturgy of the Word, I pronounce, “The Peace of the Lord be always with you.” The congregation responds, “And also with you.” As we exchange the sacred greeting, during the worship service, I wonder how much of the Lord’s peace is able to be given and truly received, when the souls of the humans in that exchange are distracted and troubled. I wonder how much of the ever-present Lord’s peace is obstructed by the overpowering reach of a temporal world that constantly rejects peace?
We live in a world of sickness, death, violence, terror, destruction, and layered injustices. And, we might be hard pressed to find anyone, particularly after this last year, who was immune to some troubling of the soul caused by one of the aforementioned afflictions. Sadly, many have been, and continue to be, afflicted by the compounding of these physical and spiritual assaults. The people, the disciples and Jesus himself were not immune to many of the heinous acts perpetrated in their society. Afterall, an innocent Jesus was murdered by state sanctioned violence.
In our passage in Luke today, we are presented with a resurrection appearance in which Jesus stood amongst his disciples and said, “Peace be with you.” They saw Jesus and heard him talking, but they were afraid, and thought that Jesus was a ghost. The disciples were aware that the risen Lord had appeared to Peter (v. 34), but 10 of them had not yet seen the risen Lord for themselves.
In this passage, the disciples were silent; the narrator tells only of their reactions to witnessing Jesus. Ironically, Jesus’ conventional Jewish greeting, “Peace be with you,” was one reason for the disciples’ initial startle and terror. Standing amongst them, Jesus voluntarily showed his wounds, and invited the touching of his flesh. His disciples were described as being, at once, in their joy and having disbelief and wonder. Peace was in the room, and his name was Jesus.
The disciples were overcome with joy at what they were seeing and hearing, but they could not fully let go of their doubt because they needed more proof. So, Jesus did something that no ghost could do—he ate broiled fish in their presence. Ghosts have no need for food; the human body does. And, all of the disciples present, were eyewitnesses to Jesus eating the food.
As the passage progresses, we witness stages of Jesus’ self-revelation to those who were already predisposed to recognize him. Jesus reminded the disciples that the words he had spoken, while he was with them, had all come to pass—that now they were eyewitnesses to his fulfillment of the law. As Jesus continued to reveal himself to his disciples, he “opened their minds to understand the scriptures,” (v. 45). This is important because on three occasions before his crucifixion, Jesus had previously foretold his death and resurrection to his disciples. The disciples did not understand, at those times, the full meaning of what Jesus spoke to them, not because they were not terribly bright, but because what he said was hidden from them (9:45 and 18:34) until this appointed time.
The whole time Jesus with his inner circle, Jesus had been pouring scripture into them—scripture that revealed his truth. And at the time of Jesus’ choosing, that rich deposit in their minds was accessed, removing the obstructions of fear and doubt. The opening of the disciples’ minds equipped them to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations—beginning at home in Jerusalem.
The disciples, now entrusted with their eyewitness encounter of the risen Jesus, and with full understanding of his identity, would be the vehicles to carry the message of Christ’s death and resurrection into a startled, frightened and doubt-filled world. They were forever changed into living instruments of the Lord’s Peace.
The good news for Jesus’ 21st century disciples is that the Peace of the Lord is not elusive; it is always available, and accessible, to those who believe in him who died and rose again. Like the disciples, we are predisposed to recognize Jesus’ presence amongst us and to seek the Peace that only Jesus can provide. We must take seriously our existence in this world, as Jesus’ body—the church, of which he is the head. We gather as a faith community to strengthen both our individual, and corporate, witness to Christ’s ongoing self-revelation.
The sacraments of Holy baptism and Holy Eucharist, predispose us to recognize Jesus and to innately seek the Peace that the world simply cannot give. Each time we eat and drink the sacraments of Jesus’ body and blood, the real presence of Christ is with us—and in us—saying, “Peace be with you.”
For many pandemic months, we were neither able to gather nor have holy Eucharist. I don’t know about you, but my first Eucharist brought my soul, troubled by the pandemic, and the heightened civil unrest in the country, great peace.
On this third Sunday of Easter, the world out there is not a world of peace. Mass shootings by domestic terrorists are escalating; the loss of Black lives by police brutality is escalating; the apathy for the neighbors who don’t quite fit into society’s standards grows more and more each day. And the unjust systems of society, constructed to oppress certain masses, seem to find new forms of reinforcement. Our lives in Christ do not shield us from the assaults of this world. They do, however, predispose us to the divine condition of peace, and to be agents of the Lord’s peace as we build up God’s peaceable kingdom in this world.
This created world may offer temporary happiness, but it is incapable of providing the abiding Peace that passes all understanding. Like heat-seeking missiles, those who are predisposed to recognize Christ and to seek peace, know that we must look to the source—and that source is Jesus Christ himself. When we allow Jesus into our hearts, he will continue to fill us with his peace, and open our minds so that we may know him more fully as he reveals himself intimately to each one of us through the scriptures, disciplined prayer practices and the breaking of the bread.
By virtue of our baptism, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to not only speak, but to embody, God’s peaceable kingdom in opposition to unrest and chaos “out there.” And, in those times when we may feel weary and depleted by the fight, we need not fear becoming inadequate instruments of God’s peace. For we know the source of our Peace—the risen Christ who stands amongst us, and invites us into deeper relationship with him, and with each other, with a loving, “Peace be with you.”
Amen.
