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The Second Sunday of Easter, Year B
April 27, 2003
Christ Church, Covington
“Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and
said, ‘Peace be with you’” (Jo. 20:26).
Imagine this: encountering the risen Christ at Jazz Fest. Perhaps these
things happen to you regularly, and it’s true that Jazz Fest always takes
place in the Easter Season, but they don’t happen to me. I checked out of
Bob Dylan’s musical career about 1977, so I’ve missed quite a bit (or
perhaps not, depending on how you feel about Bob Dylan, acoustic or
electric, or about Bob Dylan, period). So there’s Bob Dylan on Friday,
singing and performing and Jazz Fest happening all around, and I hear
these words:
The wicked know no peace and you just can't fake it,
There's only one road and it leads to Calvary.
It gets discouraging at times, but I know I'll make it
By the saving grace that's over me.
Cove Geary tells me this song is from his “Christian period”, so I can
well believe I’ve never heard this song. About the time Dylan was getting
religion, I was somewhere else.
Encountering Jesus at Jazz Fest may not be a commonplace, but it was a
beautiful Louisiana day. But the import of it for me comes around the idea
of peace, which is a resurrection theme par excellence. Witness the Gospel
today. We know the meaning of Resurrection: new life, a new beginning,
death destroyed and sin overcome. But John’s Gospel gives us a fresh
perspective when he tells us Jesus’ words to the disciples, “Peace be with
you”. These are more than a greeting, a formality of the occasion. The
peace which Jesus declares is YHWH’s shalom, the “peace of God”. The word
signifies wholeness and integrity, everything in its place, and gives us
new insight into the meaning of what Jesus has done for us in rising from
the dead.
We human beings know about peace, and about its fragility. Peace is at the
least absence of conflict, the thing which makes civilized life possible.
But this earthly peace which we know, more or less, is often not far
removed from its polar opposite. Some may remember thirty years ago “peace
with honor” in Southeast Asia: a “peace”, of course, that was only a mask
for war. Closer in time, of course, are events in Afghanistan and Iraq,
where there is a cessation of conflict now between armies, but a cessation
so partial that the word “peace” really can’t be used. There are limits to
earthly peace. It is incomplete and fragile and does not last; yet having
seen the alternative, human beings desire earthly peace none the less.
The peace which Jesus declares in our Gospel is connected to this earthly
peace, yet it is something else again. Jesus tells the disciples before
his arrest, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give
to you as the world gives” (Jo. 14:27). The peace that Jesus talks about
in the Gospel of John is not a peace marked by the absence of conflict,
but the peace which comes about through victory. This victory only Jesus
can win, because it is the victory over sin and death. Again, he tells the
disciples, “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In
the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the
world!” (Jo. 16:33). When Jesus declares peace on the evening of the
Resurrection, and shows the disciples the marks of the nails and the
lance, it is the peace of victory: victory over sin and death, at a great
price. “There’s only one road and it leads to Calvary”. The peace of
Easter Day is the peace of the cross. This peace only Jesus can give,
because only he can win it.
It is God’s peace which Jesus gives, the shalom which brings peoples
together in true concord, and not through fear and intimidation. The
kingdom of God is that place, above all, where peace reigns. It is God’s
peace which brings wholeness and integrity to each of us, as well. If the
world is restless, then we ourselves are more so, if the peace of Christ
does not rule in our hearts. St Augustine wrote that “our hearts are
restless until they rest in you”; until they rest in God, who gives us
peace. We do not know our own minds; we do not know our own hearts; and
what we know of them is often divided and headed in several different
directions at once. We may be at war with ourselves. Yet it is Jesus who
brings it all together, who brings us together in wholeness and integrity.
On Easter Day, Jesus stood among the disciples, giving his peace. In the
Easter Season we celebrate his Resurrection, the giving of life again. We
experience his peace, the wholeness and integrity that come with his great
victory, and we are grateful for the gift.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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