The Second Sunday of Easter, 24 April 2022 , Austwick
Shame and fear in the disciples’ safe house; shame over their betrayal and retreat on the Friday Jesus died; fear for the punishment which seemed likely to come their way from the religious authorities seeking out Jesus’ collaborators. And underlying this, an even greater sense of foreboding that the God who had seen his son mercilessly killed would bring a terrible retribution on them all. Surely this is how any god would behave in such circumstances...
How unexpected, and how wonderful, then, that when Jesus came and stood among them he didn't come in vengeful anger, raining down the fire of a wrathful God. No: instead, he came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you'.
'Peace be with you' - a peace to release them from the terrible guilt they had been carrying;
'Peace be with you' - a peace to fill and mend their bereaved and broken hearts;
'Peace be with you' - a peace which meant that they could drop any accusations of each other's culpability: a peace to take their rivalry away;
'Peace be with you' - the peace of God's unprecedented, incomparable forgiveness:
'Peace be with you' - on the first day of the resurrection, what a wonderful peace Jesus brought.
How this must have changed their mood. This must have impressed itself on Thomas, who, seeing the change in his fellow-disciples and believing what they’d told him, didn’t doubt the resurrection. No, it was rather that Thomas still doubted the crucifixion. Thomas wanted evidence that Jesus had actually died that cruel death - he wanted to see his body wounds - because he was struggling to believe that the event had actually happened - that Jesus their Lord had been executed; that the one who was supposed to be saving them from the powers which oppressed them, had submitted himself to those very powers; that the Messiah had become a victim of the violence of the world.
Thomas believed the disciples when they said that they had seen their Lord alive. He’d seen them miraculously transformed from being full of guilt and fear to being full of peace. His question was - could Jesus really have died so violently in the first place, if, on coming back to life, he was so free of vengeance, so lacking retribution, so full of forgiveness, so generous with peace?
The question for Thomas was, can I conceive of a Messiah who has clearly suffered violence but who now refuses to retaliate? He found it hard to, but, in the end, he did. When the wounded but fully alive Jesus appeared before him in a spirit of peace, Thomas could see that God was doing things differently here. He could see that death was now defeated, vengeful violence overcome; retribution was a thing of the past, forgiveness was full and complete. On Easter evening, Thomas came to believe that an executed Messiah had saved him. And with the rest of the disciples Thomas now knew and felt that Jesus had taken his guilt away, because he had taken away the sin of the world - that universal human trait to create victims onto whom we transfer all our guilt and shame. [2]
This new knowledge, this transformation in their hearts and minds, was reinforced by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the proceedings of that beautiful, scandalous night.
'Peace be with you,' Jesus said. 'As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' When he had said this he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'.
After the event, the peace he offered was the peace of taking their guilt away. The peace of someone being acquitted from the charge of a death-penalty crime.
This is because the Holy Spirit who Jesus brought them was the advocate who Jesus refers to in John 14, the one who is called on to tell us the truth about God. The hidden room became like a courtroom, a place of judgement, for there before the disciples on Easter night the Holy Spirit judged that just as Jesus is not guilty of the charges his executors made against him, so those who executed him are no longer guilty either, because of the resurrection.
The reason for this is simple. There is no longer any evidence of the crime. The tomb is empty, Jesus is not dead. And without a dead body the prosecution cannot proceed in this capital case. Because of what Karl Barth calls 'The evidence of the raised victim', the Holy Spirit who judges this resurrection case pronounces the accused not guilty. The resurrection means that the Holy Spirit must close the book on their case, must set the accused free, must release them from guilt entirely. [3]
That acquittal applied to the disciples, and to everyone who has ever been convicted of their guilt before God. That acquittal applies to anyone who has ever sinned and fallen short, and in any way contributed to the sort of violence which made a scapegoat of Jesus and put him on the cross. The Holy Spirit's acquittal applies to anyone who has ever let anyone else take the blame and punishment for something they themselves have done, anyone who has stood by and let an innocent victim suffer in their place.
The Holy Spirit's acquittal applies to you and me. And as Jesus appears to his disciples and says, 'Peace be with you', so he is waiting to appear to us and bring us that same peace, free of all retribution and vengeance, absolutely complete in forgiveness and heavenly grace.
Like Thomas we may struggle to believe that a crucified God could behave so mercifully. But we may ask the Holy Spirit to help convict us of the wonderful truth that the resurrection releases for us, and for all people.
'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit'.
Notes
[1] This is a rewrite of The Resurrection: believe the peace, preached in Devon, 2011.
[2] Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Second Sunday of Easter, Year A and Epiphany, Year A (transcription of Gil Bailie on the "Lamb of God”).
[3] This paragraph owes much to S. Mark Heim, Saved from Sacrifice, A Theology of the Cross, p.145-147.
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