“The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” – Hendrick ter Brugghen (artist)
“Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” Imagine for a moment how desperately the disciples of Jesus were in need of peace. Their beloved leader, who only did that which was good, was brutally arrested, tortured and then executed. They fled in fear from the time of his arrest and were petrified that the Jewish religious authorities who had engineered the death of Jesus would do the same to them. The taste of fear was on their lips and weighed heavy in their hearts. On top of this fear was the equally heavy weight of their cowardice, their own betrayal of the one they loved. Which was the heavier weight, I wonder, their fear of a reprisal from the Jewish religious authorities, or their own cowardice?
That Easter Sunday night after having heard with some incredulity of Jesus’ body missing from the tomb, first from Mary Magdalene, and then Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple, Jesus suddenly appears in their midst. He bestows upon them his peace, not once but twice. Imbued within his peace is also his reconciliation with them. They find the weight of their betrayal lifted from their hearts. They find the burden of their cowardice removed from their spirit. Then, in one great gesture of love, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon them. As the air from his mouth washes over them, they receive the power to bring that same peace to others in conflict.
As we look around the church on this Sunday morning at those gathered with us, how many of us upon hearing this post-resurrection account from the Gospel of John are truly in desperate need for a state of peace in our lives? How many of us have come to Mass with a doctor’s grim diagnosis of an illness we have still ringing in our ears? How many of us have come to Mass straight from a hospital emergency room in which a loved one is being treated? How many of us have come to Mass from a domestic violent relationship? How many of us have come to Mass reeling from the news of a death of a loved one? How many of us have come to Mass after being up all night with a sick child? How many of us are present at Mass knowing that we have just been laid off from their job, or we are running out of unemployment insurance and do not know how we are to pay for food, and the other necessities of life? How many of us are in the middle of a foreclosure on their home and do not know where we will be living? How desperate we are in need of the peace that Jesus bestows upon the apostles!
If we expect the peace of Jesus to immediately remove all the conflict and all the stressors from our lives, like the pass of a magician’s magic wand, we will be sorely disappointed. Rather, the peace of Jesus is a state of being. The peace of Jesus permeates the space around us and the space within us. The peace of Jesus permeates our minds, our hearts, the very cells within our bodies. The peace of Jesus does not remove all that conflicts us, ails us, or frightens us, but fills us with the knowledge that as we face all these in our lives we do not do so alone. We face all these struggles with Jesus. This is perhaps best expressed in what has come to be known as “The Serenity Prayer,” attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr.
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
May we invite within ourselves that peace with which Jesus offers to us, and embrace it.
