Shalom (John 20:19-31)

Today is Sunday, April 19. The second Sunday of Easter.

The scripture reading for today is from the gospel of John 20:19-31:

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

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. 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.’

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Before the days of the printing press, all Bibles were hand-written by scribes specially trained in the process of writing and calligraphy. In Jesus’ time, scriptures were written on scrolls, and the scrolls were treated with special care, because of the time and effort it took to produce them, and because of the truth they contained. Scrolls were carefully unrolled in order to be read, and then carefully rolled back up and stored away for safekeeping afterward.

Once the printing press was invented, Bibles could be produced much more quickly and much more cheaply, and they were no longer hand-copied.

But in 1998, Saint John's Abbey and University commissioned renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson to produce a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible. It took him and a team of assistants eight years of full-time work to accomplish the task.

All the script was written using quills hand-cut by the scribes. The script was written in lamp black ink from nineteenth-century Chinese ink sticks. Vermillion, lapis lazuli, and other cakes and powdered pigments were used for color and illustrations. The materials were mixed with egg yolk and water to make paint that is thicker than the black ink and loaded onto the quills using brushes.

When writing is done this way, every word counts. Every letter is written with great care. If you are copying something already written, you do it with great care. If you are writing something new, then you are careful to not waste words. Because wasting words would simply add to the already immense amount of time it takes to finish. 

So it is surprising to me that the author of John’s gospel wrote three different times that Jesus says, “peace be with you.” It is redundant. It must have been really important for all three instances to be included; otherwise, one or two of them could have been edited out. When every word and every letter that is written takes a fair amount of effort, there must have been a reason for Jesus’ greeting of peace to be repeated like that.

So let’s spend a few minutes this morning talking about the peace Jesus brings.

You may know that, in Hebrew or Aramaic, the word is shalom. And the greeting is shalom aleikem.

I mention the Hebrew word because that word shalom does mean peace, but it’s a bigger, deeper kind of peace than we sometimes think. 

The peace Jesus talks about is more than just the absence of fighting. 

The shalom of Jesus is what you have when you are able to smile as you fall asleep at night, with no worries or cares keeping you awake. 

The shalom of Jesus is what you have when you have everything you need to thrive: you have food, you have security, you have freedom, you have healthcare, you have love, you have affirmation.

The shalom of Jesus is what makes wholeness possible. When you are able to live a life of wholeness, you are well, you are healed, you are happy and blessed. Shalom makes that possible.

The shalom of Jesus is the peace that exists in the kingdom of God.

And the kingdom of God is where the hungry are fed, and the naked are clothed, and the sick find healing, and where no person is ever forgotten or left behind.

Now, the disciples did not have the peace of Christ, because their hearts were filled with fear. The doors were locked because of their fear. I imagine their nights were spent in long hours of sleeplessness. Because Jesus, their master, the one to whom they had pledged their lives, had been taken and executed by the state.

But the one the authorities had executed had come back to life. When he came and stood there in their midst, and said to them, three times, “Peace be with you,” just his presence there in that room was a sign that they no longer needed to fear. Because the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed was now a present reality.

It’s quite amazing how the disciples appear in the gospels as confused, bumbling, and at times fearful followers, yet after the crucifixion and resurrection, they acquire a new confidence, a new boldness, and even though they are faced by many great hardships and struggles, they no longer have any fear.

You may recall the story of when Jesus and his disciples were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, at night, and a great storm came up. Gale-force winds and giant waves pummeled the boat, and it appeared on the verge of sinking. And the disciples were in a panic.

Where was Jesus? He was laying in the back of the boat, his head on a pillow, asleep.

And isn’t that just an amazing thing? We live in a world filled with turmoil and anxiety and uncertainty, and it all keeps many of us awake at night. We have so much to worry about; it makes it hard to fall asleep.

Yet through it all, God is present, and God is good, and God is faithful. The storms WILL come, and we will find ourselves tossed about, sailing along in a small boat on an angry sea. 

And we might wish that the sea wasn’t so angry, that all our difficulties and challenges would just go away, and that life would be easy, but we know that it doesn’t work that way. There are challenges, and there are struggles. Only Jesus can control the wind and the waves. 

But the peace Jesus offers is available to each one of us.

One important lesson I learned last year, when I had to have my gallbladder removed, and then when I had an emergency appendectomy just seven months later, is that we really do have less control over life than we think we do; less control than we would like to have.

This is actually something I’ve long struggled with: the need to be in control. But these two unexpected surgeries have helped me understand that control is an illusion, that I really have very little control over what happens to me, or what goes on in the world around me. The only thing I do have control over is how I react to what’s happening.

And it all has helped me trust even more in God, the only one who is able to control the storms of life; and to rely ever more on God’s faithfulness.

It sounds counter-intuitive: let go of control in order to find peace. It sounds counter-intuitive, which is probably why it’s taken me so long to learn this lesson. I had read books written by wise people, people of faith, who advised letting go of our expectations, letting go of our judgment on things that happen to us, labeling one event as good or another event as bad, and instead focusing on my own emotional reactions to whatever happens. The books I was reading were trying to convince me to stop wasting so much energy labeling things as good or bad; and instead, to focus my energy on reacting to whatever happens the best way possible. 

And I’ve mentioned this several times recently, but it makes me think of the apostle Paul in prison, and how he saw every circumstance as an opportunity for blessing. He was at peace in every circumstance, and content with every circumstance, because his mind was always free to praise God and do the work God was calling him to.

Well, I think I’m getting closer to understanding that. I’ve been working on it. 

I don’t know where you are in your understanding of this, but I gotta tell you: whether there is a pandemic or not, you can still experience the peace of Christ. And whether you are employed or not, you can still experience the peace of Christ. And whether you are able to go out and do all the things you want to do or not, you can still experience the peace of Christ. And whether you are in perfect health, or are in need of healing, you can still experience the peace of Christ. 

The storm may be raging, yet peace is still possible. With God, all things are possible.