“Peace Be With You”

John 20:19-31
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Second Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York

Recently, I reconnected with members of UP Construction Company, my high school youth group through Facebook. The name came from United Presbyterian Church (USA) (that’s UP), but it also meant building up one another and lifting up the name of Christ, as I recall. On Holy Saturday, Pam posted the first half of a chorus from a song we sang, “Ev’ry morning is Easter morning from now on!” I posted the second half, “Ev’ry day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone!”  Of course, now I can’t get the song out of my head!

While they worked together as Pastor and Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church in Port Jervis, New York in the sixties, Richard Avery and Donald Marsh wrote, “Every Morning is Easter Morning.” I hold a special place in my heart for this song. It takes me back to an Easter service in 1974 at Wright Memorial Presbyterian Church on the Seneca Reservation. I remember singing with full confidence and complete joy:
Good-bye guilt, good-bye fear, good riddance! Hello, Lord, Hello, sun!
I am one of the Easter People! My new life has begun!
Ev’ry morning is Easter morning from now on!
Ev’ry day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone!

As I said, I can’t get the song out of my head. I want to warn you: I intend to place it into yours before the end of this sermon, because this song states how the Resurrection, if we let it have its way, can transform our lives. Last Sunday, we looked at what Easter is—“the feast of victory for our God.” Today, we explore what Easter does: how it forgives us and set us free from fear; how it gives us good news to spread; how it makes life a never ending adventure!

If ever a group needed forgiveness and to be released from fear, it was the disciples on the first Easter evening. I wonder whether we can conceive the thoughts that crossed the minds of the eleven on Easter night. The tomb was empty—that’s all they knew. They were all marked men, because they followed Jesus. If the religious authorities went after him, wouldn’t they be next? Except for the disciple whom Jesus loved, all of them had run. Peter denied Jesus three times and Judas betrayed him. We can imagine the guilt and fear they had to feel, as well as a desperate desire to know what happened to Jesus.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Jesus appears in the locked room and offers the greeting still used in the Middle East today, “Peace be with you.” They cannot believe their eyes, until Jesus shows him his hands and side, almost as if to show the identifying marks by which they would know it is really him! John seems to support what I’m saying, because he says they “rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

Again, Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” Some scholars suggest this repetition is an insertion, but I believe it’s more, much more. When Jesus repeats his greeting, he gives them the gift of peace. He takes away their guilt and fear and sends them as God sent him. He breathes into them a holy Spirit; a sweet, sweet Spirit; his Spirit; and gives them the power to forgive sins.

Sometimes, I suspect we are more like the ten than we care to confess. Holed up in our sanctuary, safe from the outside world, guilt and fear fill us. We regret what we’ve done and what we’ve left undone as individuals and as a congregation. We wonder whether God really, fully forgives us. We worry what tomorrow holds. Yet, Jesus still speaks to us the same words, “Peace be with you.”  Whenever we say it to one another, we breathe in his Spirit, that sweet, sweet spirit, the Holy Spirit from one another. Jesus wants us to become contagious with that Spirit. He sends us out into the world with Good News, great news!

He empowers us to forgive, and believe me, brothers and sisters, people need the power of forgiveness. People are bent over with heavy burdens of guilt. They are weighed down low with even heavier burdens of resentment. We have the power to set them free through learning and, then, practicing forgiveness. It’s like the second verse of “Every Morning is Easter Morning” says,
Daily news is so bad it seems the Good News seldom gets heard.
Get it straight from the Easter People! God’s in charge spread the word!
Ev’ry morning is Easter morning from now on!
Ev’ry day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone!

Now, I know some of you might say, “Ha, God’s in charge. Can you prove it?”  “I doubt it, pastor!” others might offer. Listen: I do understand how it seems all evidence points to the contrary. I know how easy it would be if we could just see some proof, hear some testimony, and feel some hope. For all of us who find it hard to believe the good news to be good, we have a patron saint, Thomas.

John doesn’t discuss where he was on Easter Evening.  We only know that he wasn’t there. He hears the good news second hand from the others, “We have seen the Lord!” I understand Thomas’s reaction, don’t you? Haven’t you ever heard a story that was too good to be true and someone finally said, “Well, I guess you had to be there?” Deep down, I wonder whether Thomas felt left out, when he threw down the gauntlet at their feet, saying,  as Peterson puts it in The Message, “Unless I see the nail holes in his hands, put my finger in the nail holes, and stick my hand in his side, I won’t believe it.”

Well, be careful for what you ask for you may surely get it. A week later, on this very night, Jesus appears again to the disciples and announces, “Peace be with you!” Peterson captures the emotion of what happened next, when he writes, “Then [Jesus] focused his attention on Thomas.” Jesus gives Thomas his hand to place his finger. Jesus offers Thomas his side to place his hand. Jesus submits to Thomas the evidence he seeks. Peterson translates what Jesus says next more literally than the NRSV, “Don’t be unbelieving. Believe.” Yet, Thomas doesn’t place his finger where the nails pierced Jesus’ hands. He doesn’t stick his hand where the spear ran him through, because he knows who Jesus is, “My Master! My God!”

We make too much of “doubting” Thomas, especially since the word doesn’t actually appear in the Greek. I’ve said it before: Doubt is not the opposite of faith, fear is. If anything, Thomas shows us what it means to have no fear. He asks for what he needs. When Jesus comes to Thomas, it shows how far he will go for us to have faith in him. If we ask him, he will reveal himself, if we’re willing to open our eyes.

We sang another song in that youth group long ago, “Have You Seen Jesus My Lord?” The singer-songwriter, John Fischer focused on the wonders of nature and the grace of the cross as places where we can see Jesus. We only need to ask for eyes of faith, because as the chorus said,
Have you seen Jesus my Lord? He’s here in plain view.
Take a look, open your eyes. He’ll show it to you.

I apologize for what may seem to be my trip down memory lane, but you see,  I wouldn’t be here today, if it weren’t for those songs and the people with whom I sang them. At fifteen, I came to faith in Jesus Christ through the love of that group. In many ways, the third verse of “Every Morning is Easter Morning” describes my life before that day and on many days since,
Yesterday I was bored and lonely; But today look and see!
I belong to the Easter People! Life’s exciting to me!
Ev’ry morning is Easter morning from now on!
Ev’ry day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone!

While I may wander away from that reality at times, I continue to find my way back again and again to a belief that the Resurrection makes life an adventure. If we remain bored and lonely after Easter, then we haven’t really gotten the word! Easter makes everything possible. It takes away the guilt and fear that holds us hostage. It gives us good news to share. I can’t get this song out of my head,
Ev’ry morning is Easter morning,
Ev’ry morning is Easter morning,
Ev’ry morning is Easter morning,
From now on!

©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.