John 20:19-31
There is in the Easter gospel—in the many stories around the resurrection—a promise God makes to us and a promise we treasure together in the church. This morning we hear again this startling and befuddling promise—even as it arrives in the midst of a grieving community of disciples and friends. “Peace be with you.” That’s the promise. “Peace be with you.” I know you’ve been through hell. I know you are grieving. “Peace be with you.” I know you have seen the cruelty in humankind, face to face. “Peace be with you.” I know you are anxious for your own futures. Unaware of what could possibly happen next. “Peace be with you.”
It's always been a temptation for the church to get dangerously specific about the promise. Over millennia, theologians and priests begin to describe exactly what heaven looks like, and where it is, and who gets there, and what happens there. Moralists get interested in who’s going to heaven and why, and who’s not—and what happens to them anyway. But it strikes me this morning, in these early resurrection appearances, that Jesus is not the least interested in all that, in the machinations of ecclesiology and church dogmatics. What Jesus wants the disciples to know, and I really do believe what Jesus wants us to know in our own time is this: God’s peace is with us. Through the grief. In the face of all the cruelty. God’s peace is with us. When we can’t see two feet in front us—for the uncertainty of it all. God’s peace is with us. When we’ve locked the doors—maybe the real doors of our lives, or the doors of our hearts—when we’ve locked it all up for all the fears in our hearts. God’s peace is with us.
So the gospel promise to the six families we’ll surround with love these next two months; the gospel promise is God’s peace, the power of the resurrecting God. What that means about heaven’s geography—we’ll have to wait to find out. But the more powerful message is that you and I have nothing, nothing, nothing to fear. Just as Maggie had nothing to fear, and Mary, and Rob, and Barbara, and Carl, and Diana. Whatever the future holds for them, whatever the future holds for us, we trust—by the light of this gospel—that the future is shaped by Love. The future is shaped by God’s Love. And even when we lock the doors, even when we can’t imagine anything other than our fears, Jesus rises again to find us. Jesus rises again to dissolve the boundaries. Jesus rises again to invite us to the next leg, to the next journey, to the next opportunity for growth and service and praise. In this world. Or in the next. Always, always, on his lips, and in his breath: “Peace be with you.”
Now none of this, not a single bit of this, means that death is easy or that death makes sense; nor does it mean that we’ll just waltz our way through these losses as if none of it really matters, as if none of it really hurts. Because of course it does. As we watch our dear ones suffer, it hurts. As they begin to let go, as they begin to transition and change, as they breathe their last breaths—it hurts. It causes them and us immense pain. And our pain is profoundly sacred stuff. Our tears are sacraments of God’s holiness and presence in the world.
So we really can’t say—and the gospel doesn’t want to say—that it’s all going to be easy and sweet. And we really can’t say that if you only have faith, you won’t have to worry. And we really can’t say…you’re going to heaven…and it’s better there anyway. These are the flimsy assurances of cheap grace.
But what we do want to say, in light of this morning’s gospel to be sure, is that God’s Peace will always, always, always go where we go. Through every dark night. In every transition. Across every threshold. Into every possible future. You can count on that. And your loved ones can count on that. That God’s Peace is a persevering peace. That’s God’s Peace is committed to you, to your loved ones, and to every single life on earth. In those moments when nothing makes sense: the power of the resurrection is yours. And you will not face any of it alone. In those moments when cruelty overwhelms your heart: the power of the resurrection is yours. And you will not endure any of it alone. And in those last moments, or those moments when your earthly life is coming to an end: yes then, especially then, the power of the resurrection is yours. The God who breathes peace through the Risen Christ will go with you, will travel with you, will walk with you.
And yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will not ache in absence. For God goes with you. Now, now, and always, always. Amen and Ashe.
