My First Sermon: "Peace Be With You"

So - here's my first sermon.
I'll be preaching it at our staff retreat this wednesday.
I'd really love some feedback.

The text is John 20:19-23. It's the Gospel Lectionary text for Pentecost Sunday, which is today. I've copied the text below for your reading ease.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of anyone, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

And here's the homily:

“Peace be with you.”

“And also with you.”

In John’s Gospel, these are the first words that the risen Christ speaks to his disciples: “Peace be with you.” His utterance, I believe, must have been quite frightening. Jesus, whom the disciples had thought was dead, has just apparently apparated into their midst. Not only is Jesus not dead, but apparently locked doors are no longer a problem for him either. I imagine that the disciples were quite frightened indeed. But you see, Jesus made sure his point got across, because after all the hooting, hollering and rejoicing dies down, Jesus repeats himself: “Peace be with you.”

These words are also our words. They are, in fact, quite familiar to us. We echo Jesus’ words when we “pass the peace” every Sunday. But what does it mean to turn to the neighboring pew, to shake someone’s hand, and to say, “Peace be with you?” What’s really going on there? What does John’s Gospel have to teach us about such an act?

This phrase, “Peace be with you,” was, and still is today, a rather typical Middle Eastern greeting. Shalom alekem in Hebrew. However, I think in this instance Jesus is trying to communicate more than simply, “What’s up?” This is anything but a mundane hello. As a matter of fact, NO greeting that Jesus could have offered had a chance of being “ordinary.” This man has just been raised from the dead!, need I remind you. So, both when Jesus said it, and when we say it, “Peace be with you,” is loaded with significance.

If we continue to read, John helps us understand what exactly this significance is.

Next, Jesus breathed on his disciples. As he did so, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is John’s, much-less-publicized version of the Pentecost. For John, there seems to be some important connection between the peace of Christ and our receiving of the Holy Spirit. This connection seems to be the fulfillment of Jesus’ earlier promises in this Gospel. In chapter 14 (vv. 25-27) Jesus promised, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything. . . . Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” In chapter 16 (v. 33) Jesus announces to his disciples: “In me, you will have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

So here, as Jesus breathes out his Spirit, he is giving them the peace he has been promising them all along. We may ask: Why here? Why now?

Well, Jesus is leaving. He will soon ascend to the right hand of the Father, where he lives and reigns to this day. But, before he does so, he must breathe out his Spirit onto the disciples, by which, according to John’s gospel, they will do even greater works than Jesus himself (14:12). This is God’s creative breath. God’s creative breath that was first present in his first human creation: Adam. In Gen. 2 the text reads, “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7).

In the same way, here in John 20 the breath of Jesus is profoundly creative. God is again creating something new. God is creating a new humanity – a new creation. This new creation has been inaugurated by the recent resurrection of Jesus – who, in his resurrection, became the firstborn of that new creation. A profoundly new way of living has been introduced to the world.

This new humanity – this new way of living – is characterized by a radically new logic. A logic that is characterized by a belief in the resurrection. This logic explodes the categories of cause and effect that enslave the unbelieving world, because the logic of resurrection assumes this one simple fact: that death is not the end of our lives. As Christians, we believe that, like Jesus, we too will be raised from the dead. “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come,” right?

This makes us, brothers and sisters, people of the resurrection. And, if we want to be true to that identity, our understanding of resurrection cannot be restricted to a distant hope of the future. But must change the way we live here and now. The logic of resurrection invites us – quite simply – to die. It invites us to follow Jesus to the cross. To die to ourselves and to the desires of the flesh and to be raised again as a new creation. This transformation, which will be made complete when Jesus comes again, is symbolized in our baptism.

We must remember though, brothers and sisters, that the death that is symbolized in our baptism, means that we must be ready to ACTUALLY die. This is a hard truth to remember in this country. Jesus actually died. This is what the logic of resurrection – the peace of Christ – allows us to do. This is what makes martyrdom such a powerful witness. St. Tertullian reminds us that it is in the blood of the martyrs that the seeds of the church lie.

Resurrection invites us to die to our efforts to control our own lives and the world around us, and invites us instead to submit to the Lordship of Christ. It invites us daily to spiritually die to the old self and be raised into God’s Spirit-guided new creation. And, it invites us to actually die – if and when that moment presents itself – so that we can be raised into the fulfillment of God’s new creation.

This is the peace that Jesus has been hinting at throughout the course of John’s gospel. This is the peace that has finally arrived at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And this is the peace that you and I are invited to live into, by the power of God’s empowering Spirit. This is the “peace that we pass.”

Here, in John 20, Jesus is telling the disciples that because of this peace, because of His empowering Spirit, because they too will be resurrected, they don’t have to hide in the Upper Room and lock the door. In fact, he says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (!). Now, being armed with the peace of Christ, Jesus is sending his disciples out of hiding and into the world with a new, otherworldly confidence. A confidence that reminds them they will be raised from the dead.

And as Jesus sent his disciples into the world, so too he is sending us out into the world. So too Jesus has armed us with the peace of Christ – with the confidence that we may boldly proclaim his Lordship and follow his commandments with a radical obedience – even unto death.

So, when you turn to the neighboring pew, shake someone’s hand, and say, “Peace be with you,” be reminded of the resurrection. And as you remember the one resurrection in the past, remember your own resurrection in the future. And live in the confidence of that coming reality.

So with the same hands we use to shake our brother’s hand; with the same arms we use to accept our sister in a loving embrace; and with the same voice that speaks the words: “Peace be with you,” let us “Go out into the world in peace, to love and serve the Lord.”

Amen.