The disciples have
locked themselves in a room. They’re
frightened. And they have cause for
fear! Their lord and master had spoken
to them of the persecution to come, and they’d seen what that looked like, they’d
seen how it played out against his very flesh, and Peter had seen what would
come from association with those that imperial power condemned. So, they had every reason to be afraid. It was entirely rational. But, Jesus has better than that. The law of love trumps the cold rationality
of fear; perfect love casts out fear.
But, before Jesus can
do any casting out, he must enter in.
And he does! Death, death at our
hands, could not keep our lord from being with us and a mere locked door would
fare no better. Jesus breaks down any
boundary that could keep him from being with us, even ones we erect ourselves. He enters and he stands in their midst. He becomes again the center of this band of
frightened men and that changes everything.
He proclaims peace to
them. It’s a standard Jewish greeting, Shalom!,
but it’s no mere formula on Jesus’ lips.
It’s an ardent prayer that they would know true peace, that they would
no longer cower and hide in fear but that they would know the peace that comes
from being secure in the Father’s loving arms, even when the rest of the world
is far from that; the still point of a turning world.
And he shows them at
what price that security has been bought.
That the peace he offers is not one that consists in being shielded from
the world, but of being pierced by it, taking it in and transforming it,
redeeming it. He breaks through the
locked door, just as nails and the soldier’s lance broke through his
flesh. A wound is the breaking of a
boundary and in his wounds the boundary of heaven and earth is ruptured, not
polluting heaven, but redeeming earth.
It’s from those wounds
that the life-giving stream, the Holy Spirit, flows; the Spirit he now breathes
on them, in an act of re-creation, as messy and as intimate as God’s original
creative act, when he breathed his own life into us, through our nostrils. It’s a stream we’re welcomed into through
baptism, and more firmly rooted in through confirmation. And it’s a stream which is inseparable from
blood, the sign of woundedness and vulnerability in which and through which we
are saved.
We are saved to serve. That’s clear in Christ’s commission of his
disciples: to proclaim the good news of new life available in Christ, and to
practice the kind of radical forgiveness that will cause our own wounds to
sting afresh, and in that sting to encounter our closeness to Christ. A special beatitude is reserved for those who
believe on the basis of word alone. Most
of us, most of those we yearn to join us around this table, like Thomas, would
struggle if that was all there was.
But, there’s not. The church’s role, our role, is to be
the sacrament of Christ’s presence on earth.
To be wounded healers. To refuse
barriers, isolation, factionalism. To
show the world our wounds and proclaim peace, not vengeance. Shortly, we will reach out our hands to
proclaim peace to one another. That’s no
mere formula. That’s to be an ardent
prayer, a prayer joined to Christ’s prayer, that he still makes on our behalf,
as he holds out his wounded hand to us.
Come, let us follow
where our Lord and God beckons.
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