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Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter – April 27, 2025
John 20:19-31
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
When we think of peace, often the first thing that comes to mind is global politics. We think of peace primarily as the absence of war, the cessation of hostilities, the laying down of arms, the end of fighting. We rightfully pray for peace between and within nations.
If we don’t think of peace in political terms, we often think of it instead in psychological terms. Peace is thought of as a feeling, as a sense of calmness or tranquility or relaxation which one might attain through a variety of means – some better than others.
These aren’t wrong definitions. “Peace” is a multifaceted word. It means lots of different things depending on context.
“Peace” was the first word Jesus spoke to his disciples after his resurrection. On the evening of the first Easter, Jesus appeared to them. “Peace be with you,” he said to them. He came back the next Sunday too, a week later, just as we are meeting a week after Easter here today, and again, his first words were, “Peace be with you.” What did Jesus mean? What exactly is this peace?
The Hebrew word is shalom, and it is just as multifaceted as the English word peace. It can be a casual greeting. If you go to Israel today, or to any Jewish community anywhere in the world, you will hear Jewish people greeting each other with the words shalom aleichem, which means, “peace be upon you.” The common response is aleichem shalom, which means, “upon you, peace.” It can be as simple and common as people saying, “Good morning,” or “Have a nice day.”
But the context in which Jesus uses this greeting is fraught with much, much deeper significance. When the risen Lord Jesus said, “Peace be with you,” to his disciples after his resurrection, this was much more than a casual greeting. You see, the word shalom, or peace, can also mean restoration. It can refer to a reordering of things, or a repair. It can refer to a realignment, to a restored relationship.
Pastor Dan Erlander of blessed memory once shared a story from one of his trips to Israel. The car he rented had some engine trouble, so he pulled into a mechanic. The mechanic got under the hood and started making adjustments. He swapped out a spark plug and tweaked the carburetor. When the engine started humming smoothly, he looked up at the pastor from under the hood, smiled, and said, “ah, shalom!” Here the word was used to describe restoration. Everything was right again. Everything was rightly ordered. Everything was aligned, restored to right relationship.
When Jesus greeted the disciples with the words, “Peace be with you,” he wasn’t just saying hello. This was not merely a greeting; it was a proclamation! Jesus was assuring them that they were in right relationship with him. His resurrection meant that everything had been fixed, everything had been restored. This peace meant peace with God, and with it came a new life.
This peace Jesus proclaimed gave them a life beyond their sin, beyond their failures. This is no small thing. The disciples had just failed Jesus in some profound ways. They all deserted Christ. While Peter denied Jesus publicly and repeatedly, they all denied him in their own way. They all either doubted or forgot his promises. Jesus had told them repeatedly that he would be arrested and crucified and then be raised on the third day, but when the third day came, even after the women told them the tomb was empty, they initially thought it was an idle tale. They weren’t watching for him to come out of the tomb. They were huddled together behind locked doors.
You wouldn’t blame Jesus one bit if, when he appeared to these disciples, his first words had been, “Really guys? Did you not listen to anything I said?” You wouldn’t blame Jesus if he scolded them a little bit, right?
But no. The first word Jesus had for these failed disciples was, “Peace be with you.” This is akin to saying, “All is well.” At its heart, these words are words of forgiveness. They are words of restoration. We know this from the fact that Jesus immediately goes on to tell them to go and do the same. He tasks them with going out into the world to forgive sins in his name.
This is what the resurrection has accomplished. It has brought about the forgiveness of sin. It has restored sinners to a right relationship with God, beginning with the disciples and continuing to this very day as his word of forgiveness is announced to us. The peace Jesus proclaims is peace with God. It means our relationship with God has been reordered, it has been aligned through Christ’s saving death on the cross, it has been ratified by his resurrection, and now we are forgiven. Our relationship with God has been restored forever. It hums along now, fueled and well-lubricated by the grace and mercy of the risen Lord.
This peace Jesus proclaimed, this peace with God, gave them a life beyond their fear. The book of Acts is full of stories of how the disciples were transformed by the resurrection, how they were emboldened by the peace of Christ. They came out from behind those locked doors and became bold preachers and witnesses to the resurrection. Instead of hiding away behind closed doors for the rest of their lives, they went out into the world to share the Good News of the gospel, even when it meant being ostracized or persecuted or even killed, which it ultimately did for most of them. Even when their lives, their circumstances, were anything but peaceful, they had peace with God, and that was what mattered most.
This peace Jesus proclaimed, this peace with God, gave them a life beyond their doubts too. This gospel reading is often referred to as the story of “Doubting Thomas,” which is unfair to both Thomas and to John, the gospel writer, who is trying to make the exact opposite point. It is true that Jesus is exceptionally patient with Thomas. From this we can be assured that Jesus is patient with people’s struggles to believe and to understand. We, too, should be patient with people’s doubts. We should make room for their questions and respond to them with grace. But we’ve almost made a virtue out of doubt in our time, and we shouldn’t. In the Large Catechism, Luther describes doubt as a close cousin to despair. Jesus didn’t want to leave Thomas in that confusion that leads to despair. Jesus didn’t leave Thomas in his doubts. He moved Thomas from doubt to faith. Jesus wanted Thomas to know the peace that comes from believing that he had truly risen from the dead. And so Jesus came back the following week, just for Thomas. He came to him specifically, and said, “Peace be with you.” He invited Thomas to touch him, to put his finger in his wounds. “My Lord and my God!” Thomas said. The story John is telling us is not about a Doubting Thomas, but a Confessing Thomas, a believing Thomas – a Thomas who was moved from doubt to faith in the risen Christ.
“Have you believed because you have seen me?” Jesus continued. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus is talking about us! Now he is talking about you! At this point John, too, tells us that he has written all these things so that you, the reader, you, the hearer, you, the person listening to this right now, may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. You see, through the resurrection of Jesus, you too have a new life!
We are right to be concerned about global politics. We are right to pray for and work for peace in our world. But even when earthly peace is lacking, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a peace the world can never give us.
It is understandable to desire and look for inner peace. It is wise to look for healthy ways to ease anxiety. But even when our inner peace is disturbed by circumstances beyond our control, even when we are restless, unable to relax, even when we can’t stop the rush of cortisol flooding through our veins because we are worried or stressed, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This peace is more than a feeling. This peace is not so much a state of mind as it is a state of being. It is an assurance. It is a strength that comes from being centered in his promises. It is a peace which passes all understanding.
Through our risen Lord, God has ultimately fixed everything that was spiritually broken so that our lives would begin to hum with Easter hope and joy. Through his death and resurrection, we have peace with God, which he bestows upon you anew today through the power of his living Word.
Peace be with you. Do not doubt, and do not despair. Believe! Put your trust in the Christ Jesus, who is risen from the dead, and you will have life in his name.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church