Peace and Forgiveness: A Meditation on John 20 for the 2nd Sunday in Easter

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week,

when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews,

came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side.

Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you:

as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them,

Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them;

and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

 

The pursuit of peace has been a perennial and ancient search of mankind.  One finds this search in the writings of the old philosophers and kings, poets and storytellers, and in many of the world’s historic and present religions.  There are those who tried to find peace by cutting off their emotional attachment to the world (such as the ancient Stoics, or variations of the Rationalist philosophers,) and those who tried to find peace by giving their lives over to their passions (the ancient and modern Hedonists of every shape and kind, including variations of Naturalists, Post-modernists, and Relativists.)  There are plenty of religious systems that have followed these paths in one way or another, leaning more toward the absolute rule of Mind over Emotion or of Emotion over Mind, or trying to build a middle way that balances each.  Yet none of these pursuits over the history of the world has been able to nail down the elusive nature of peace, because they ultimately cannot overcome the fallen nature of mankind, and thus fail to reconcile the individual with their Maker.  Without reconciliation with God, no person can ever really find peace.

 

I think somewhere deep down in every heart, all people know this to be true.  Our minds are finite at best, and fallen at worst, so that they tend to create the most oppressive and disastrous systems of politics, economics, philosophy, and religion.  Our passions and instincts are also limited and fallen, twisted into selfish pursuits of pleasure that wound not only ourselves but the people around us, raging from time to time into violent crimes and brutal wars.  While our good gifts of Reason and Emotion were created good when God endowed them in mankind, we have turned them to evil, such that our reliance upon them brings about monstrous effects inside ourselves, and between one another.  This is why the pursuit of peace is so elusive to both the Rationalist and the Hedonist, as well as those who try to craft middle paths between Reason and Emotion:  with our fallen powers, we are not able to make peace within ourselves nor with our neighbors, because we have lost our peace with the One who is our Maker, the One to whom we all know we must give account someday.

 

If this alone were the fate of man, all we would see across human history is the recurring plaintive attempts of sages and strongmen to build kingdoms of “peace” on their own terms through manipulation and war—kingdoms that once established, betray the evil of their ideas and the corruption of their passions.  And while the world is indeed marked by such atrocities across all cultures and epochs, there is something else we find that enlightens and enlivens all people who harken to it—a Light that has shined from the dawn of creation, and continues bright into our own day, as well.  Amidst the flailing cacophony of man’s many failures to build peace for himself, the Word of the Living God continues to speak that peace into existence for everyone who would hear and trust in Him.  That Word which created mankind and the cosmos within which we live, is also the Word that spoke hope into the heart of man after his fall into evil, and guided mankind down through the ages by His Law and Promise.  This Word called all men away from the depravity of their passions and the deceptions of their minds, to see and experience a higher reality that brought mind and heart into fellowship with their Maker.  This Word which is our beginning and our summit, the Word which fashioned and judges the whole world, also spoke into existence our redemption from every evil, starting with the evil inside ourselves.  This Word alone was able to do what we could not, bearing the burden of our sin and failure as He became one of us, and rising victorious over our condemnation in death.  This Word alone, this Jesus, has brought us peace, precisely because He has brought us forgiveness.

 

When Jesus appeared to His disciples and spoke peace to them, He also gave them His Holy Spirit and the power to forgive the sins of others in His Name.  While there is a sense in which this power is carried out formally by the pastors of the church, it is also given to every Christian by virtue of their baptism in Jesus, and prayed by every Christian as they recite the Lord’s Prayer.  This forgiveness of sins is what reconciles us to God, liberates us from our fallen nature and from the endless attacks of the evil one.  This forgiveness of sins heals body and mind in this world, and is as real in heaven above as it is on the earth below.  This forgiveness is the gift we could not earn and could not deserve, because no fallen man could do what Jesus has done through His Vicarious Atonement, through His life, death, and resurrection.  This forgiveness is the Key to the Kingdom of Heaven, unlocking the burden of guilt which torments every fallen soul, and opening wide the portal which leads to everlasting life.  When Jesus spoke peace to His disciples, He created what He gave them through the gift of His grace, so that all who would believe in Him might live in the peace of God forever.

 

Yet His work of peace didn’t stop there.  Jesus’ work of redemption was for all people of every time and place, and so His Word to His disciples turned them into Apostles:  as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.  With a peace that passes all understanding, that rises above every philosophy and passion, the Lord Jesus Christ has given you forgiveness that you might give His forgiveness to others.  The freedom you have been given by grace through faith has cost Jesus everything so that it might cost you nothing—that as freely as you have received, you might also freely give to everyone around you.  That peace which no one can achieve on their own has been given to you by Jesus, who has forgiven you and enlivened you by His Word of Gospel grace.  Hear that Word come to you again today, healing your mind and body as you are reconciled with your Maker and your Redeemer, so that you might go forth from here bearing that same reconciliation, that Medicine of Immortality to every suffering soul you meet.  For Christ has risen, and in Him shall we all rise, that our peace in Him might endure unto endless ages of ages, in the Kingdom of His victorious grace.  Amen.