Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you … Peace be with you … Peace be with you!” (John 20:19, 21, 26)

Elijah wanted to die.  Nebuchadnezzar wanted the three rebellious Jews to die.  Paul and Silas didn’t die in Philippi, but a severe beating and imprisonment in a first-century jail probably got them pretty close.

As we come this week to the fourth and final passage of our Shelter series, we return to where we started: Easter.  It’s the evening of “the first day of the week,” and the entire Christian community, consisting of just the eleven disciples and perhaps a few others, is sheltering behind locked doors.  Jesus had been crucified, died, and was buried—but now there have been some strange and puzzling reports of an empty tomb and actual meetings with Jesus, alive!  No one understands what’s happening.  And they’re anxious, nervously expecting that what happened to Jesus may well be coming for them.  So locked doors … quiet voices …”What do you think is going to happen to us?”

There is a bit of humor in this scene: no one is looking for the disciples, no soldiers, no authorities, no spies.  No one is looking for them—except Jesus.    

“Peace be with you!”  Three times in this week’s passage, twice on this first Easter night, then a week later to Thomas: “Peace be with you!”

In our day, we psychologize “peace,” we reduce it to an individualized inner feeling of tranquility and serenity.  And we make it self-referential and self-enclosed: “peace” means nothing bad can get to me.

Biblical peace is made of much stronger stuff.  The Hebrew word is shalom, which means wholeness, wellbeing, abundance, health, shelter, justice, rightness, freedom, security—and all of this, and more, not just for me myself, but for the whole community.  

“Peace be with you” does not mean that “everything will always turn out okay.” Jesus is not pronouncing the cancellation of challenges, hardships, persecutions, pandemics or death.  There will still be Ahabs and Jezebels, Nebuchadnezzars, Caesars and Pilates.  Still tight spaces from time to time.

“Peace be with you” ignores none of these realities; it reminds us that there’s more in play, more going on. 

The “more” is God.  

“Peace” means that everything that is necessary for life, for abundant, overflowing life is available, standing right before us in the person of the risen Jesus.  Not instead of the “bad things,” but despite them, in the very face of them, because something far stronger has now arrived.  Christ is risen!

And therefore: Peace be with you.

Imagine you were there: Jesus speaks to you, “Peace be with you!”  With what words, or other kinds of response, might you answer?

“Blessed are the peacemakers—they’re the children of God.”  How might you serve as a bringer, a messenger, a demonstration, of Christ’s peace this week?