The Disciples are afraid, tempers are
still running high – they fear a backlash from the people who put Jesus to
death, they have been told by Peter that the tomb was empty; Mary of Magdala
has seen Jesus. They are confused – not knowing what to believe, or whom to
trust. Into the midst of their fear and confusion comes Jesus, saying ‘Peace
be unto you’. The first gift of the Risen Lord to his disciples is peace. He
who was prophesied to be the Prince of Peace, who has brought about peace
through his suffering and death, speaks what he has enacted in his own body. He
shows them his hands and his side, as a sign that it is really him, that he is
really alive – the Resurrection is a reality, not a fairy story, not idle
gossip, not something which people want to be true but isn’t. It’s real in a flesh
and blood way. It too was foretold in Scripture, and Jesus has told his
disciples before his death what was to happen. But now having seen they
believe.
‘Then were the disciples
glad when they saw the Lord’ the peace of God leads to Joy, the joy of new
life in him. This is where true joy is to be found. It is reinforced by the
fact that Jesus repeats the words ‘Peace be unto you’ as it is in Christ
alone that our true joy and peace can be found. It is in his death and
resurrection that our relationship with God and with each other can have its
truest meaning and fullest expression.
Immediately Jesus says to
his disciples, ‘As the Father hath sent me, even so I send you’ The
disciples are sent, sent to proclaim the Good News of Jesus, sent into the
world to continue the saving work. Here we see the birth of the Church: it is
thanks to them that we are here, today. Then he breathes on them, he gives them
the Holy Ghost, to strengthen them, to encourage them, to equip them to be sent
out to share the Good News, and build up his body, the Church. They are also
empowered: ‘Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted; and whosesoever
sins ye retain, they are retained’. In a moment which looks and feels a lot
like ordination, we see men sent out to restore humanity, to restore their
relationship with God and each other. It is through Christ’s death that such a
restoration can take place, and here we see both ‘power and commandment’ given
to men best understood as bishops. It reminds us that the Church is to be a
place of healing and restoration. The fact that it is not always should
encourage us to strive to follow this example, through the grace, the free gift
of God working in us. We are sinners, and by God’s gift of his Son, we can be
forgiven, redeemed, healed, and restored.
It is the most wonderful
news, the greatest gift we could ever wish to receive. It reminds that, in the
words of this morning’s Epistle ‘whatsoever is born of God overcometh the
world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith’.
We are regenerate, born again of God in our baptism, our sharing in Christ’s
death, which overcomes the world; as we share in his death we also share in his
new life. Our faith is in a crucified and risen Saviour, who loves us and who
gave himself for us, who comes to us in word and sacrament, to feed us with
himself, so that we might have life in all its fulness, life in him. It is the
faith which we profess in the words of the Nicene Creed: orthodoxy rather than
heresy concerning the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The Church must always
be reminded that in Christ it has overcome the world; it does not need to be
conformed to it – to a liberal spirit of the age which seeks to remake the
Church and the faith which it professes in its own image, where clergy are
little more than social workers, and bishops little more than managers – how meagre,
how small-minded that such a great thing should be reduced to this pitiful and
wretched state. As sucessors to the Apostles they need to realise their vocation
and live it out, rather than be be conformed to the ways of the world,
favouring error over truth. The Church has been here before and no doubt it
will again. We need to stay close to Christ, close to his word in Scripture,
fed by his body and blood, believeing in the faith which comes to us from his
apostles, and in the knowledge that he has overcome the world, and that we know
his truth which has set us free rather than to be slaves to the spirit of the
age, and sharing his peace and joy with the world, so that it may believe and
give praise to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, to whom be
ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and
power, now and forever.
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