Transcription
Peace be with you. Friends, I'm very aware as I say those words that kind of the privilege of a bishop to greet people lurgically with peace be with you. It's echoing the words of Jesus, the risen Christ. And we hear it in the gospel for today on this second Sunday of Easter called Mercy Sunday. And it's just one of those beautiful displays of the divine mercy and this gift that Jesus gives, which is the gift of peace.
But let's look at the way this begins because there's a juxtiposition here that's exceptionally important and to get it wrong is to get a lot of Christianity wrong. So listen now on the evening of that first day of the week when the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood in their midst. He said to them, "Peace be with you." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
Now there you see it. There's the juxtaposition. The risen Jesus invariably shows his wounds and offers peace together. Now why the showing of the wounds? The wounds are the sign of our sin. It's very important. Now, we don't just rush to the joy of the resurrection, but we see it's precisely the crucified Jesus who is risen from the dead. Why does he bear wounds? Because we killed him. I said to you before in all the passion narratives, it's as though the whole world is conspiring against him. It's as though the sin of the world, cruelty, hatred, violence, treachery, betrayal, injustice, you know, all of it, all of it, comes out to meet him. It's our sin that wounded him.
Notice something, please, in the spiritual life. It's very interesting to me, very important. Notice precisely when and how Jesus aggravates you. Jesus, what do you mean? He's the son of God. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. As St. Peter said, the author of life came. Uh-huh. And you killed him. It's very telling, isn't it? Jesus, the incarnation of the second person of the blessed trinity, the word made flesh. Yes. God among us, Emmanuel. He's all that. And what's he met with? Well, yes, people who accept him and rejoice in him, but at the end of the day, he's met with forces so violent in their opposition that they nail him to a cross and put him to death. You know, it's a story of the Grand Inquisitor and Dostoyevsky, but that's that point that if Jesus came back right now, oh, I oh, I'd love him. I I would embrace him and oh the Lord Jesus. Uh-uh. You'd kill him. That's the lesson of of Dostoyevsky. I mean, you'd kill him. We'd kill him.
The wounds of Jesus are a sign of our sin. We're meant to see in them our own dysfunction. See, why would we do this to him unless there was something so off in us? Which is why we speak of the cross of Jesus as judgment, that we're under judgment. Right. Right. We can't get away with the easy "I'm okay and you're okay." And I know um our culture is expert at at self exculpation, right? Hey, I'm not guilty. Oh, don't blame me. I'm a victim. See, watch everybody how Christianity stands athwart this victimization culture. No, no, you have to turn that around. See, we're the ones in our sin who victimize him. And so, we see in his wounds inescapably who we are, fallen sinners in need of grace. Okay.
So, that's the wounds of Jesus. And you say, "Well, doesn't that leave us in kind of a lurch? That leaves us in a hopeless situation? I'm a terrible sinner. I killed the son of God." No. No. But wait. He also says, "Shalom, peace." There's that word that runs right through the Bible like a refrain, even contained in in the name of the city, Jerusalem. Shalom. Peace. Yes, we killed him. Yes, we killed the son of God. But the son of God returns in forgiving love. That means, can you see there is no sin finally that can separate us from God's love. That's Paul. Now to the Romans: "I'm certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither height nor depth, nor any other creature could ever separate us from the love of God." Paul knows that because the crucified Jesus returns from the dead with the word shalom on his lips.
Now, can you see everybody? It's precisely the juxtaposition that matters here. It's precisely the coming together of the wounds and the shalom that produces Christianity. The wounds alone. What is that? Well, that just that just leaves us hopeless. I'm I'm a I'm a horrific sinner and and I I I can't escape it. It's it's mirrored back to me in the wounds of Jesus. Okay, I'm in the dark. Or just the shalom. That's what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace, right? That's grace that comes at no cost. That's grace that makes no demands. It's not one or the other. It's both. The wounds and the shalom produce Christianity.
Now, here's the next move, everybody. And I think it's of such importance because now this truth I've been talking about is meant to be communicated to us in such a powerful way that we become the bearers of that truth to the world. Listen now. Jesus said to them again, "Shalom, peace be with you. As the father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them. Whose sins you retain are retained." Who's the Holy Spirit? The spirit sanctus. The holy breath. The love that connects the father and the son. The risen Christ breathing out shalom and forgiveness imparts this spirit to his church. Listen now that we might become bearers of the divine forgiveness to the world. What they've received these first apostles they now bequeath to the church. They breathe it out up and down the ages to the church.
Now the same juxtaposition. The church is in the business of of reminding the world of its sin. Uh one reason why a lot of people tend to hate the church because we we don't ignore it. We we double down on it. Don't forget what your sins have done. We we hold up the crucified Jesus because we're we're so easily lulled into this complacency of self-exculpation. The church down through the ages says, "No, no, no, no, no, no. You're not okay. And neither am I." Because look at the wounded, crucified Jesus. And the church breathes out the divine shalom, forgiveness.
Maybe I told that story before, but it always stays in my mind when I come to these stories of the terrible murder that happened some years ago in an Amish community. This community of of great, you know, gospel peace and gospel living. And this madman came and killed a number of kids in this Amish school. Horrific, horrific crime. And the people offered forgiveness. What? What? Are you serious? Shalom. That's the church's job is to be a bearer of forgiveness.
You know, I'll give you another example. Um, just a few months ago, I had the privilege of attending Charlie Kirk's memorial service. Charlie who was brutally murdered in public. We all remember it. And there was the long service with prayers and songs and speeches and so on. At the end, who got up but Charlie's widow, Erica, and gave this this extraordinary, remarkable speech at the conclusion of which she offered forgiveness to the man accused of killing her husband. That's the church's job, everybody, is not to turn a blind eye to sin. No, no. The church names sin for what it is, but then it's the bearer of the shalom.
You know, um there is a very clerical sense here. It's important. Now I say this as a Catholic bishop that the Lord breathes first unto the apostles and therefore unto their successors the bishops who in turn ordain priests who become in the clerical sense yes indeed the sacramental mediators of the divine forgiveness. But there's also this broader sense I think in which this spirit of forgiveness is breathed into the whole church. I think on this Mercy Sunday, it would behoove all of us to think of somebody right now that we have a hard time forgiving. Somebody who wounded us. I mean, look, I'm thinking of a couple people right now who have who have wounded me unjustly. You know, I'm not I'm not excusing anybody. In fact, that's part of the church's job is to name sin as sin. But can I find it in me? Can I find this spiritual sanctus, this holy breath that Jesus breathed upon the church to be a bearer of forgiveness to the world. Think of somebody right now that you're having a hard time forgiving. Maybe this is the season for the divine shalom.
Can I say everybody just one very quick thing? You know, at the end of this extraordinary gospel, we have the story of Thomas. The Lord appeared, but Thomas wasn't there. And so when the disciples told them, "Hey, we saw the Lord. He's risen." And Thomas, no, no, no. I I don't I don't buy it. Unless I put my fingers in the nail marks, put my hand in his side, I am I'm not going to believe. And then the next time Jesus appears, Thomas is there. And the Lord with this kind of infinite gentleness, you know, Thomas, put your finger in my hands. Put your your hand in my side. What's going on there? Can you see St. Thomas here as a distant descendant of Adam and Eve? What's the trouble of Adam and Eve? They grasped at the tree of knowledge of good and evil. "I must have it." What can only be given as a gift, the divine grace, they're trying to grasp onto, make it their own. It's mine on my terms. So, the grace of the resurrection, this divine gift, what is Thomas saying in in imitation of Adam and Eve? No. No. Unless I can have it, unless I can grasp it, make it mine on my terms, unless I can verify it. Verify means to make it true, right? On my terms, I'm not going to believe it.
Do you see why Jesus says now at the end of Thomas, "You believe because you've seen, but how blessed are those who have not seen and have yet believed." What does that mean? I think it means blessed are those who are able to take in this great grace of the resurrection, this great grace of the divine forgiveness on Christ's terms, not their own. They've come to believe not by grasping but by receiving in a spirit of graciousness. I think much of the spiritual life hinges on that point. Very rich reading. Go back, get out your Bibles. John chapter 20, find this reading. It's about forgiveness. It's about shalom. It's about our sin. It's about grace. It's about receiving what the Lord has to give in this spirit of acceptance. And God bless you.