PEACE BE WITH YOU

HOMILY FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR A

Rev. Fr. Peter Onyekachi Ezekoka

Acts 2:42-47        1Peter 1:3-9        John 20:19-31

Let us make the connection between Divine Mercy Sunday and the central theme of Peace which is offered by our Lord in today’s Gospel. Today we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, the great day when we remind ourselves of the infinite mercy of God. We celebrate great promises of grace, one of which is the gift of divine peace. I hardly need to remind you that mercy breeds peace. It’s self-evident. The indispensable role that mercy plays in creating peace is undeniable. Whenever and wherever mercy and forgiveness are found, peace endures. All creation yearns for peace. People are always in search of whatsoever or whomsoever promises peace. We need peace. We ache for peace. Peace is so precious to us. The Gospel today reveals to us that Christ bestowed ultimate peace and assurance on the apostles, who were huddled in fear behind closed doors.  

Many of us might be tempted to think that the opposite of peace is war. Not so. The opposite of peace is fear. No one wants to live in fear. The antidote to fear is peace. It is peace that dispels the darkness of fear. The ultimate peace that can dispel absolutely the darkness of fear is that peace offered by Christ Himself. The experience of the Passion of Christ left the disciples of Jesus terrified out of their wits. Proclaiming Jesus in public was impossible, because the Jews and the authorities would have prosecuted anyone caught publicly witnessing to Jesus. The safe option for those disciples was to gather and pray behind closed doors. Now, have a ‘go’ at imagining the scenario: these men, terrified for their own lives now that their Master was dead and buried, had deliberately locked themselves in. They’d have jumped at the slightest sound, wouldn’t they? They’d have listened intently to every single step up the stairs and they’d have held their breath in case someone knocked at the doors. They might even have worked out an escape route in case aggressors broke the doors down. 

The gospels record that, as the apostles sat there in the locked room, Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst. He offered them the traditional Jewish greeting: Shalom - Peace… peace be with you. Shalom is not just wishing someone to have a peaceful state of mind, or to be feeling calm … Shalom goes way beyond that. Shalom is about wholeness in terms of harmony and completeness. This traditional greeting isn’t foreign to Christian liturgy. Shalom channels the reality and assurance of hope and wholeness for us and for other people as we interact with our fellow worshippers. This peace, as projected by Isaiah, is accompanied by healing: peace, peace to the far and the near, says the Lord and I will heal them (Isaiah 57:21) Thus, when Christ offered the apostles His peace, He offered them wholeness over against their brokenness, harmony over against their discord, and healing from their fear. 

Christ added the gift of the Holy Spirit to further the spread of His peace and to create a fertile ground for mercy and forgiveness. He said: receive the Holy Spirit… The Holy Spirit is gifted to bring to perfection in those disciples and in us the work instigated by the gift of peace. Wherever there is mercy and forgiveness, there is an abundance of peace. The Holy Spirit dwelling in us (and in the Church) opens the channel for peace to make its home in us. Our souls experience true peace after encountering Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation because the assurance of God’s forgiveness renews and enhances our inner peace. The Holy Spirit and the sacrament combine to make us channels of God’s peace.

The peace offered to us by Christ assuages any doubts we might have harboured about His divinity, love and power. In our humanity we can empathise with Thomas, who was absent from the fold when the Lord first appeared to the apostles and who doubted their testimony that He had risen from the dead. No-one had done it before, after all! But when Christ came back a week later, He made the first move to dispel Thomas’ unbelief by showing him His wounds. Our Lord didn’t show them to the other apostles – this was the Lord’s special gift to Thomas. He beckoned Thomas over to examine the marks of the nails on His hands and the spear on His side. As a direct result, Thomas not only regained his faith in Who Jesus was and is, but the faith that he had became rock-solid. Within a single conversation that opened with the greeting Shalom, Thomas moved from doubt to faith: my Lord and my God. Thomas had expressed his honest doubts. He refused to pretend that he understood what he did not understand, or that he believed what he didn’t believe. Through his honesty, he received the gift of ultimate, unshakeable faith. Thomas gave us an expression which, right up to today, is used to confirm our faith in the transubstantiation of the sacred species during the offering of Holy Mass. When we, like Thomas, fight our way through doubt to the conviction that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord and God, we attain a certainty that someone who merely takes things at face value never does. What is comforting for every Christian down the ages is that Thomas expressed the initial doubts that we would have expressed under the circumstances, and that we too are rewarded by having the door of ultimate faith opened to us. Blessedness has been extended by Christ to all who believe in Him even without the evidence of their eyes. 

Continuing the theme of the opening of the door of faith by Christ Himself, the early hymn of St. Peter in the Second Reading celebrates new birth in the sacrament of Baptism. The peace that attracts the Holy Spirit, clears doubt in believers, and encourages mercy and forgiveness amongst followers of Christ is sorely needed in the Church today. We get an inkling from the First Reading as to how a community established in peace should live. The disciples held their property and goods in common, worshipped together at the Temple, and broke bread to make Him present in their homes. This is an idealistic portrayal of how every Christian community, be it the family as the domestic Church, or the parish, or the diocese should live, but it is nonetheless an ideal which we should aim for. The peace offered by the risen Lord ought to be experienced deep within the heart of each one of us. The peace offered by the risen Lord ought to ignite in the heart of each one of us a deep sense of unity, love and joy in Him and with others. Shalom. PEACE BE WITH YOU. Amen. God bless you.