Pastor Detweiler’s sermon from Sunday, April 19:

“When we share the “Peace” during worship, it is more than a greeting: It is a prayer that we offer to others ... a foretaste of God’s gift of salvation.”

John 20:19-31

Yvette was an inactive member of a congregation, a little more reflective than most, who told a parish visitor that she was “searching for a religion.” Although she and her husband had nothing to do with the church for another 10 years, her husband’s mother and sister were active in the leadership of that same congregation. Yvette did not expect the congregation to provide free pastoral care for her or her family, so during her husband’s many hospitalizations neither she nor anyone else in the family informed the pastor or expressed any expectation that the pastor visit him.

When her husband died, Yvette was reluctant to call the pastor herself. As a non-participant she felt she had no right to expect that pastor to preside at her husband’s funeral. At that point one of the relatives offered to call. Yvette was a seeker. She was searching for what Christians mean when we use the word “peace:” a sense of rightness or wholeness that comes from a secure relationship with God.

That peace figures prominently in today’s gospel. When Jesus appears to his disciples his greeting to them is “Peace be with you.” He says it again when he appears to them a week later. It means more than “calm down” or “take it easy.”

This greeting appears two places in our worship. The obvious one is at the peace, aka the kiss of peace, taken into our worship from the conclusions to Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter where the writes say “Greet one another with a kiss of peace.” It is not a kiss in our northern culture because we are not comfortable kissing people we do not know well – some have difficulty with the handshake!

The other place is at the conclusion of “Lamb of God.” The third time we sing “lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world’ we sing “grant us peace” instead of “have mercy on us.” The word “peace” appears in almost every New Testament letter. What does it mean in this context?

It doesn’t mean the absence of war. The Greek word used here is “eirnvn,” from which we derive the name “Irene” and the word “irenic.” It is used in the New Testament to describe a right relationship between God and people. It is often coupled with “righteousness” and “grace” to denote “peace of mind” or “serenity.” It carries overtones of the Hebrew concept of “shalom.”

“Shalom” is a lot more than serenity or peace of mind. It is completeness, wholeness, health, prosperity, political and/or spiritual well-being. It is always a wholeness determined and given by God, so it always says something about us and our relationship with God. When we share the peace it is the Lord’s peace that we share. It isn’t just a greeting like “hello” or “good morning” – it is more than pleasant hospitality. It is a gift of God that we are sharing.

In saying “peace be with you” to our neighbor we are in some small way being sent with the gospel of God’s peace, shalom, well-being, wholeness, salvation to our neighbor in the row. We are offering what God gives through the resurrection of Jesus Christ: “that peace which the world cannot give,” or in the words of Martin Luther in the “Small Catechism,” “forgiveness, life, and salvation,” the gifts God gives in baptism and Holy Communion. It may seem a small thing that we do, but what it gives and what it means is not a small thing.

As far as the gospel of John is concerned, saying “peace be with you” is giving salvation. Peace or shalom is being in a right relationship with God and other people. For John that is only possible now that Jesus has died and is raised. For John that right relationship IS salvation because that is where it leads. John likes to talk about future events as if they have already taken place. When we share the peace of the Lord, it is, like Holy Communion, a foretaste of God’s eternal kingdom, the hors d’ oeuvres of salvation.

It is not fully realized, but we see what it looks like in Jesus’ resurrection and we get a taste as we share the well-being, wholeness, and union with Christ through the Holy Spirit that is given in baptism and Holy Communion and in the words “peace be with you.” In John’s scheme of things, now that Jesus is risen he can give the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s gift is peace/shalom.

Having said that we come to the inevitable question “Does it really make a difference?” In and of itself the sharing of the peace of the Lord probably doesn’t, but in its context as part of the care and feeding of the followers of Jesus Christ it does. It is a prayer. We are praying for the peace of God which passes human understanding, which neither we nor the world, but only God, can give.

Yvette thinks that it makes a difference. After her husband died she started to attend worship regularly, a fact that surprised those who had known of her a non-churchgoer for the previous years. When asked about it she said it was her faithful relatives that had made the difference. “They have something that I don’t have: hope or peace. I want that too,” she said. It was a gift they took for granted, but it made all the difference to Yvette in her time of need.

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’” As we share the Lord’s peace today and each Sunday, we know that Jesus Christ is sending us to each other to pray for and give the peace or shalom which comes from God alone.