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JESUS STOOD AMONG THEM
Jesus came and stood among them, and said, "Peace be with you."
John 20: 19
That's the theme, really, of the whole resurrection symphony in the fourth gospel. Jesus came and stood among them. That's the theme, in a way, of the whole Christian faith. The affirmation not just the He survived death, but that He keeps on coming and is a presence among us, offering us his peace. "Peace I give to you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world give do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, and never let them be afraid." With us, for us, offering us His shalom. One is deliberately refused the luxury of setting it all down in the simple category of the past, and so in a sense being rid of it. No, there He is, among us!
It first happened in the morning. Mary went to Jesus' burial place to pay Him homage. The words that tell of her experience will be read in tens of thousands of churches around the world today. They begin, "Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb." What followed is now a matter of public domain. She ran to alert Peter and John. Those two worthies hastened to investigate for themselves, and then went home. As for Mary, she went back to the garden, stood near the tomb, and wept.
Presently Jesus appeared in a form that she did not recognize. "Why are you crying?" He asked. "Who is it you are looking for?" At this point we are ushered into a recognition scene, unsurpassed in its feeling and tenderness. Thinking He was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him." Then, only two words are spoken. Jesus said, "Mary." Can you imagine what kind of a chill coursed through her body with that one word. She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni," meaning Teacher. There He was, a presence, next to her, with her.
It happened in the evening, with these men, behind locked doors, which underscores the trauma and fright of the disciples, who had good reason to think that they may be the next victims. Then Jesus came and stood among them. And Jesus, as always, is not passive. He is busy bringing peace, shalom, to the frightened followers and charging them to be bearers of the same peace. His appearance does more than simply attest that He is risen; it evokes a transformation among the disciples and confronts them with an unparalleled commission. Something absolutely new and unheard of has happened; not only resurrection, but empowerment for the future. That's why He comes and stands among us.
And it wasn't something that happened just once, any more than the whole Bible is something that happened just once. It kept on happening, and whatever keeps on happening is hard to refute!
It was very early in the MORNING on the first day of the week, and on the EVENING of that first day, God said "No" to the judgment hall, where they had tried Jesus; "no" to the hill, where they had crucified Him; "no" to the grave where they had buried Him. And that "no" means that you don't have to settle down in the grim fact of life, and the cross is the worst of them, or in any of those experiences that lead one to conclude that "life is a tale told by an idiot." That doesn't have to be your conclusion about life or this world, not in a world where Christmas comes out of a stable, the Son of God comes out of a little village called Nazareth, and twenty centuries of Christianity comes out of a tomb.
This one who stands among us, in the name of God, has a blueprint for your life. Pat and I have had the pleasure of hosting Christian tours through most countries of Europe, and the last one was in Italy. There we saw those massive marble figures in Florence, still bound in the crude stone from which Michelangelo's chisel had only here and there released them. I almost felt they were withering to be rid of the unshaped marble, trying to throw it off with their hands, struggling to get their feet out of it. They are like the add once current which said "I'm your idea, get me out of here." That's how Jesus sees everybody. As God's idea struggling to happen. He saw Mary of Magdala that way, and Peter on the shores of Galilee, and Zacchaeus down in Jericho. Now here He is on the evening of Easter day, looking at a coterie of some followers. He had a master plan for their lives. He bestows on them the full grace of His risen and glorified life: "Shalom be with you." What needed to be conquered was their fear. He bestows on them a global mission, the command to take up His work. He bestows on them the power to do it, the gift of the Spirit of God which is His life. The resurrection thus brings into being the church, it's peace, its commission, its empowerment. It was the experience of Jesus standing among those who had known Him that constituted the first Christian church.
Why do you think these little Christian communities scattered about in a hostile world cherished these Easter narratives through the years? Because these narratives were the life giving force, soul, and spirit that welled up like living water within them. What they affirmed over and over again was, the risen Christ appeared to them, stood among them. Listen to Paul tell it like it is in I Cor. 15. He appeared to Cephas, and the 12, and the 500, and James, and all the apostles, and then, says Paul, "last of all as to one untimely born, He appeared to me."
Which leads to the question: has He stood next to you, among you and yours? Have you experienced His presence. For Easter is more than a tale told in a book, there for us just to remember. Easter speaks to a power and a presence there for our receiving. "Peace be with you."
Or, to put it another way, Easter is an event into which we must enter and an event which we must allow to enter us. There is an article I saved years ago from ZYCON, a Journal of Religion and Science, which always speaks to me about this time of year. The article is about different levels of knowledge require different levels of personal "entering into." And here I quote: "We must dwell more fully in our RELIGION than we do in our PSYCHOLOGY in order to see it's meaning, more fully in our PSYCHOLOGY than in our BIOLOGY, more fully in our BIOLOGY than in our PHYSICS, and more fully in our PHYSICS than in our MATHEMATICS. Yet this does not mean that religion is "more true" than mathematics, only that its MEANING involves more of our personal selves than other disciplines, and thus may be more intrinsically interesting or even overwhelming."
"Jesus came and stood among them, and said, 'Peace be with you.'" And what happened with those distraught and terrified disciples behind locked doors may happen to our distraught souls hiding from a world we have locked out. Once we know His peace, we know that not Pontius Pilate, but Jesus speaks the last word.
Lift up your hearts. This is Easter. Jesus Christ triumphs. Over the tumult and tumbling of nations and through the dilemmas and misgivings which crowd our lives and haunt our age comes this deathless assurance. He is not dead. He is alive. He stands among us. Offering us His shalom, so we may be empowered to bring to the world His shalom. Therefore we sing:
Good Christians all, rejoice and sing. Now is the triumph of our king.
To all the world glad news we bring, Alleluia, Alleluia. Amen.