It’s the evening of the very first Easter, the day of Jesus’ Resurrection, and Jesus appears to the disciples, who are hiding in the upper room. Jesus appeared to his disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.” This greeting, “Peace be with you,” or “Shalom,” is both comforting and surprising. It is comforting because this greeting, “Shalom,” is a wish of complete and total well-being, spiritual as well as physical, to each of the disciples. It is a peace so profound that nothing or no one can steal it away, a peace that goes beyond any absence of turmoil. But it’s also surprising, because Jesus wishes this “Shalom” to the very people who had turned away from him, and had turned away from him in his time of greatest need. Thus we get the theme of this Second Sunday of Easter, the “Sunday of Divine Mercy.”
This is not what we would consider to be typical behavior. In fact, most of us would consider this to be quite foolish. But this tells us something about the love of God. God loves us unconditionally. He doesn’t withhold his love until we are perfect. He loves us while we are growing, and he loves us even while we are his enemies. His love gives us the courage and strength to mature and change into the person God wants us to be. Jesus appears to the disciples and confronts them with the wounds they helped inflict on him, not to condemn them, but to transform them. He doesn’t say, “Look what you did to me,” but he sends them out into the world as God sent him into the world.
Both the Gospel and the first reading convey the same message. Among the gifts that most strengthened the community and drew others to it, forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with others were most important. There is no greater expression of Divine Mercy than the forgiveness of sins. The disciples and the early Church recognized this. This gift of forgiveness is so powerful that, as we see in the first reading, even the shadow of Peter, whose denial of Christ led him to contrition and brought him to reconciliation, his shadow becomes a “cloud of Christ’s presence” in which the sick are healed and unclean spirits are expelled.
When we pray the Lord’s prayer we are invited to forgive one another without limit, so that we may remain in communion with one another, and with the Church. We don’t just ask for our own forgiveness. We pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” To retain the sins of others, as Jesus mentions in the Gospel passage, is to exclude them from communion. But when we refuse to forgive, we also exclude ourselves from communion with each other, and with the Church. That’s why Jesus says following the Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Matthew, “for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
The real resurrection power of Christ lies here in forgiveness, and this power of forgiveness is expressed in the giving of the Spirit to those who believe. When Jesus appeared to the disciples he said, “Peace be with you,” and then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This reminds us of God’s creation of humanity. When God created Adam, he breathed on the dirt he had formed, that lump of clay, and made it into a human being. A part of God, his own breath, his Spirit, was inside of us. But when we sin, we reject that breath of God. Now, with the forgiveness of sins through the power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Jesus re-creates us by replacing that breath, that Spirit, back inside of us. So just as in the first creation God breathed life into Adam, the breath of Jesus brings life to the new spiritual creation in us.
The disciples believed because they were able to see the risen Christ, and see the wounds in his hands, feet, and side. This is especially true of Thomas, who was bold enough to say, “Until I have put my finger in the nail marks and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” This is all too typical of our society today, where we have almost any information we want at our fingertips, and if something cannot be proven with absolute certainty, we are skeptical. Thomas is so overcome with the love of Jesus when he sees him, that he proclaims Jesus as “My Lord and my God,” the very title for which He was crucified in the first place.
The disciples saw and they believed, but Jesus said, “Blessed are they who have not seen and believe.” This reminds me of a line in the movie “The Santa Clause” where a man named Scott Calvin inadvertently kills Santa and is magically drafted to take his place; he finds himself at the North Pole, and says to Judy the elf, “I see it, but don’t believe it,” and she replies, “You’re missing the point. … Seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing.” Saint Anselm of Canterbury in the twelfth century would also expound on this by saying: “For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.”
John wrote this Gospel to a community who did not know Jesus during his ministry or see him after his resurrection; and this also applies to us almost 2000 years later. So we should ask ourselves, “Why do I believe?” We weren’t there to see the resurrected Jesus, or to place our fingers or hands in his wounds. Most of us believe because of things we read or heard, what others have told us and the way their lives have changed because of their faith. They are witnesses to the faith, and it the faith of the Church: the truth that the Catholic Church teaches and proclaims to be the Truth that is Jesus Christ.
But the disciples also believed for another reason. If it had not been for the “Peace of Christ,” or “Shalom,” they would never have known the forgiveness he gave them, and they would never have known the love of God. The capacity to forgive is the only power that is able to release the great tensions we have among ourselves. If we do not know how to forgive, then we don’t know how to love.
Later in the mass today, after we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we will offer each other the sign of peace. Now this isn’t the time for high fives and fist-bumps, but the desire and offering of the true peace of Jesus, “Shalom,” to each other. And these readings today challenge us is to extend that into our everyday lives, and offer that same Peace of Christ to everyone, especially those who may cause some difficulty in our lives, such as the co-worker that might keep us from getting promoted, the neighbor we can’t get along with, or even the classmate that gets us in trouble at school. So just as God sent Jesus into the world, and as Jesus sent his disciples into the world, he is also sending us into the world—the Church is sending us into the world—to give others his peace, forgiveness, and love. The power of forgiveness is the power of love.
Shalom!