Do you have any scars? Visible ones, I mean. Maybe they’re from surgery; the only one I think I have or had is from when I had hernia surgery when I was 18 months old. You may have several, from various things that happened to you.

Scars remind us of past hurts. Of course, there is a difference between a scar and a wound. A wound still hurts. A wound may still be open, infected, or oozing blood. A wound needs to be tended to—bandaged, sutured, cleaned-up or patched up. A wound, on our body or inside us emotionally, needs to be healed.

Scars are the residue left when the wound has healed. They do not hurt anymore, but they let us know where we’ve been hurt. A scar does not need healing, although some need stretching; it’s the mark where healing took place. Our scars testify that despite our circumstances, despite what we’ve been through, that we’ve made it, and we’re healed—at least on the outside.

In our Gospel reading, you and I run into some wounds, future scars. The crucifixion took a fatal toll on Jesus and a body-blow to the community that formed around Him. Jesus’ torn body finally expired under the torture He endured. For the disciples, the events of the Passion stunned and scattered them. They went from the highs of the celebrative, provocative entry with the palms, through the humble holiness of the Last Supper, to the horrific devastation of the arrest and the cross. Mirroring their gathering for that final meal, they found their way back to one another, assembling in fear for their lives, and to incredulity at the report of the resurrection from Magdalene. Their scars were internal; in fact they were still wounded.

“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After this he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when the say the Lord.” That last sentence indicates that they were not joyful exactly until He showed them His pierced hands and side. They needed to see them to really start to receive His greeting of peace. And then they did!

They rejoiced and Jesus wished them peace again. Christ breathed on them, granting them the gift of the Holy Spirit, along with being spun into mission. Only one thing: Thomas was gone.

Where was he? What was he doing? Visiting family? Examining the empty tomb? Grocery shopping? I mean, the disciples needed food, but they were still afraid of Jesus’ foes. Whatever the reason, they waited with him in hiding for a week.

Let’s think again about just what the 10 disciples were given on Easter night, and which we trust Thomas also received a week later. Jesus bestowed upon them the Spirit, a mission related to forgiveness, and yes, the first gift: the peace of Christ.

Before they heard the phrase the first time, let’s go back briefly to when Jesus arrived in their room. How did Jesus approach them? Frederick Dale Bruner put it, “There is no preliminary reminder of the disciples’ failure to support him in his crisis; no call for repentance, or even for faith. There is sheer grace” (The Gospel of John, p. 1162). Believe me, I have no doubt (sorry, Thomas) that peace is what they needed. After the first “peace,” Jesus showed them His wounds. More grace, though they were probably pretty gruesome. But it was then that they joyfully came to believe this was the genuine Jesus; the very same One who was crucified is the same One who was raised and came to them. Who said to them a second time, “Peace be with you.”

With grace preceding, the peace they got, and that we receive, has been given by the wounded, scarring, and resurrected Sovereign. The Greek word for peace there, and through Chapter 20, is not “shalom” but “ειρηνη,” which means peace and can also mean “harmony.” Christ came in grace, spoke peace, showed His ghastly wounds, and upon their ecstatic faith, blessed them with His ειρηνη yet again. He spoke it again to them all the following Sabbath.

The peace of Christ: This is the beaten, crucified, wounded and later scarred Jesus who, Bruner wrote, “brings a peace which is uniquely Christ’s to give.” This is not any old peace! This is the brutally executed, wounded, scarring, and risen One talking to His friends whose own deep wounds were in need of healing who to them speaks “Peace.” After what He has been through, if He can still speak peace, bring peace, give peace and be peace, then it is deep genuine-article peace indeed. Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection gives Him supreme credibility. Even to the point of experiencing, in some supremely searing way the sense of being forsaken on the Cross, He comes and brings peace! Jesus not only says peace, He brings peace, and IS peace.

Michael Joseph Brown, President of Dayton Seminary, wrote, “The Roman peace (pax Romana) was enforced by violence. It was the absence of conflict through military conquest, surveillance and oppression. Christ’s peace comes from the victory over evil through the absorption of suffering” (The Working Preacher for 4/12/26). This is the peace which the world can neither give nor take away.

So what makes up this ειρηνη, or shalom, other than the very presence of Christ Himself? To borrow from Frederick Bruner again, he says “The Risen Lord’s initial gift to his assembled disciples is his peace, which means his love, his forgiveness, his favor and his blessing.” He went to say that “The single most peace-giving fact in life, after the forgiveness of sins, is reality, truth. When Jesus gives his disciples his crucified hands and wounded side, he is saying to them, ‘I want to give you the reason for the peace I am speaking, a reason for peace that is deeper than a wish or words: Truth. The crucified Jesus is, really, alive again” (ibid., p. 1162).

I am reminded of others who went through torment of one kind or another and came out the other side with peace and even forgiveness. I think of John McCain, who said while he was working on opening the doors of trade and relationship with Vietnam, that he put Vietnam behind him a long time ago. I think of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, who was falsely accused of sexual abuse of a minor, ended up vindicated, and after praying for his accuser, ended up praying with him over the celebration of Holy Communion. The story is in his book called The Gift of Peace. Such peace can be with individuals, families, and even communities.

This is the truth-peace from God, which sometimes is given during or after redemptive suffering. We were and are able to do what we did in recent months and today, be generous to stranger-neighbors in need, follow ICE cars to track them, deliver groceries, make others’ rent or school payments, be in protests, sit down in Targets, get arrested by authorities, and run the risk of ending up in a federal database, because there is a price to pay to oppose injustice and demonstrate love, but there won’t be redemption without it. The peace from the crucified, wounded, scarred and raised Christ enabled and enables such witness, Such peace lets us join the community willing to undergo redemptive suffering, and we will not be alone if we do it. Emmanuel, God with us.

In South Africa we know about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission founded after apartheid was outlawed. It was not perfect, but it aimed high and sought peace among hostile peoples in country. It was spearheaded by a person of great faith, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It changed South Africa.

Lastly, when Jesus visits here it says that “He came and stood among them.” I learned that the sense of the Greek for that phrase means “Jesus came and stood right in the middle of them.” John seems to say that “right in the middle of them” is exactly where Jesus wants to be with His disciples. One gets the impression that John’s Gospel promises that wherever there is living Christ-centeredness, that peace will also be there, as Christ shall be. Christ brings that peace; the presence of the raised Christ IS that peace. We won’t be alone.

Jesus stands right in the middle of us in faithful community, and in service. This peace beyond understanding is the gift which I desire to remind you of and encourage you by. The peace that comes from this crucified, scarred, and resurrected Christ, moves well when we have a ‘midst’ He can come to, and sends us out with. May we receive the blessing, “The peace of Christ be with you” a little more differently than before. They are words of healing as well as an accompaniment to faithful service and advocacy.

With that last point in mind, I close with words from U.C.C. Pastor Cheryl Lindsay: “Resurrection involves transformation, even for the Christ, but that resurrected body maintained the marks of what Jesus had been subjected to and endured. His body was scarred. Even that proclaims good news. Scars signal healing and repair. An initial reading of this text seems to emphasize the scars as identifiers to confirm the news of Christ’s victory over death, but they point beyond that to indicators of new life and the healing that comes from the peace that Jesus offers.” May we bear witness to that new life together, and to the healing peace that the wounded, scarred, raised and living Christ brings and is. The peace of Christ be with you. AMEN.