A woman goes into a shop and says to the shopkeeper,
'I would like five euro worth of religion please.'
'What? Five euro of religion! How much religion is
that?'
'Well,' she answers, 'I would like enough religion
to easy my sense of guilt, but not so much that it would demand me to forgive
other people. I would like enough
religion to make me a part of a church, but not so much that I would have to
love the awkward people in that church.
I would like enough religion to convince my friends that I am
respectable, but not so much that they would think I am a religious-freak. I want comfort, but not challenge. I want heaven when I die, but I do not want
to die to myself in this life. Oh, and I
like some of the things Jesus says.
Could you throw him into the mix?'
So the shop-keeper flicks through his
catalogue. ‘Under the heading of Jesus
it says that you are not meant to pick and mix.
There seems to be no part-time option.
I can't even see any retirement date or time off. Sorry, with Jesus it's seems to be all or
nothing.'
In this morning’s passage we see comfort (‘peace be
with you’) and challenge (‘I am sending you’).
They go hand-in-hand.
Jesus
brings people peace
The atmosphere in the room must have been
tense. The doors were locked for fear of
the Jewish authorities. There is
shame—‘we deserted Jesus’. There is
confusion—‘Peter and John found the tomb empty’. There is bewilderment—‘Mary Magdalene claims
that she has seen Jesus.’
Then, amazingly, Jesus stands amongst them. He greets them with the traditional 'Shalom!' His first words could have been accusation,
‘where were you when I needed you most?’
Instead he offers these guilty failures a word of comfort.
Jesus would have used this greeting many times, but
this is the first time John records its use.
John wants us to see the special significance here. In the Old Testament ‘Shalom’ is associated
with the blessing of God, and especially with the salvation that God would
bring through his Messiah. John records ‘peace
be with you’ twice, and in between Jesus shows them his hands and side. It is because the lamb was slain that we can
experience piece with God.
This is more than the peace we feel when we walk in
the woods or have the house to ourselves.
This is more like a declaration that war is over. For without the death of Christ we would be
condemned, the objects of God’s holy anger and awaiting the final judgement. But Christ died for the ungodly, and not
those who see themselves as good. He
declared, ‘it is finished’ as he took the full punishment for all the evil that
is in us. This is why he can declare,
‘peace be with you.’ This should delight
our heart!
The telephone rang at about three in the morning. It was the local hospital ringing about a man
who was very ill and wanted to speak to a minister. The minister had never met this man before,
and the man wasn’t a churchgoer. But
this man knew that he was seriously ill and he was feeling troubled. So the minister asked if he could help and
the man’s eyes welled up with tears. Seeing that the man didn’t know what to say
the minister prompted him: ‘Do you want
to make your peace with God?’ The man
responded that he did. So in the dead of
night, in the quiet of a hospital ward, with everyone around sleeping, the
minister explained that although we all have rejected God, and although we
deserve to be punished by him, Jesus took that punishment on the cross for us,
so that we can have peace with God. The
minister then prayed a simple prayer with that man, who prayed along with him. The next morning the minister called into the
hospital but was told that the man had died in the night. The nurse told the minister that he had gone
to sleep after he’d left and that he had died, ‘peacefully in his sleep.’ As that minister latter explained, ‘He was
troubled; he met the Lord Jesus; he understood the cross ... Peace with God. That’s what Jesus’ death achieved, and his
resurrection was that guarantee of that.’
Jesus
sends us out to share this peace
With the comfort (‘peace be with you’) comes the
challenge (‘I am sending you’). Stepping
out can be difficult!
During my first term in college I was going to a
Christian Union meeting when someone from my class came up and asked where I
was going. I panicked. So I simply pointed in the direction of the
building to which we were going and replied, ‘that way.’ I wouldn’t tell him that I was going to a
Christian meeting because I was embarrassed about my faith.
But Christ sends us for God’s glory and our
good. One Christian leader said, ‘nothing
can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption
of Christ’s purpose toward the world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are not but husks
and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God
for the fulfilment of his eternal plans. The men [people] who are putting
everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and
most precious rewards’ (J. Campbell Morgan, 1909).
The
Holy Spirit equips us to share the message of peace
A couple of weeks ago Chris Harper-Mercer went into
a classroom of Umpqua College in Oregon.
He secured the room and got the attention of the students. He took his handgun and shot the professor
dead at point blank range. He then got
the students to stand up and state their religion. He was targeting the Christians. Before shooting them he would declare,
‘because you are a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about a second.’
I don’t think that it makes you less spiritual that
you find the thought of sharing your faith difficult. Some people are wired to more outgoing than
others. If sharing you faith seems
daunting I have two words of comfort for you—you are not alone and you are not
alone.
You are not alone in being scared. I assume that many of those disciples felt
scared when they realised that they were being sent back into the very world
that lay beyond those locked doors. True courage is not the absence of nerves
but the willingness to step out and overcome them.
You are not alone because God goes with you. ‘In this world you will have trouble’ (it
won’t be easy) ‘but take heart. I have
overcome the world.’ Then he breathed on
them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit…’
I think this giving of the person of the Holy Spirit as a little taster
of what will happen more fully when the Day of Pentecost arrives. Since the Day of Pentecost God’s Holy Spirit
has been given to all God’s people. He
will enable us to stand firm. He will
open up opportunities. He will take of
inadequate words and use them. Read the
book of Acts and see how the person of the Holy Spirit transformed these
fearful disciples.
Before we finish we need to ask what Jesus means
when he says, ‘if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not
forgive them, they are not forgiven.’ I
don’t think he is giving these individuals the authority to forgive people
their sins or withhold God’s forgiveness from them. I think that he is saying that as we share
the good news of Jesus we are declaring that those who trust in him can be
assured of being forgiven and we warn those who refuse him that there is no
forgiveness apart from him.
Conclusion
‘I’d like five euro worth of religion please.’ I would like peace with God without having to
hear him say to me, ‘I send you.’
Happily it doesn’t work like that!
You see, God is not inviting you to join his mission
because he is in desperate need of your help.
He invites you to join him in mission so that you can share his joy. One group of missionaries were known for
‘glad obedience’. Another missionary was
described as living the most ‘joyfully sacrificial’ life. Do you remember the miners who were trapped
underground for sixty-nine days? One of
them wrote, ‘I do not serve God out of duty but a heart full of gratitude.’ It is for your joy that Christ says both
‘peace be with you’ and ‘I am sending you.’
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