John 20:19-23, “Peace be with you!” Today’s text comes from John 20:19-23, and it is about Jesus coming to the eleven disciples who locked themselves in out of fear for their lives. Verse 19, “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 in fear of the Jews.” Although Mary Magdalene and other women told them Christ had risen, they could not believe it. They were immobilized with the spirit of fear. On the day of the resurrection, they still lived in sorrow and desolation and were guilt-laden. On the day of the resurrection, they locked themselves in a prison cell, — a tomb of fear. They did not have hope for life; they despaired. They had lost the meaning and the purpose in life. Their master was dead, and they all fled, deserted Jesus when He was arrested! They were dead socially, emotionally, and spiritually. In their prison cell, the living Jesus came, whom they thought dead, without realizing that they were the ones who were dead. In their place of death, Jesus came and said, “PEACE BE WITH YOU!That was the first word Jesus said to them in verse 19. In verse 20, again, Jesus said to them, “PEACE BE WITH YOU.” Do we know that only Jesus can give us PEACE? Do we know that the PEACE Jesus offers is the PEACE OF BLOOD? He accomplished peace through his death, shedding all his blood and water to bring peace to us! He was the peace offering on the cross on our behalf to have peace with God, ourselves, and one another. Only Jesus can give us peace. Only in Jesus, we can have peace with God. Do we know that Jesus knew everything written concerning himself in the Bible? Before he was crucified, he knew the kind of suffering and the torture he was to go through. He knew that he would be tortured and beaten to the point that he would not have the semblance of a human, that no one could recognize his human form because his figure was so marred and disfigured (Isaiah 52 and Psalm 22). Do we know that Jesus knew he had to be in hell for three days? Matthew 12:40, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (where the hell is!) Yet he willingly, out of love for us, suffered, tortured, and experienced hell to give us peace and eternal life with God. Jesus was the peace offering offered up to God on our behalf. That was why he first said, “Peace be with you!” You do not have to fear death any longer because I conquered the death. “Peace be with you!” You can have eternal life with God because I bled and died for you in your place! Secondly, in verse 20, Jesus is sending us, his disciples, to be peace offerings to the world around us. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” As the Father has sent me, I am sending you as a peace offering to the world. Jesus wants us to bring peace by forgiving our offenders and those who have harmed us. Jesus teaches us to bless and love those who dislike and hate us. Jesus prayed for those who tortured him, spat on him, and hit him in the face, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!”Rev. Sohn, a Korean pastor whose sons were killed by their classmate, a communist, during the Korean War, adopted the killer who was sentenced to death by the government. Rev. Sohn had to appeal many times to the government to release him so he could adopt him. He said, “I forgive him; he did not know what he was doing. He did it to follow the communist propaganda.” As a result, instead of dying as a killer, the killer later became a pastor and lived as the son of Rev. Sohn. A missionary named Thomas from Wales went to Korea to share the gospel. But he was captured, beaten, and was about to be killed with a bamboo lance. Before he died, he handed the Bible to the one who was killing him, pleading with him to take the bible. That bible became the seed for spreading the gospel in Korea, which was given with his death. That sort of Christ-like attitude is how to realize peace on earth, not with superficial gestures and words like ‘We must respect other religions. Every religion has the truth about God.’ Mere talk does not amount to anything, especially when the talk is not based on the truth of God. Jesus is the only way by which we can come to God. We must teach the truth with our attitude, with our actions, not with words. Jesus has sent us in the same way he has come to us -his disciples- as servants, as peace offerings for our friends, families, relatives, and people around us. As I have died to forgive your sins, you must die to yourselves to forgive the sins of those who hurt and harm you. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!”Lastly, if we look at vs. 22, after Jesus said, “Peace be with you,” he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” The breath here, both in Hebrew (Ruach) and Greek (Pneuma), means the same: breath, wind, and spirit, referring to the Holy Spirit, the living breath of God. We see similar scenes in the Old Testament that God breathed into humans: in Genesis 2:7, God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of Adam, and he became a living being. Before God breathed, Adam was just a form molded out of dust from the ground. Again, in Ezekiel 37, God showed Ezekiel the valley full of dry bones and skeletons, which was the spiritual reality of Israelites not having any hope, living in desolation and despair, being uprooted from their land, and commanded Ezekiel to prophesy over them, 37:9, “…Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live…” In both incidents, God breathed into the mold of dust and on those who were dead, dry bones and skeletons. In other words, God breathed on the dead people to restore them to life. The wind is an emblem of the Spirit of God, representing his quickening powers. When Jesus breathed on his eleven disciples, who were dead spiritually, not knowing who Jesus was even after being with Jesus for three and a half years, being taught about Messiah, –his death and resurrection for the salvation of humanity. Yet, they locked themselves in their fear of life, not knowing the power of resurrection. Jesus took pity and breathed on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” You, dead people, you, dry bones, come to life! Come out from your tomb; fear not, I have conquered the death. Do not think that you have no meaning and purpose in life. I am sending you to bring other dead people to life, as I have done for you. Those of us who say that we are Christians yet do not have the hope of eternal life, not being able to believe in the power of God who raises dead to life, those of us who cannot believe that the blood of Jesus has the power to restore us both physically and spiritually, who see friends or family who are not right with God, yet not having the urge to help them out by praying for their souls, those of us who do not have any compassion towards those who might get thrown into the lake of fire because they do not have faith in Jesus as the son of God who died for our sins, those of us who cannot forgive people, our family members or friends for the things they had done in the past or holding grudges against them, those of us who do not have the joy of salvation and love for God from deep within, do we hear Jesus breathing on us, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit”? “Come, breathe, from four winds, and breathe into these slain!”
2024-03-31