When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (John 20:19–21)

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:26–29)

When my kids were quite little, I had a weekly practice of driving them from Kingston — where we lived — to Brockville, to visit with their grandmother. This trip now seems like nothing. But back then, loading two littles into the car with enough baby and toddler equipment in tow, including snacks and the favourite mixed tape of Sesame Street Music, and driving down the highway in our minivan that seemed to just gather Cheerios and Fishy Crackers in all of its crevices — that was a huge job. I was also functioning on very little sleep. Working full-time and parenting littles is not for the faint of heart.

Despite the ordeal, the trip gave me time with a woman who loved my kids fiercely, and was learning to, well, tolerate me. (We did eventually love each other very much, but that’s a story for another time.)

It has always been important to me to keep my kids in touch with people who had the intention to love and nurture them into being adults. My mother-in-law, their grandmother, was exactly this kind of person.

One morning, after I had wrestled my two into the car, had cued up the Sesame Street tunes (I can still sing most of them by heart — shall we start with “Happy Tapping with Elmo”?), and had just pulled out of the driveway, one of the two piped up: “Mom, do you know where you are going? Do you really know how to get there? Grandma isn’t your mommy, after all. How do you know this?”

This was after I had already taken the kids to see their grandmother many times. Had always delivered on what I said I was going to do. And still the kid questioned my ability to get them from Kingston to Brockville.

I confess I was a little miffed. And so I responded with: “Oops — I don’t know the route. So I guess we’re headed to Montreal.”

Stupid parenting moment. Because then there was a full-on meltdown in the backseat of the minivan that persisted for most of the drive. The subtlety of Brockville being on the way to Montreal was entirely lost on both kids. All they heard was that they weren’t going to see their beloved grandmother. They arrived at my mother-in-law’s house with tear-stained faces and snotty noses — not helpful for endearing me to their grandmother in that moment. I was left with this vague, sinking feeling that somehow I was completely inadequate as a parent, because my own kids couldn’t even trust that I could get them from Point A to Point B reliably, even though I had demonstrated my trustworthiness many times before.

It turned out okay, though. And that’s something I will always be grateful for, because we lost my mother-in-law too early. But she went knowing that all of us loved her very much.

Here’s the thing about trust: it is not a one-time event. Trust is not a box you check and move on from. Trust is a practice. It is something the body has to learn over and over again, because fear has a way of wiping the hard drive clean every single time.

This week, the Lectionary gives us the story of Jesus appearing to the disciples repeatedly after his Resurrection. And I want to park here for a minute, because I think we blow past the setup too quickly. This is after Jesus had already appeared to the women at the tomb. Mary Magdalene — who Working Preacher’s commentary reminds us was called the apostolorum apostola, the “apostle to the apostles” — had already run and told the disciples that Jesus was alive. The first person to preach the Resurrection was a woman. Let that sink in for a moment. The most important news in the history of the faith was first entrusted to someone the culture of the time considered an unreliable witness. God has always had a thing for choosing the people the world overlooks. 

Despite having received this news — the best possible news — the disciples were all frightened, huddled together, and locked into a room. The locked doors are not a minor detail. They are the whole point. These are people paralyzed by fear. They had heard the good news, and they were still terrified. Because knowing something in your head and trusting it in your body are two very different things.

And into that locked room, Jesus shows up. Not with a lecture. Not with “I told you so.” Not even with “Why are you hiding?” The first words out of his mouth are: “Peace be with you.”

Then Jesus showed them his hands and his side — the evidence that it was, in fact, their beloved Rabbi, the Messiah. He didn’t erase the wounds. He showed them. The scars were part of the proof. And once they saw, once they recognized him, he said it again: “Peace be with you.”

And then — and this is the part that gets me — he didn’t just comfort them. He commissioned them. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And he breathed the Holy Spirit onto them. The commentary at Working Preacher points out that this breathing echoes the creation story in Genesis — God breathing life into the dust of the earth. It is an act of new creation. Jesus is not just consoling a bunch of scared people in a locked room. He is remaking them. He is turning frightened disciples into sent ones.

But then there’s Thomas.

Poor Thomas. We have disrespected this man for two thousand years, calling him “Doubting Thomas,”, as though asking for evidence is some kind of spiritual failure. But here’s what the commentary highlights and what I think we desperately need to hear: Thomas wasn’t asking for anything the other disciples hadn’t already received. They believed because they saw. Thomas just wasn’t in the room the first time. He missed the meeting. That’s it. And when he said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” he was asking for the exact same experience the others had already been given.

And you know what Jesus did? He showed up again. A whole week later. He walked through the locked doors again, said “Peace be with you” again, and then turned directly to Thomas and said: “Here. Put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Jesus met Thomas exactly where Thomas was. No shaming. No guilt trip. Just presence and proof and patience.

Thomas’s response — “My Lord and my God!” — is actually the highest confession of faith in the entire Gospel of John. The so-called doubter made the most profound declaration of belief in the whole book.

And when Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” the word blessed might be better translated as happy, or content, or — and here’s the kicker — at peace. Jesus is not scolding Thomas or setting up a hierarchy of better and lesser believers. He is extending a promise to everyone who comes after. To us. To the ones who will never touch the wounds but are still invited into the same trust.

I wish I could tell you that each time Jesus said “Peace be with you,” he used a different word, because I really believe he was offering something different each time. But truthfully, the word was Shalom — a common Hebrew greeting. Except Shalom is so much more than “hello” or “calm down.” Shalom means wholeness. Completeness. It means things being set right — in your body, in your relationships, in the whole cosmos. It is personal renewal and cosmic restoration wrapped into one word.

The first Shalom meets the disciples in their fear: I know you are terrified. Peace.

The second Shalom comes with the commission: I am sending you out into the world. Peace goes with you.

The third Shalom is for Thomas, for the one who needed more time, more proof, more patience: I haven’t forgotten you. Peace — even here, even now.

And maybe this is the point.

Because just like that time in my minivan with two tantruming children — when I was questioning my life choices and wondering how we would all survive the drive — trust is not something we can simply muster up on command. Even when reliability has been demonstrated over time. Even when integrity has been shown again and again. Fear has a way of making us forget everything we’ve already been shown.

The disciples had heard the testimony. They had been told Jesus was alive. And they were still locked in a room. Thomas had heard from his closest friends. And he still needed to see for himself. And Jesus — rather than being exasperated by any of it — just kept showing up. Kept saying Shalom. Kept breathing peace into rooms full of people who couldn’t quite trust it yet.

That, I think, is the Gospel.

Not that we are people who have it all figured out. Not that we are spiritual champions who never doubt. But that we are people in locked rooms, with tear-stained faces and snotty noses, who keep getting visited by a God who is not done with us. A God who shows up — through locked doors, through our skepticism, through our fear — and says the same thing, as many times as we need to hear it:

Peace be with you.

And maybe, eventually — not all at once, but slowly, in the way that trust actually works — we start to believe it.

Blessings today and remember you are Loved

~Rev. Lynne

Audio File: https://audio.com/lynne-gardiner/audio/office-hours-peace-be-with-you-and-your-minivan-full-of-cheerios