Sunday, April 7, 2013

A World of Peace


A neighbor's driveway and the frozen lake on the 6th day of April.
By having Jesus repeat "peace" three times in chapter 20:19-31 John wants us to know that it is more than a greeting.  It is a condition that the Resurrection creates, a world of peace where everything is in harmony, like Paradise.
It's clear that the world is not in harmony, so what is Jesus talking about?  The serenity that Jesus offers is not freedom from the storm but peace amid the storm.  The peaceful world that his Resurrection creates is outside of time.  We might imagine the Risen Jesus as the portal through which we have access to that world.
In the first chapter of the Apocalypse, Jesus says, "I am the Living One.  I once was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever."   It's the same title the two strangers use in talking to the women at the tomb.
Although Jesus died the death of the cross, he exists now only as "life."  All of us linked in faith to the Living One possess a life that will outlive death, a life that already here in this world reaches into the other world, a world of total harmony and peace created by the Resurrection, a world that is woven into and through our world.
The Living One is right now in us and among us.  By binding us to himself, he binds us to the world of peace in which he lives.

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