John 20:19

John 20:19

The words "Peace be unto you" were the ordinary Jewish form of greeting, at least in later ages. The form marked the grave, religious character of the Hebrew race. Just as the Greek, in his natural gaiety of heart, bid his neighbour "Hail" or "Joy" just as the Roman, with his traditional notions of order and law, wished him safety so the Jew, with a deep insight into the scope of the word, would just wish him "Peace." The form itself was of high antiquity. When the steward of Joseph's house would reassure the trembling brethren of the patriarch, who had found their money in their sacks, and had returned to Egypt, he said, in language which he had probably, as an Egyptian slave, heard from his master, and repeated by his orders, "Peace be unto you." When the religious Jew would invoke God's blessing on the holy city, it took this form. He would pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "Peace be within thy walls, prosperity within thy palaces." And thus, as a great Hebrew scholar has observed, we never find this greeting of peace used in the Old Testament as a mere conventional expression which had lost its meaning. "Peace be unto you." The ordinary Jewish greeting, no doubt, as it fell on the ears of the apostles, assured them that Jesus had re-entered, at any rate for a while, and under conditions, upon the social life of man; but the form, the old familiar form, which gave this assurance, was charged now with a spiritual meaning and power which should last through all time. What, then, is the peace of Christ's resurrection blessing?

I. The exact word which our Lord used undoubtedly means, in the first place, thriving, prospering, when a thing is as it should be according to its capacity or its origin. In this way the word implies the absence of disturbing causes, of injury, of sickness, of unhappiness, of want. And thus the idea of rest results from the original meaning of the word. A man has peace, it has been well said, when things are with him as they should be; and peace then is the absence of causes which would disturb the well-being of a society or of a man. It is that well-being conceived of as undisturbed. The peace which Christ breathed on the apostles was that which is needed by a spiritual society. And this peace might mean, first of all, freedom from interference on the part of those who did not belong to it. No doubt as they listened to the sounds of the Jewish mob out in the street, resting as they were in their upper chamber on that Easter evening, the apostles thought of this sense of the blessing. It was for them an insurance against rough handling, against persecution. Certainly it was no part of our Lord's design that Christians should be at constant war with Pagan or Jewish society. On the contrary, the worshippers of Christ were to do what they could to live in social harmony with those who did not know or love their Master. And yet, if the apostles had thought that this was the meaning of the blessing, they would soon be undeceived. Pentecost was quickly followed by imprisonments, by martyrdoms. For three centuries the Church was almost continuously persecuted. The peace which Christ promised is independent of outward troubles. It certainly does not consist in their absence. Does the blessing, then, refer to concord among Christians? Certainly it was meant we cannot doubt it that peace should reign within the fold of Christ. He who is the author of peace and lover of concord so willed it; but neither here nor elsewhere did He impose His will mechanically upon baptised men. Such is our human imperfection that the very earnestness of faith has constantly been itself fatal to peace. Controversy, no doubt, is a bad thing; but there are worse things in the world than controversy. The existence of controversy does not forfeit the great gift, which our Lord made to His apostles on the evening of Easter day; for that gift was a gift we cannot doubt it chiefly and first, if not exclusively, to the individual soul.

II. Now, upon what conditions does the existence of this peace in the soul depend. (1) A first condition of its existence is the soul's possession of some definite religious principles. I say "some principles," because many men, who only know portions of the religious truth which is to be known and had in this life, yet make the most of the little they know, and may thus enjoy a large measure of inward peace. What is wanted by us men is something to cling to, something to fall back upon, something that will support and guide us amid the perplexities of thought amid the impetuosities of passion. Without religious principles the human soul is like a ship at sea without chart, without compass. (2) The peace of the soul must be based on harmony between the conscience and our knowledge of truth. Now, this harmony is disturbed, to a certain extent, by the plain facts of every human life to an immense extent by the facts of most human lives. Conscience, by its very activity conscience, when it is honest and energetic destroys peace, because it discovers a want of harmony between life and our highest knowledge. And here, too, our risen Lord is the giver of peace. What we cannot achieve, left to ourselves, we do achieve in and through Him. We hold out to Him the hand of faith; He reaches forward to us His inexhaustible merits, His word of life, the sacraments of His Gospel; we become one with Him. And thus the work of righteousness is peace, and its effect on us is quietness and assurance for ever. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. (3) And the peace of the soul depends, lastly, on its embracing an adequate and legitimate object of affection. We are so constituted that our hearts must find repose in that which they can really love. Most people pass their lives in trying to solve this problem by attaching themselves to some created object. The love of power, the love of wealth, the love of position, the love of reputation these are merely, at the best, temporary experiments. The attempt to find peace in the play of the domestic affections is much more respectable much more likely to succeed for a term of years for the heart is engaged in this way seriously and deeply. But neither husband, nor wife, nor son, nor daughter, can we know it be counted on as a perpetual possession. Death parts us all, sooner or later, for a time; and if the whole heart has been given to the lost friend or relative, peace is gone. When our risen Lord said in the upper chamber "Peace be unto you," He made His great and precious blessing an actual gift. He presented Himself risen from the tomb, inaccessible to the assaults of death, in His human as in His Divine nature, as an object of exhaustless affection to the human heart. The secret of inward peace is simplicity in the affections and in the purpose the repose of the soul in presence of a love and of a beauty before which all else must pale.

H. P. Liddon, No. 880, Penny Pulpit.

References: John 20:19. S. Baring Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 152; J. M. Neale, Sermons in a Religious House,2nd series, vol. i., p. 41; W. H. Jellie, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 309; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 194; vol. ii., p. 247; vol. iv., p. 264; vol. xiv., p. 230; C. Stanford, From Calvary to Olivet,p. 164; B. F. Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord,p. 79; A. P. Stanley, Church Sermons,vol. i., p. 385; J. Vaughan, Sermons,7th series, p. 91; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation,vol. ii., p. 240; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxi., No. 1254; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice,p. 80.