Have you
ever been given a task to perform without the necessary tools to complete the
job? Have you ever felt unprepared or
unequipped? When I was in my first year
of seminary, I was a substitute teacher in the Round Rock school district, just
north of Austin. One day I was assigned
a PE class. The classes in this school
were on block scheduling, which meant that they lasted around 90 minutes. I was given the task of crowd control for over
50 students for an hour and a half. Just
taking roll was a challenge. I was told
to have the students either work on homework or play pick-up basketball. After a while, some of the kids got bored and
decided to leave. I found myself chasing
two or three students who had gone out one door, and then when I came back into
the gym, two or three others went out another door. There was a total of 4 doors in the gym and
so you can imagine that there was no way to keep the students from
leaving. I tried to find out the names
of the young men who had deserted the class, but of course, their peers would
not rat them out. So, I decided that
rather than trying to win an unwinnable battle, I would just let what happened
with those lads happen. I was given a
job to do, but I didn’t have the necessary resources to do it. Maybe you’ve found yourself in a similar
situation where you were in over your head.
Isn’t it
amazing that of all that ways that God could have chosen to complete his rescue
mission, he’s chosen to use hard-hearted, close-minded, stubborn, fallible,
gullible, fearful, scarred, and broken individuals like you and me! Often, we don’t feel up to the task. Why me, we ask? The job’s just too big!
Let’s
reflect on John 20:19-23: “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
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.’ When he had said this, he breathed
on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are
forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
Later, in
this story, as recorded for us in Acts, we read of 120 people gathered for
prayer in an upper room. How did 120,
average, ordinary, flawed, yet redeemed people, transform the world and turn it
right side up? When Jesus was arrested,
his fearful disciples fled in terror.
Only a few women and the disciple Jesus loved followed him all the way
to the cross. How did these same people
accomplish so much for the kingdom of God?
The answer: Jesus equipped them
for the task. Yes, he sent them with
their own scars out into the world. But
he also sent them with the power and presence of his own Holy Spirit! Just as God breathed into Adam the breath of
life, so Jesus breathed on his disciples and they received the wind, the
breath, the Spirit of Holiness.
And this is
crucial. They would not have been up for
the task at hand had Jesus not given them his own presence and power through
his Spirit. And what a task they were
given! The salvation of the world
depended on their willingness to share the message of the gospel – the message
of grace and love and renewal that can only be found in Jesus Christ!
Just as
Jesus sent these fearful, scarred disciples out into the world of the 1st
century, so we are sent out into our world.
Jesus sends us out to our families and our friends. He sends us to our neighbors and
co-workers. We’re sometimes sent to
foreign fields, but more often we’re sent just down the street, or even in our
own living rooms.
We might
even be sent to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Sometimes we’re sent across the church
aisle. And we carry with us our fears
and our scars. But we also carry with us
the peace of Jesus. And we’ve been
equipped for the task because Jesus doesn’t send us out empty, he has empowered
us with the gift of his Holy Spirit.
So, may our encounters with the risen Jesus
remind us that though we bare scars and harbor fears – though we are sent to a
world of chaos and confusion – we will not only survive the storms and pass
safely through the fire, God will use us in his mission of reconciliation and
restoration to bring wholeness and well-being to his creation. Jesus says to us, “As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.” - Shay
When I did
youth ministry, for an icebreaker, we sometimes had scar “show and tell.” Basically, we took turns showing off our
various scars and telling everyone how we got them. Of course, we limited this to the scars that were
visible with all our clothes on! One of
the reasons that I’ve chosen to remain tattoo free is that I already have so
many scars, I don’t need to add any more marks on my body.
What about
you? Do you have many scars? Think about your own scars. Where
are they? How did you get them? Have they faded through time? Some of those scars may not be physical, but
emotional, or spiritual.
One of the
fascinating things about Jesus’ resurrection body was that he still carried the
scars of his crucifixion. Through the
resurrection, his body had been transformed and glorified, but his hands and
his side still bore the marks of the price of redemption. And because Jesus has been raised never to
die again, and because Jesus has eternally embraced his humanity, it seems that
we will see those same scars on his hands and on his side when we see him face
to face.
John 20:19-23 states: “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
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.’ When he had said this, he breathed
on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are
forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
Jesus’ scars
were the result of his faithfulness. He
didn’t receive them for doing something foolish or sinful. He didn’t acquire them for his own misdeeds –
he acquired them because of our missteps and our mistakes. But these scars weren’t meaningless. They are the scars that bring us
redemption. By his wounds, we have been
healed.
The visible
scars on the resurrected body of Jesus show us the continuity between the body
that was laid in the tomb and the body that arose on the third day. The tomb is empty! But there’s a further significance to these
visible wounds.
All that is
right and good and true and loving and of eternal value will last into
eternity. And this seems to includes scars – the
scars of Jesus and, maybe, our own scars too. We
often hear the phrase, “you can’t take it with you.” But this statement isn’t 100% true. All that we accomplish in this life, when
achieved by the power of the Holy Spirit, when done in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and when performed for the glory of God the Father, will last
into the age to come. Could it be, that
like Jesus, we’ll carry some scars as a sign of the fruit of our labors? Who knows, but I think, quite possibly.
We all have scars. Many of the scars we bare, whether physical,
or psychological, are a result of the pain we’ve caused ourselves. Some come from the hurt that others have
handed to us. And some, as mentioned
above, come from the good that we’ve done for others. But we all have scars. And though we bare these marks on our body,
and though our hearts may be heavy with the weight of our scars, we are to use
those scars in the service of our Savior.
As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us out into this scarred world, marred by sin. - Shay
With the
hippy dippy and flower children movements of the sixties and more recent
anti-war demonstrations, we naturally associate the idea of “peace”, as the
absence of war or a lack of conflict.
This is one of its primary meanings in both English and the Biblical
languages. However, the Hebrew word shalom which we translate as peace has a broader meaning than we
typically imply when we use this term. Shalom in the Old Testament also
described wholeness and well-being. Not
just the absence of conflict, but the enjoyment and the fullness of God’s
blessing.
Ezekiel
34:25-31 gives us a good example of what peace,
or shalom looks like. In this passage, YHWH, through the prophet
Ezekiel paints a picture of what it is to live in peace when he describes his
people’s future under a new covenant. “I
will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild animals from the land,
so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely. I will make them and the region around my
hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall
be showers of blessing. The trees of the
field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be secure on their soil; and they
shall know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke, and save
them from the hands of those who enslaved them.
They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor shall the animals of
the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no one shall make them
afraid. I will provide for them a
splendid vegetation so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the
land, and no longer suffer the insults of the nations. They shall know that I, the Lord their God,
am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord
God. You are my sheep, the sheep of my
pasture and I am your God, says the Lord God.”
What a
beautiful image of what it is to live in peace! In John 20:19-23, in the midst of his disciples’ fear, Jesus comes to
them and offers them his peace. Let’s
read the passage. “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 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.’ When he had said this,
he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are
forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
Because
Jesus is risen from the dead, the disciples can be sure that their future will
be a future of peace. There’s will be a
future of wholeness and of well-being.
One day, they will enjoy life eternal - life as it was always meant to be
in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But even in this life, they will have peace,
because they’ve encountered the risen Jesus.
But this peace isn’t the kind of peace that often gets marketed as the
“health and wealth” or “prosperity” gospel.
No, this is a peace, not rooted in fantasy, but in reality – in the
nitty gritty of real life and real community.
In his
farewell discourse in John 15, Jesus had warned his followers that the world
would hate them and that just as many had persecuted Jesus, so many would
persecute them. But in that same
discourse, Jesus promised his disciples peace.
He said this in John 16:33, “I have said this to you, so that in me you
may have peace. In the world you face
persecution. But take courage; I have
conquered the world!”
The kind of
peace that Jesus gave his disciples on that Sunday morning wasn’t the kind of
peace that spares a person from the strife of this life, but a peace that gave
them wholeness and wellbeing in the middle of the storm.
It’s the
kind of peace that takes one through the fire.
The fire that would destroy those not in Christ, serves to refine,
redeem, and renew those in him.
And this is the kind of peace that we need. It’s the kind of peace that this world
needs. A peace that passes all
understanding. A peace that can face the
chaos of life, and make sense of this world, knowing that there’s life beyond
the present form of this world. Our fears can be overcome by
the peace that Jesus gives. As Julian of
Norwich once wrote, “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”. With this peace, we can pass through the
storms of life with Jesus by our side.
But like Jesus, we will acquire scars along the way. - Shay
