Second Sunday of Easter, April 24, 2022 – Acts 5:12-16; Revelation 1:9-11A, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31

We must not mistake the title, Divine Mercy Sunday, to have an exclusively individual or personal meaning. It has a much broader meaning than that. In order to understand today’s gospel, a couple of things we need to keep in mind. The first is that scripture scholars caution us not to read modern psychological motivations into the scriptures. That doesn’t mean that the ancients didn’t understand human psychology much the same as we do, but they didn’t have the same analytical approach to human emotions and human intentions. And so, they would not be thinking in the same framework that we think. So, what I’m about to do, I say with a caution.

The other thing to realize is that there are not 1, but 3 elephants in this upper room and each of them is huge. The first elephant is denial. Peter, one of the disciples in that room, had denied knowing Jesus, not once, but three times. The second is abandonment. The other ten, along with Peter, had run away at the crisis hour. They ran and hid in the very room they’re hiding in now, with the doors locked. The third is, for want of a better word, withdrawal from the community. Thomas, who is another of the ten, refuses to enter into the community’s newfound faith. Although he’s still a member of the community, and sitting there with the rest of them, he has shut himself off from their view of reality. And so, as Jesus enters the room, He has to deal with all 3 elephants. And he does it in the simplest way. All He says, as He enters the room, is, “Shalom.” “Peace be with you” in English. And that one word contains so many meanings it’s just incredible.

The first thing is that it’s proactive. And I hate that word. I really do. But, there’s no other word for it. Jesus takes the bull by the horns. He does not wait for them to sputter some sort of apology before saying, “That’s alright. I forgive you.” No. He starts off by stating what the mood will be in this room. The mood is Shalom. But see, that word is also is very commonplace. Jesus is not making a big deal out of this. This is the word that ordinary Jews would have used as they passed each other on the street. It might have been very warm and cordial if it was someone they knew and liked very much. It might have been perfunctory if it was just a passing acquaintance. Or it might simply have been civil if it was a stranger or someone they didn’t like much. But the custom was you said, “Shalom,” and the person said back to you, “Shalom aleichem.” That’s all it was. And Jesus is using this common form of politeness to set the tone in this room.

The third thing is that it’s tremendously tender. It’s tender because Jesus is not making something special of what he’s doing, but rather approaching his friends, his not-so-good friends, on a level that they can appreciate. It’s a very gentle, gentle thing to do. Very tender. It’s also – and this is amazing – it’s tremendously self-effacing. When St. John tells us that Jesus show them his hands and his side, that means nothing to us. But you’ve got to think about this now. Jesus is wearing his chiton, a long robe, belted at the waist. He also probably has on the equivalent of an overcoat. We call it a chasuble today. Other places call it any one of a number of different words we have for it. But he has to take this off. Then he has to get his arms and shoulders out of this. He’s half naked. Even that doesn’t me anything to us, but in his society it was scandalous. Did you ever drive around Sullivan County and pass the Hasidic camps? There is a fence all around the swimming pool so that we cannot see when they are using the swimming pool. Inside that community the boys swim at one time, the girls at another so they may not even see one another in bathing suits. It is a part of Hebrew piety not to look at the unclothed body of another, except your own family in the privacy of your own home for specific reasons. So what Jesus has done is scandalous. He is showing his naked body so that they can have shalom.

The next thing to notice is that it’s inclusive. He doesn’t deliver his pronouncement of forgiveness from on high, standoffishly. He immediately says, “As the Father sent me, I sent you. We’re all in this together. I wish you peace. Now you’re going to wish one another peace.”

It’s also empowering. “Receive the Holy Spirit. Receive the Holy Spirit. What I am asking you to do is difficult to do. I am empowering you to do it.” Why? This is the last thing that shalom is. It is missionary. “You must do as I have done. It is the only salvation of the world, that the shalom I have wished you, you should wish and impart to others.”

I asked you before the readings began, “Have you ever been forgiven by someone?” I don’t mean a telephone call where someone says, “Oh, that’s alright.” I mean that you have done something truly unacceptable, and somebody has embraced you with a big hug and a kiss, and made it so that you are not in debt. You don’t have to spend a lifetime apologizing over and over for what you’ve done. It’s over with and it’s like it never happened. It that has ever happened to you, then you understand what is happening in this story. But you also understand what’s being asked of you, because you and me, we all have somebody that we have not forgiven. We may have let it go. We may be on speaking terms again. But we have not really forgiven it, or we’ve forgiven it in a very perfunctory way that leaves the other person in our debt, and we are in a superior position to them.

What Divine Mercy Sunday calls us to do is to receive, once and for all, in all of its fullness, the shalom that Jesus wished on his friends, on his followers, on his spiritual descendants right down to today. This is a world that is desperately in need of shalom. And it can be, it can be transformative … if we let it.