“PEACE WITH YOU”
Saint John 20. 19-31
Quasimodogeniti: 3 April Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
Quasimodogeniti---"as newborn babes " desire the sincere milk of the word; so you eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ and grow into Him unto eternity.
In the church's collect appointed for this Mass Day, you prayed that after joyously celebrating the solemnities of the Lord's Resurrection, that you, by the help of God's grace, might bring forth the fruits in your lives and conversations.
Just as there is more than the Crucifixion, that is, The Resurrection! So too, there is more than the Resurrection, that is, the coming presence of Jesus into one's life; the shared fellowship of Christ and His Church! Jesus did more for His disciples than rise on Easter morn... He then visited them personally that they might have delivered to them His victorious Body and Blood, that is, Himself. That's the point of Quasimodogeniti.
Parents understand that just because the baby boy or girl is born, that their vocation as parents does not then come to an end. Just because the infant is given life that does not mean that it has arrived at the end of its journey. Without constant milk, without daily nursing at the breasts of its mother, the babe would die. Love means that its parent feed it. Love means that it earnestly eats and drinks. And although a human child is soon weaned from its human mother, it nonetheless goes on being fed meals by its parents; goes on delighting in eating and fellowshipping with its family, hopefully for the remainder of its life (if even reduced to certain yearly festive re-unions).
"...[t]he same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'"
Peace is many things. It can mean merely the cessation of physical hostilities. But even in earthly and worldly conflict one can have real peace. For real peace is that reconciled relationship with the Holy Trinity; with God. Real Peace is Jesus and the real Jesus is Peace. This isn't simply one of His "titles," it is His character, reality and essence.
One can't be right with God without the presence of Christ. Just thinking back about what Jesus actually did 2000 years ago isn't enough. Just meditating on Biblical truisms, aphorisms, proverbs and "proof texts" doesn't make a child of the heavenly Father; sitting at the dinner table with God marks one an heir; dining with and conversing with Jesus is what Heavenly Fellowship consists of.
He came to them and announced Himself: "I AM with you," or: I with you, I for you, I AM your Peace. They didn't then discuss the theological import, they didn't memorize what He said for a test or for future witnessing or debating opportunities, they certainly didn't "vote" on it; they observed and handled HIS BODY---His hands, His feet, His side.
Jesus then ate and drank with His disciples and they with Him. But more than fish and honeycomb, they ate Him in faith. They heard His words, His teachings, His Easter-Resurrection Reality. They believed. They were fed on the pure milk which is the pure Word---in all its forms: scripture, Baptism, Eucharist, Absolution---it's all Jesus.
The "so what" to all that I've said...the "what does this mean in my life " to all of this, all of "that back then, " is found in How Jesus determined to come to you with the same Peace, the Same Body and Blood, the same Person: "...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.'"
Peace, Jesus, comes to you by the very Words and Action Words (the Sacraments) that His called ministers distribute in your midst; "for where two or three of you are gathered there AM I, (I AM) in the midst of you." That, dear friends, is catechesis talk, confession & absolution talk, preaching & hearing talk, and most of all, Sacramental eating and drinking talk.
You are all real people with real problems. You're all sinner/saints who daily sin and come under much temptation and trial. You probably feel much like the riflemen of the British army manning the makeshift walls of Roarke 's Drift after fending off the ump-teenth attack of wave after wave of Zulus: "when will the battle ever end; how much longer can I stand and not fall?" You desire peace. You need even more comfort and re-connection with the Lord. Jesus brings it to you this morning behind these doors, in this upper room. He brings the same Body, pierced and punctured, that He did then. He gives you the same blood to drink as He shed on Calvary to buy you back from war, violence, pain, death and hell. He gives you the same blood as He gave the disciples in the upper room on Maundy Thursday. You hear with ears, identical to the ears which the Galilean followers had, the same message of love and forgiveness. I breathe on you now the same breath which the Lord breathed onto His own, the breath of the Holy Spirit, which comes to you in His Word, and brings you His Word, His Peace, His Presence: "I forgive you your sins, Peace be with you..."
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost