“Presence, Pandemic, and Peace” - April 19, 2020

John 20:19-23

 

            All of us are affected by the covid pandemic in different ways, but we are all affected.  There is no easy equation between what one person endures and another person’s problems. 

Some people go through the actual suffering of someone in a hospital bed, and many more before this is over will not have that luxury.  There are homeless people in our country who have nowhere to go or no one to take them to help when they get sick.  There are countless people in India who live in crowded conditions where distance is not possible who will pass away surrounded by people who watch fearfully, thinking, “That will be me in a week or two.”

There are those who are well, but grieving the loss of a loved one, perhaps several.

There are those who deliver food to the sick and think, “I have to be careful; I have to be careful.”  There are those who drop off groceries or drive delivery trucks who wonder about the condition of the people behind those doors.  Theirs, and others’, is the constant anxiety of infection.

There are the people, though, without jobs.  They are laid off for now, and for now may have enough to get by, but they know it won’t last forever.  If they have work when the quarantine is lifted, will their salaries be cut?  If they need help, will the food banks and assistance programs have enough to offer?  Once the moratorium on evictions ends, will they be able to pay their rent before the extra charges and back payments catch up with them?

What if there is a second wave of infection when this first one has passed?  Will a weakened system be able to handle it?  How far do we hang back in the meantime to see when it is safe to resume some – not even all – activity? 

There is no single, universal level of pain or anxiety.  Nor do people handle what comes to them the same way.  Some people just naturally worry more, in the same way that some people have a higher threshold for enduring physical pain.

As we respond to any of it, however – and this is part of the cruelty of this pandemic (and I do mean cruelty) – anyone’s instinct is to reach out to the sufferer and touch them.  If you have ever been with someone who is dying, you have seen whoever is closest to their side reach out and hold their hand or brush the hair back on their forehead.  It is one of the gentlest, kindest ways of conveying the love that is in the room.  But this disease forbids that.

If you have ever been with someone who is in extreme anxiety, you know that words may make things worse, and the best thing to do is to hug someone or put a hand on their back or shoulder.  Not these days.  And be aware that not being able to do that will increase your own unease and maybe leave you feeling guilty about knowing what could have helped and not having done it.  But hold back all the same.

There are times that those walls and those doors between people have to stay closed.  It will not be forever.  Sometimes fears are justified.  There really is danger, and we are not always able to assess it well from our own vantage point. 

But neither are we able fully to assess the help that is on its way in those moments, and that is where today’s gospel lesson speaks.  It was the very day that Jesus rose from the dead, John tells us, and

“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.’” [John 20:19]

Those were his first words to them.

“Peace be with you.”

            The door that was closed to everyone else did not keep Jesus out.  Later on in the encounter Jesus would show the disciples his wounds to prove it was really him, and he would repeat the process again for Thomas a week later because he wasn’t there the first time.  In another visit with them he would eat with them, to demonstrate that he wasn’t a ghost or a zombie, but if you get tied up in all of the metaphysical stuff that nobody is ever really going to be able to resolve, you miss the real point anyway.

            That point is that the disciples were locked away from the outside world by a justifiable fear.  Jesus had been killed, and his followers, if caught, would likely also be killed.  So they hunkered down with their fears and worries in a place of danger that they could not leave.

            That was when Jesus reached out to them in a way that nobody else could, and offered them the peace that they desperately needed when no one else was able to give it.  And really, when we want to help someone in the deepest way, and find that we cannot do it, it is best to remember that it is our place ultimately to point people to him, not to ourselves.  Sometimes we can provide what someone needs, but only sometimes.  Jesus can provide it always.

“Peace be with you,”

He said that to the disciples in that locked room.  Three days earlier he had said the same thing to them in the same place, before they knew just how much they would need it.  Then he had said it this way:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” [John 14:27]

He said it then and I believe that if you listen, you can hear him say it now.