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“Peace be with you.”

These words of Jesus, spoken to the Apostles after his Resurrection, capture for us exactly the spirit with which we can and should experience this Easter season. While this might seem trite and obvious, the fact is that the Lord’s words took the Apostles by incredible surprise, drawing from St. Thomas the confession of Jesus’ divinity: “My Lord and my God!” If we consider the context in which Christ offers his disciples the peace of Easter, we have a better chance at capturing something of their original force, and meeting Christ more immediately in our own souls.

First, we must remember how it is that the Apostles last saw Jesus. For many of them, they had last seen him alive in the Garden of Gethsemane; he had just been arrested, and they were in the act of running away to save themselves. Peter had just denied Christ three times when they last saw one another across the angry crowds at the house of Caiaphas. John alone had accompanied the Lord to his cross, and the last John saw of Jesus was at the tomb Joseph of Arimathea had offered for the Lord’s burial. For all but John, the Apostles had last seen the Lord while in the act of, or immediately after betraying him. We should remember that John, too, even though he later follows Christ to the cross, had initially run away and left Jesus alone to be arrested.

This alone gives power to Christ’s offer of peace. It is not a casual offer. The Risen Christ is offering peace to those who have wronged him, despite having been his friends. He is showing mercy to men who have hurt him directly.

The Apostles may well have expected what seemed to be the ghost of their friend and master to bring the weight of their failures down upon their heads and condemn them for their undeniable betrayals. And yet, they receive mercy. What’s more, this mercy is not offered sparingly, or only once. Thomas was not present to hear the first “peace by with you,” and so the Lord appears again, to repeat the words. It is Thomas’ first time to hear and receive Christ’s mercy, but for the other disciples, they are hearing a renewed affirmation of the Lord’s peace. The Lord does not forgive reluctantly or sparingly. He offers peace
liberally and freely to his repentant friends.

There is, of course, another sign of the abundance with which Christ heals and forgives, namely, the wounds he continues to bear. Not only does he forgive by words alone, but in answer to Thomas’ resistance and doubt, Jesus says “put your finger here and see my hands and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” To drive home his generous mercy and offer of peace, Christ quite literally opens his heart to Thomas. He reveals the wounds he suffered willingly to remove Thomas’ sin, indeed, all our sins, and lets this frail and imperfect Apostle touch the Sacred Heart of God himself. Christ says, and shows with this touch, “I have loved you to death and beyond death.”

This truth of Easter extends to us as well. Christ offers the same peace to us “who have not seen” that he once offered to those who “have seen.” He emerges from the death that he willingly suffered for our sake, and embraces us, wounds and all. Now is the season in which to renew our gratitude for and confidence in that peace, and chase after the Lord who so redeemed us, reaching for the place where he now sits alive in the glory of Heaven.