I often have to remind myself to refrain from going down the social medias rabbit hole, but this week I found myself spending much more time than I needed to reading everything everyone had to say about the death of a certain celebrity who had famously been on trial for the murder of his wife and his friend, and who, to the surprise of many, had been acquitted. I started entering the conversation because one of my friends reacted to the article and posted this laconic comment: He is going to see her again. I must say it drew my attention because He is going to see her again, and that’s actually the first thought that crossed my mind when I heard the news. It was more surprising though to read this comment coming from my friend because she is a professed atheist, and I just assumed she believed that you know once you’re dead, you’re dead. But no, she said He is going to see her again. Although she confesses she does not believe in God, it’s like she is sure that after death we see people again, not only those we have loved, but those we have hurt (and they’re often the same) and also there is a justice, that is different from the justice of this world. And she was not alone in believing that, there was this big conversation going on, more than 900 comments, from He’s going to see her again or maybe notbecause he’s going to hell and she’s in heaven, to Yes he’s going to heaven because he has made his peace with God and he has been forgiven– and everything in between. Of course, about that no one knows anything really, but I was so intrigued that everyoneseemed to have this kind of guts knowledge deep down that we will see people again after death and that we will have to account for the way we have treated them. I was also very intrigued by this debate because of what we hear this week in our readings about Jesus’s Resurrection – not about just the event in itself, but about the meaning of it all.
Peter and John are the first witnesses of the Resurrection, if you remember the passage of the Gospel we read for Easter. After Mary Magdalene have informed them that the stone has been rolled, they both rush to the tomb to find it empty. Today we see them in Jerusalem some time after that, healing in the name of Jesus and proclaiming the good news…Or is it? Peter’s sermon is, to say the least, a bit unsettling for us who have just come to think of Easter as the happiest day in our liturgical year. Indeed God has glorified his servant Jesus, and this is wonderful news, but the thing is this Jesus is the one you handed over and rejected. Jesus is alive indeed, but he also comes back as the one who has been killed. There are evidences of that not only in Peter’s sermon, he makes it very obvious for everyone to hear, but we also find that in different places in the Gospel: Last week’s Gospel and this week’s tell us that Jesus appeared with the marks of the nails in his hands and feet. Many assume that the disciples were “startled and terrified” not only because they thought they were seeing a ghost, but also because most of them had abandoned and betrayed Jesus and so they were afraid of him and what he would say to them. Again in the New Testament, we have those passages in the Book of Revelation that give us pictures of Jesus in glory on the throne and yet he is always presented as the lamb that was slain. Now we may of course limit that to historical circumstances: Jesus was handed to death by a specific group of people, mainly religious leaders. But we really miss the point if we don’t see that beyond that, we are also invited to recognize ourselves in the ones who have condemned Jesus.
Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, likes to remind Christians that indeed the cross can stand before our eyes as a comfort in our suffering, our God is not indifferent, our God shared in our pain, and we can identify with Jesus on the cross in the midst of our trials, and yet, says Williams, we need to remember as well that the cross is also radically different from anything we know or can be. Jesus made a unique sacrifice giving his life in the hands of sinners instead of punishing them, and so the cross stands before us as a symbol or a reminder of our own violence, the cross reveals the violence we are all capable of. We are all murderers and accomplices in the death of Christ. You know, we talked doubts in the past weeks, Thomas dealing with doubts, etc. and we say that doubts can be intellectual, yet deeper than that our doubts also reveal our own inability to see ourselves as we truly are. We resist acknowledging Jesus’s divinity because of what it means about us and our sinfulness. The disciples were afraid to acknowledge Jesus because they knew they also had abandoned him. They, themselves, had rejected the Messiah. It’s important I think that Peter uses this expression: You have killed the author of life. Because indeed sin is what happens each time we reject life, each time we deny the life of others in their rights, their identity, their dignity. Of course we weren’t standing there in the crowd the day they crucified him, but we still participate in Christ’s condemnation each time we belittle others or use a living thing to our own benefit, treating them as a means to our ends.
Given all of this, I find it quite extraordinary that Jesus’s first words after his Resurrection are words of peace: “Peace be with you“. We have made of this expression a mere salutation and yet the meaning is so much deeper, it’s really not about being polite, isn’t it. Jesus shows up as the one who didn’t come back as a ghost to haunt his enemies, he does not come back to condemn them, on the other hand he is offering peace. He who has suffered it all can understand it all and forgive it all in the name of all because he is the author of life and all the living belong to him, if we hurt others it’s Jesus whom we first hurt. But there will be no peace if we don’t acknowledge our own responsibility and our own violence. I think it’s very obvious for us when we see wars among nations, it’s also true though in our personal relationships. We are so prompt to think it’s everybody’s else fault, aren’t we? But if we cannot acknowledge our wrongs, there can be no peace. We see ourselves as victims, and yes, often we are, but we are also murderers in thoughts, words and deeds: we destroy life. And the sooner we can realize that, the quicker we are liberated. You know, I was greatly disturbed by the comments I read online this week. I was disturbed by those who wanted the man to go to hell, because it’s sounded more like revenge than justice, and yet I was also disturbed by the comments that said that surely the man was forgiven, they made it sound like nothing bad happened when something terrible did happen. There was a word that lacked I think, and this word we hear it this day in Peter’s sermon and this is to Repent. We are not condemned but it’s not cheap grace either, the price of our sins is the cross, the suffering of Christ for all our victims. And that’s why Peter commands the people to acknowledge their ignorance and to acknowledge their wrongs. It’s not that forgiveness or peace are conditional, it’s just that peace and forgiveness are the fruit of a heart that has been freed from its guilt. You can’t receive forgiveness for something you deny you have done. And yet, forgiveness is the key of it all, of the kingdom of God, the gift the risen Christ brings to us. Forgiveness in itself is Resurrection, it is the power to start it all over again, to be made new and pure, as John, the second witness, puts it in his Epistle. It is the only strength that can recreate us, restore us, and brings us new life for eternity, heaven is living together reconciled and it only depends on our willingness to be included.