Anniversary of a Parish - SERMON

Sermon – Anniversary of a Parish – St Matthew’s, Abbotsford

The Ven. Nicholas Pang – 26 October 2025 – John 20:19-31

 He’s supposed to be dead. I mean, that’s what happens when you go and get yourself crucified, and a spear poked through your side. You die. That’s it. It’s over, ‘it is finished’. What do they mean by ‘he’s alive’?

It’s one of the great oddities of Christianity that this whole enterprise, this whole human and more than human endeavour, rests on this frightened group of friends, locked away behind a barricaded door, on a dark evening, in the middle of Jerusalem. Because this is it. The moment. That one precious moment in time that changes everything. The doors are locked. The shutters are shut. There are monsters outside, come to steal, kill, and destroy.    John goes so far as to say that the doors are locked for fear of the Jews, by which we’re supposed to interpret, a discreet subset of temple leadership aligned with the powers of Rome, although, really, maybe that’s just us rationalizing, 2,000 years down the road. Maybe John really did just mean, the Jews. Maybe we’ve been looking for a scapegoat ever since the beginning. Maybe we’ve been blaming ‘the Jews’ or ‘the Empire’ or ‘the Devil’, because we are simply too afraid, on this dark night in Jerusalem, to admit what we’ve done.  

The so-called disciples of Jesus. The earth is still scarred with the holes that held the cross, the room is still spiced to mask the scent of death, our arms still ache from rolling the stone across the entrance to the tomb where we locked him away and abandoned all hope. No one could possibly blame us for being afraid, and confused, and exhausted, and ashamed.  

And of course, that’s when he decides to show up. Just like Jesus, waiting for the opportune moment. Always full of surprises. He shows up, out of the blue. No heavenly chorus this time, no wise men, no shepherds with their sheep, no earthquake, no temple curtain splitting in two, nothing; he’s just there. Like he’s been there the whole time.  

And all of a sudden it’s all very, very real. There’s no big, bad wolf, locked on the other side of the door. There are no Pharisees, or Chief Priest, or Herod, or Pilate, or Roman legionaries. The problem with locks is that they work both ways, because all of a sudden, it’s not the monsters who are locked out. All of a sudden, it’s the disciples who are locked in. Locked into a closed, sweaty room, with a man they’d sworn to follow, even unto death. A man they betrayed, in the most cowardly way. The leader, the teacher, the rabbi, the one they walked away from when the going got tough. He’s supposed to be dead.          And the innocent victim, still bearing the scars of our betrayal, opens his mouth. And out of it flows a torrent of life-giving water. “Peace be with you”.

Not once, but twice. For good measure. “Peace be with you.”  

This man whom the disciples have followed for three years, the one they watched heal the sick, raise the dead, proclaim heaven on earth; the man they turned their back on, they denied knowing, they watched be crucified, from a safe distance of course, the one whose memory they betrayed when they locked the doors of that upper room. “Peace be with you.”

That, my friends, is the heart of the resurrection. That is the heart of Christian reconciliation. That unfathomable act of life-giving, communitybuilding, forgiveness-bearing, generosity. That strength of the great victim. That’s what sets us free. It’s not the death, or the cross, or even the harrowing of hell, it’s four small words that change the world. “Peace be with you.”           It’s the reassurance that there is nothing, not one thing, that you can do, not even the crucifixion of God, that can take you out of reach of God’s redemptive arm, stretching out, catching hold of you. Jesus doesn’t come back with vengeance in his heart. I wish I could say I would be, or even could be, as generous as that. But let’s face it, on my own, there’s no chance. Jesus, doesn’t come back with vengeance in his heart, no ‘warrior ethos’. He doesn’t even abandon them to the world of their own making, he could have just gone straight to Heaven, without the pit stop on earth. But he doesn’t.  

He comes back, to those who abandoned him, with that greeting of peace. I wonder if we could ever be so daring as to greet one another with that word of peace. Muslims do it all the time: “assalamu alaikum”. How did we forget the word of peace? How did we confine it, shackle it, to the liturgy? Could we recapture it, someday, do you think? Not just in the moments before Communion, but on the street, in the produce aisle, at a hockey game. Do we realize how much of the power of heaven we could unlock and unleash simply by making those words a part of us, imitating those four gracious words of Christ: Peace be with you?

 I wonder if we do remember how much power those words hold. I wonder if it frightens us. I wonder if it’s easier to proclaim Christ crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected, than it is to believe that God might love you enough to greet you with four simple words, “peace be with you.”

I wonder if that’s part of Thomas’ issue too. I wonder if it isn’t so much that he can’t believe the body of Jesus has come back to life so much as he can’t believe that Jesus has come back, to them. I sometimes wonder what led Thomas away from the group on this fateful night. What convinced him to brave the monsters outside the walls? Do the disciples just need provisions? How upset would you be if you missed out on the Resurrection because you ran out of hummus? I don’t blame Thomas for being a little bit sensitive.            Maybe it’s something a bit deeper than that though. After all, it was Thomas who once said, ‘let’s go with him, even unto death.’ Maybe he just needs some fresh air on a night like tonight. Space to come to terms with his abandonment of the Christ. And so maybe what Thomas really needs in his demand isn’t so much proof of the body of Christ resurrected, so much as proof that this is indeed the same Christ, the one they saw crucified, the one they bound and buried. Maybe that’s the only one who matters, in that moment. It’s only the gift of peace offered by the wholly innocent victim, that makes a difference in this great big, chaotic, world.

I wonder what it was that made that difference in your life? I wonder how, and when, you’ve heard the voice of Christ touch your heart and fill it with wonder, and hope. I wonder when you, as a fellowship of faithful believers, have known the promise of Christ.  

This parish has had its own share of moments of doubt, and struggle. I imagine a fair few tears have been shed in this community in the past. Over the past few years, maybe things have started to feel a little bit lighter. Maybe the great crisis is over, maybe you’re in the time of regrouping.  

No one would blame you if the temptation was there to shut the windows and lock the doors and keep yourselves, your hearts, safe. I wonder if you ever look around at one another and think, where do we go from here?

What now?  

I wonder if this is the moment in the life of this parish when Jesus himself speaks to you. And greets you. With words of beauty, and truth, and goodness.

I wonder if Christ is speaking to you in the arts, through clay, through thread and quilts, through music, and social media. I wonder if Christ is speaking to you through the ways you open the scriptures, and the ways you meet together. I wonder if Christ is speaking to you through your work with the foodbank, and your support of Alongside Hope. I wonder if Christ is calling to you with words of beauty, and truth, and goodness: “peace be with you.”

Now, this sermon’s probably gone on long enough, but the thing is, the story doesn’t end there. Those words aren’t just a private reassurance. They’re a gift, but they’re also an invitation. Because Jesus goes on: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And he breathes on them. The very same breath that filled the lungs of humanity at the dawn of creation, the breath that carries with it the Holy Spirit of God. And it’s no coincidence.  

 The experience of being met by the mercy and grace of God is one and the same as the experience of being commissioned, and sent, out into the world in order to offer and to bring mercy and grace to others. We are still being called by that very same breath of God. Christ’s greeting on the day of Resurrection is a pebble in the pond of Time and Space and you, my friends, co-workers in the Gospel of Christ, are the ripples, spreading ever outwards from that moment of resurrection. You are bearers of the good news of Jesus Christ, one message for all the world to hear: “Peace be with you.”