[Sermon] Peace Be With You: Seeing and Believing

Van Hutton + April 27, 2025

Second Sunday of Easter

In the days after the Resurrection, Jesus not only appeared to his disciples but also gifted them with the Spirit of peace, forgiveness, and new life. Van Hutton reflects on the importance of Thomas's encounter with the risen Christ and the often unseen ways we experience God's presence today. This sermon reminds us that peace is a gift to be shared with the world and that God's promises are abundant and trustworthy. As we celebrate Earth Day, we are called to be peacemakers in all creation.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatically generated captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Good morning, everyone.

I have a little, um, audio that goes with this, uh, sermon, and, um, as I go from topic to topic, I'm going to do something like that — that says something really important is going to come.

Okay, I have five questions — five questions — which I'm going to ask as I begin, and at the end of this sermon, I'm going to tell you what I think the answers are. But you get to think what your answers are as this sermon goes on.

So, first question: How did Jesus do it? He wasn't there, doors are locked, and then he's there. How did Jesus do it? I've always thought that was a really good question the first time I ever read that passage. How did Jesus do it?

Second question: Did Thomas actually put his finger — more fingers — in Jesus — the, the, the nail marks on Jesus's hands? He's got two hands, two nail marks. Did he really put his fingers in those nail marks? Did he really put his hand in Jesus's side? Yes or no?

Third question: When Thomas says, "My Lord and my God," did he mean something like, "Oh my God, I can't believe it," or was he saying, "Jesus, you are my Lord and my God"? What do you think — astonishment, "Oh my God," or "You are God"?

Fourth question: What about the people that you do not forgive?It says, "Whoever you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." And it also says, "Whosever sins you do not forgive, they are not forgiven." Well, what happens to those people who don't get forgiven — whom you do not forgive? Really good question, don't you think?

And fifth question: What happens to you if you don't forgive others' sins? That's kind of left out in this part of the Bible, but there are other parts of the New Testament where it's quite clear what will happen to you. Hint: think of the Our Father.

Okay, so those are the five questions. We will sort of address them as the sermon goes on, but I'll address them big time when the sermon's over.

Okay, now, one of the other things that I think is very important — especially about the second reading this morning — is that it is the first revelation of Jesus after Easter. Revelation means unveiling. Now you don't see him — now you do. A major unveiling.

Now, I'm not going to say a lot about that particular revelation because starting today there is a series on Revelation, which David will be doing. Today, I'll be there — hope you will be too — and he's got a lot to say about Revelation, on the unveiling that is the consequence of the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Now, you probably don't do a lot of counting about how many times things do or don't come up in the Old Testament and New Testament. I do.Um, let's see now — yes, here it is:Do you know how many times in the New Testament it says, "Do not be afraid"? You probably remember little things like the ascent — the Annunciation — when the angel comes and talks to Mary, and one of the first things the angel says is, "Do not be afraid."

In the Old Testament — Old Testament — it comes up 51 times. In the New Testament, it comes up 22 times.That's a lot of fear that's going on that God is trying to, you know, damp down.

But Jesus, when appearing — unveiling himself to the disciples in a locked room that nobody possibly could ever get in without bashing in the door and so on and so forth — well, Jesus doesn't seem to have any problem at all.That's question number one: How did he do it?

In the New Testament, there's lots of "Don't be afraid" — 22 times in the New Testament. Only four times is there "Peace be with you." Only four. They're all after Easter, after the resurrection, when the Prince of Peace actually does come, and he gives his peace.

And you may or may not remember — let's see if I can find it here — I know it's... oh, there it is, yes.

Jesus is peace. Jesus comes to give peace. And Jesus says, "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

He comes and gives peace to the end of the age.

Now, once Jesus says, "Peace be with you" — oh, I think I better look at my little book here — the Bible — the first thing that Jesus says after "Peace be with you," twice, he says, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

Now, if you go back a little earlier in the New Testament, one of the first things that Jesus says is — you've got to remember every once in a while some things happen that, uh, Jesus does, like when the paralytic is, uh, taken through the roof hole and put down in front of him — and the first thing he says is, "Your sins are forgiven."You know, that's interesting — the paralytic didn't even ask for his sins to be forgiven. Didn't ask for faith. The faith was really in all the people who gave the paralytic to Jesus and basically were saying, "Please do something," like healing him.And the first thing that he does is that he forgives their sins. That's the first thing.

And then, of course, we've got the rumbling and the grumbling from some of the Jews that aren't very happy with what Jesus is doing. And he basically said, "Oh my God, this is blasphemy! Nobody can forgive sins except God."

And then Jesus says something like, "What's easier to say — your sins are forgiven, or to cure a paralytic? Well, just so you know that the Son of Man has the power to forgive sins — and that can only come from one person, the Father — then, you know, rise up and walk."

He forgave — he, he, he fixed the paralytic.

And it is interesting that part of what Jesus does in this part of the, the, the — today's gospel — end of John's gospel — is that it says Jesus breathed on them.Did you know that the word "spirit" is the same thing as "wind," is the same thing as "breath"?

And you might have just missed something there, so I'm going to point it out: there are two Pentecosts in the New Testament.This is one of them — when Jesus breathes on them.

And just so it's clear, John's gospel says, "Receive the Holy Spirit," to the disciples as soon as he breathes on them.And then he says immediately after that, "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."

That gets to questions four and five — whoops, four and five.

Okay, in Luke 24:49, that's one of the other places that the Pentecost is referred to, and it's referred to in the following way.Luke says, "I am sending upon you what the Father promised, and you will be clothed with power from on high."

We've got one revelation after another that Jesus is piling on top of just appearing. Now, if appearing wasn't good enough, how about having a Spirit descend upon you and giving you all kinds of power and authority — which only God has? Now you are filled with the same Spirit that Jesus had, that gave him all of the authority to forgive sins and to heal and even to raise from the dead.

Okay.

Now — and by the way — that's a lot of peace that you are now the giver of, in Jesus's name, in the Father's name, the Creator's name, the Mother's name.

Just seeing if I've left anything out before I get to my answers to the questions... oh yes, I know what it was — yes.

Um, how many of you have ever counted up the Beatitudes in Matthew?Nine — that's the answer, nine.

But here, when Jesus is revealing himself to Thomas — and by the way, was Thomas really a doubter? Or was he just angry that he wasn't there, and he could be blaming Jesus, he could be blaming the other disciples — they didn't wait for him, who knows?But anyway, after Jesus says — or reveals himself to Thomas, gives his hand, gives his side — he gives the 10th Beatitude: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Now, some of you, when you think of the nine Beatitudes, might not have added this 10th one, but it's a fairly important one. Not the least of which — it's because every single one of us — me, you — has received this Beatitude. You might have thought that you weren't being persecuted, so you didn't get that one — well, you got this one. And that's absolutely amazing. It's one of those many gifts that God has given that, unless you reflect upon it, it's kind of invisible. But while you're believing, you're hearing that he is risen, that he has given you the Spirit, that you can forgive, and you can make peace — be with others, with yourself, with the world.

Uh, last Wednesday, I got an email from, um, Pastor Hector, and, um, uh, he told me — and I was hearing for the first time — that the emphasis on this liturgy was going to be Earth Day.And he said something like, um, "And if that doesn't fit in with your sermon, that's okay, but it'd be nice if you'd mention, you know, something along the way that acknowledged the Earth Day."

Well, the word shalom, which means peace — which also means total balance of everything, from the weather, to the sea, to the wind, to all growing things — peace is what we can give to the world we are in by how we treat the world and how we treat one another, with the way in which Jesus treated the world and treated one another.

There was never anything — that was a hurt — that anybody had that he did not address. Not a one.

Well, that's a pretty good mindset.That's as good as — you can forgive, you're a peacemaker by the very Spirit that you have, which was the same Spirit that the Father-Mother-Creator gave to Jesus.You can bring peace to the world, and every living thing in the world, and the world that is a living thing.

Okay, I think I'm now at the point where I need to tell you my answers to the five questions.

Now, all I have to do is find the questions. Okay, here's the first one: how did Jesus do it? Well, I kind of go to the simplest — God is everywhere. Nothing exists, nothing stays in existence without God personally being involved in everything. So it's a small matter that, first, they could not see Jesus — but he was there because God is everywhere — and then he shows up, and he decides to show himself over and over again.

In this part of the Bible, in John 20, Jesus shows himself to the disciples.He shows them his hands, he shows them his side — constantly, it's about showing.And that's what Thomas was upset about — he didn't, he wasn't in on the show.He wasn't part of the revelation.He didn't receive the reveal the first time around.But eight days later, Jesus thinks it's so important that one of the 12 — now 11 — didn't get a chance to be there, he comes specially for Thomas.Anybody that has any major doubts at all about Jesus's life — where are we going, where have we come from, or what — Jesus visits the doubters, whether it's because they're angry or because, in fact, they really need that seeing, touching.

Okay, did Thomas put his fingers and hands into...?We don't know.And it probably doesn't make any difference at all, because what happened with Thomas is a total transformation.We no longer have, um, uh, "How about your feet? Can I do your feet?" — he doesn't do that.His response is, "My Lord and my God."

Now, some of you aren't probably too familiar with, uh, what's that thing, uh, the Council of Nicaea, where they put together some very important, uh, things called the Creed — one of those things: "This I believe, this I believe, this I believe."And, um, Thomas believed because he had seen — he had had an encounter with the risen Jesus.

We also regularly have encounters with the risen Jesus, but oftentimes we don't — we, we, we miss the sighting.Let us pray that we might see.God has promised: whatever you ask for that you need, I'll give you.That's one of the prayers that God wants to answer for every single one of us who needs to see God — in the world we live in, in ourselves, in those whom we love, in those who love us.

Oh, what about the people you don't forgive? And what about, uh, you? Well, the Our Father is very clear on the point of what'll happen to you. You don't forgive, you don't get forgiven. In fact, one of the interpretations of the Our Father is: the condition of God forgiving you is that you forgive others. But if you forgive others, then you will be forgiven. It's a promise.It's one of the blessings that we get.

And then, I'm going to push a book that I really like.

This is a book by a gentleman who, uh, is out of the Orthodox tradition, and he spends a whole book talking about how, when it's all over, God gets to do whatever God wants to do with us once we die.God gets to do whatever God wants to do.And he spends time saying what, in fact, is said in the New Testament: that God wants to save everyone.And this has been a belief in the Orthodox Church from the very beginning of Christianity.

The Western Church has lost that, um, perspective, that teaching, that interpretation of, um, heaven, hell, and purgatory. The subtitle of this — That All Shall Be Saved — is Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation. It's a very good book to read, because it tries as hard as he can — and he's a very good writer — to say: how much does God love each and every one of his children?

And those are my answers. You may have different ones — you have a right to have different ones. But I think that today's readings — from Revelation, "Peace be with you," and from John — are so action-packed that, in fact, um, well, uh, I have filled...

Whoops, didn't want to lose the Bible — pages and pages of notes — because I've known that I was going to do this, um, um, sermon for about a month and a half.And about every other day or two, I'd go back and read it, and I'd take a few notes.Go back and read it, take a few notes.

And, uh, for any of you who've got your Bible not too far away, you could go back and read it again and again and again — just like the, um, because it's the Word of God, and we need as much hope as we can get in a world that is not yet at peace. But we can help get it there because of the gifts we have been given by God, who has breathed on us.