As I studied to preach this Easter, four words stood out to me from the classic Easter passage of John 20. Jesus says the words three times to the disciples: “Peace be with you” (John 20:19–21, 26).
This is so interesting to me because for all the excitement the disciples would have had to see Jesus on that first Easter Sunday morning, I’m sure they likely also wondered, Does Jesus want to see me? Maybe you’ve wondered something similar.
After all their failures, the greeting of peace makes for strange first words.
On the night of the arrest, they can’t stay awake when he tells them to pray. In one brave moment, Peter, a leader among the twelve, cuts off the ear of a soldier. But then Jesus rebukes him for fighting as the world fights. An hour later, Peter denies even knowing Jesus. When it matters most, every single disciple leaves him.
How can he say peace to them? How can he say it to us? Jesus can say, “Peace be with you,” only because he also said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
The two special days of Good Friday and Easter morning—as we know well—go together.
Last week on the GCD website we published a beautiful reflection on Good Friday by Courtney Yantes called “Good Friday: A Tale of Two Stones.” She considers how Jesus set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem (cf., Luke 9:51) and yet loved people with a soft heart. In the concluding paragraph, Yanets beautifully writes, “Let us hold the words of Isaiah and Ezekiel to be true at the same time.” Then she adds, “After all, we are a people of paradox who serve a God of paradox, a God who set his own face like flint, but whose heart was anything but stone, a God whose heart died whispering forgiveness on us all.”
This Easter I’m so thankful Jesus speaks forgiveness and peace to his disciples, thankful that enmity with God is finish and he is risen indeed.
Thanks for reading,
Benjamin Vrbicek
Managing Editor
Gospel-Centered Discipleship
Last Week at GCDiscipleship.com
Good Friday: A Tale of Two Stones
By Courtney Yantes
Courtney has written a beautiful reflection on Good Friday: She opens with these words, “Jesus was accused and maligned, but he spoke not a word of rebuttal. He was beaten until his body was nearly unrecognizable, but he uttered no protest. He was crowned with a crown of thorns, but he made no move to remove it. He was crucified, left to hang on a cross for hours, but he demanded no relief or release. He was perfect, sinless, innocent, but he died a guilty sinner’s death. Perhaps Good Friday was incorrectly named.”
When Beholding Will Be Healing: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#19)
By Tim Shorey
Tim reflects on the fortates of healing that we experience when we worship. He concludes, “We shall be like him. Why? Because we shall see him as he is. It is in seeing him and being lost in wonder, love, and praise that we will be changed. When he appears to take us Homeward, we shall be changed in the twinkling of any eye, and when we see him face to face, all ignorance, illness, mourning, and sorrow will pass, and we will know him as he knows us (1 Cor. 15:51–52; 1 Cor. 13:12).And as for the other evening, I think my freedom from pain and fullness of joy while being lost in wonder and worship was a gift from God, a foretaste of heaven, a crumb from off the eternal Table. I’m hungry for the full meal.”
This month I use an article by GCD regular contributor Tom Sugimura called “Unless the Seed Dies” to talk about the principle that good writing minimizes logical indicators and intensifiers. Tim Challies shared the article in his A La Carte on March 19, 2024 and called it “a sweet bit of writing.” I draw heavily from a few pages in Verlyn Klinkenborg’s book Several Short Sentences about Writing (pp. 118–19). I also mention Lara d’Entremont, a GCD staff writer, and her new book A Mother Held: Essays on Anxiety and Motherhood.