The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year B
Description
The Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 4.32-35
1 John 1.1-2.2
John 20.19-31
‘Peace be with you’, said Jesus. And again, two verses later, ‘Peace be with you.’ Like a great bell, a single note with multiple overtones, the promise of peace tolls out across the world. Not just an inner peace of heart for every individual who hears and believes. Not just an agenda for peace for a warring world. The old Hebrew word Shalom speaks of a quality of life which includes but transcends both: rich and fruitful human living, God’s new creation bursting into many-coloured flower.
The peace declaration is flanked with simple but profound actions. Jesus shows the disciples his hands and his side, the marks of the love which had loved them to the uttermost, the signs that the bill had been paid (compare 19.30, where ‘It is finished’ means, among other things, ‘the price is paid’). Easter means, amidst much else, that peace, never other than costly, has truly been purchased on the cross...
Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year B by N T Wright