One dark night the lover went out in search of his beloved. The beloved were huddled together behind locked doors in an otherwise empty house. They were wanted men. There was nowhere to turn. They thought their leader—the lover—was dead.

What were the disciples doing behind closed doors? What were they plotting in the dark? Was it a war strategy? Was it a secret plan to overthrow the government? Whatever it was, thank goodness in a moment’s notice, it was interrupted. The darkness was overtaken by light. The lover appeared. The disciples were riddled with fear; he was riddled with scars. The scars that bear witness to life for all who live huddled in fear behind locked doors and closed borders and heightened airport security.      

The message is the new normal.

The new normal is a phrase I’ve heard a lot recently. It’s employed by economic forecasters and the talking heads on cable news shows. It’s a phrase used to describe life after life-altering events. Most of the time it seems the new normal is somehow less than the old normal. But if we look closely at this scene and take our cues from this script, we discover that the new normal has been around much longer than the Federal Reserve or the airport announcement reminding us to remove our shoes and to store our shampoo in three-ounce bottles. No, the new normal is not a thorn in our side that we’ve got to live with. It’s a reality that, in reality, we can’t live without. There’s a reason why we gather and sing praises to God week after week in this breathtaking building with a spire that reaches high to the sky.

I’ll never forget a choir rehearsal where we were trudging through the Bach cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden: “Christ lay in the bonds of death given for our sin.” And we sounded like we were in the bonds of death because our German was barely intelligible and we were buried in our music. And when we got to the next line: “He is risen again”, the conductor couldn’t bear it any longer. He cut us off and said, “Sing it . . . as if it were true!”

Resurrection is the new normal. And we’ve got to sing it as if it were true.

Here in John’s account, the resurrection and the birth of the church are directly linked. This is not just a word for the disciples. This is a word for all of us. Peace dispels fear, and peace comes through forgiveness. The disciples are hunkered down worried about their enemies, and with one breath Jesus sends them out full of the Holy Spirit to embody forgiveness.

“Peace be with you.” In these few verses, the risen Christ utters these words three times. We serve a God who is concerned with peace. When you think about peace, what do you think of—the absence of conflict, a serene mountain lake? 

I remember one particular class that Carey and I took together in seminary in which the professor really enjoyed provoking the students. It was a large class, about 100 people, and we sat on the second-to-last row. During one lecture that might have been more provocative than most, this professor made a bold statement that just about put Carey over the edge. Carey turned and looked at me, rolled her eyes, shook her head and looked back at the professor. Fifteen minutes later we were in chapel, and that same professor was seated directly behind us. At that point in the service where the chaplain offered the words: “the Peace of the Lord be always with you,” and we dutifully respond: “And also with you,” Carey turned around and offered the peace of Christ to the professor, but the professor had a different response. She said, “Is everything okay between us?” I don’t know what other words were exchanged between them, but I do know that their interaction ended with a handshake and a hug. Forgiveness was offered and forgiveness was received. The peace of Christ isn’t just a greeting. The peace of Christ allows us to confront our fears and to restore relationships. 

The peace of Christ frees us from the fear that other people are out to get us. And this gets to the heart of forgiveness. We can’t offer forgiveness in my name or your name. Christ offers forgiveness in his name.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you and I send you to make peace with one another. I send you to forgive one another. This is the new normal, and it’s a gift of grace. And we see it right there on resurrection night. Resurrection doesn’t only mean new life for Jesus. It means new life for his followers as well.

It might have been easier for our provocative professor to have chosen not to address the issue with Carey, but because the professor knew that living in right relationship with Christ meant living in right relationship with other people, the professor took the risk and made the peace.  

Tim Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He’s spent a lot of time with folks who are skeptical of religion. So when he talks to these people, Keller likes to make a distinction between religion and the gospel. Religion carries with it a certain superiority complex. Religious liberals, says Keller, tend to feel superior to all those conservative narrow-minded bigots and religious conservatives feel superior to the liberals, who are of course less moral and less devout.[1]

Religion is one-dimensional. It has to do with how we see ourselves in relation to other people. The Gospel is transcendent. It has to do with how we see ourselves in light of what God has done for us in Christ. As far as God is concerned, we’re all narrow-minded bigots who struggle with moral superiority, and God loves us anyway. Keller calls this the threat of grace. Grace is a threat? To quote Sarah Palin—“you betcha.”

And this is where Thomas comes in. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He wanted proof of the resurrection. He wanted to see the scars. And let’s be fair, while we single out poor Thomas as the disciple who doubted, Thomas wasn’t the only one who doubted. The other disciples doubted, too. It wasn’t until they saw the scars that the disciples got over themselves and rejoiced over the risen Christ.

Jesus doesn’t really seem to mind that they doubted. It’s okay to doubt. Sometimes the biggest doubters become the most ardent believers. Once Thomas was face to face with Jesus, once he saw the scars, he got it right. In that moment, Jesus was more than a great teacher or a good role model. Jesus was Lord and God. Jesus is savior.

And that’s just it. Once we realize we can’t save ourselves, once we recognize our need for a savior and face the reality of the risen Christ, grace becomes a threat. It’s a threat to the way we want to live. It’s a threat to our desires to control. It’s a threat to our doubt.

Grace is not a transactional agreement. This is not a bargaining chip—I do for you so you do for me. No, that’s what we might call the threat of guilt or punishment. The threat of grace is different.

We were around the table on Friday night with some of you, and we got into a conversation about the difference between doing things out of guilt or obligation and serving out of joy. Serving out of guilt or obligation is what we do when we do things from a divided heart. When do things for others so we stay on their good side. We think to ourselves, if we do this one thing, then maybe they won’t ask us to do anything else. While that way of doing things may keep the peace, it doesn’t sound very peaceful.

Serving out of guilt sounds very religious. But what happens when the risen Christ walks into the room? He brings peace. Serving because it brings us peace sounds very much like the gospel.

One of Tim Keller’s parishioners puts it this way: If grace were transactional, “then there would be a limit on what God could ask of me or put me through, I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am saved by grace, then there is nothing God cannot ask of me.”[2]    

“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” Yikes. Grace is a threat because it demands so much of us. The new normal is a threat to our transactional way of living. A lifestyle of forgiveness is not about our rights. It’s about living in right relationship with God and with one another. This is what the scriptures mean when they talk about storing up treasures in heaven. For where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. So the treasure isn’t additional money in our savings account or a larger credit line. It’s all or nothing. This is the essence of the gospel. It’s unbelievable. Tertullian said that the fact that the gospel is so unbelievable is precisely why we should believe it. No other faith makes the claim that God incarnate came to earth, was executed and was resurrected—to create a new normal.

When Thomas’s doubt came under the threat of grace, the risen Christ was right there, wounds and all. Thomas had no choice but to believe. It turns out that doubting, questioning, begging to see Jesus led him to a faith of the strongest kind. Thomas is all in. Jesus is Lord and God. This is not a one-dimensional relationship. This is transcendent, and Thomas is caught up in it all. Thomas has changed. 

A friend of mine told me about an interview on the BBC of a cattle rancher in Montana. The rancher oversaw thousands of acres and at least a thousand head of cattle. The reporter asked the rancher how she kept all of her cattle on the land. The rancher said that she couldn’t possibly build enough fences to keep in the cattle. So instead she digs wells.

Instead of policing the borders of her land and marking boundaries to determine what’s in and what’s out, she locates sources of water so that her livestock are compelled to stay close to the well.

It’s a fitting image for the new normal. We can’t be out patrolling the border and tightening security and at the same time be close to the well. We can’t live huddled together in fear while Christ begs us to take a drink and to be at peace.   

He lived his life so that we could know how to forgive and to be forgiven. He has the scars to prove it. It seems that these scars leave a little more room for us to stop building fences and to come to the well.

I am the resurrection and the life, declares the Lord. O, that we would believe and have life in his name.

To the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.