"The disciples were gathered together behind locked doors, because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities".
They were not only afraid. They were worried and discouraged. They were in despair and completely helpless. They were moaning their glorious past with Jesus, and the more glorious future Jesus had promised them : "You will eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and you will sit on thrones to rule over the twelve tribes of Israel" (Lk. 22, 30). One wonders how they had so easily forgotten Jesus' prophecies about his passion and death which he always concluded with : "…but three days later he will rise to life". The disciples had lost also the faith in Jesus. There must have been a great deal of anger, and hatred towards the Jews and the Romans. How could God allow such things to happen ? 

Then Jesus  "came and stood among them 'Peace be with you', he said" (Jn 20, 19). They did receive the peace all right. For they were filled with great joy. They certainly heaved a deep sigh of relief : Jesus neither reproached nor rebuked them, although he had every reason to do so. One of them ha betrayed him. Peter had denied and disowned him. Nearly all of them had cowardly deserted him.

Jesus addressed neither their fear nor their guilt. How was he to prove to them that the Jews were not after them ? He gave them peace instead. Peace in their fear. Peace in their worries. Peace in their despair. Peace in their discouragement . Peace in their doubts. Peace in their anger. Peace in their hate. Peace in the knowledge that God was still in control. Peace in their lives. And that peace burst out into great Joy from within them. Jesus knew what they lacked.

The world Peace is not what we expect to hear this Easter. Yet it is the greeting and gift which Jesus introduces himself at Easter. He who gives this peace is the one who "showed them his hands and his side". He is the one who had gone through great suffering. He would remember those sufferings forever. Yet through and because of them he would continue to hand on his peace.

To the disciples his peace was reconciliation and forgiveness : he relieved them of the weight of remorse that his presence at that time surely evoked. He made them new people : restored in their dignity, and in the trust and love he that for them. He entrusted them with a mission : "If you forgive people's sins, they are forgiven". They would be his partners in forgiving sins, as  they had been his partners in the suffering inflicted by people 's sins. With the scars of his passion, he taught them a lesson, the Christian lesson : the victims are those empowered by God to reverse the current of evil that flows from injustice ,cruelty and affronts to human dignity, leading to anger, hatred and the first for vengeance in the victims, and back to the source, which in the final analysis is the evil in human heart.

May Jesus grant all of us his gift of peace : "Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give  it as the world does". May each of us have this to say of Jesus : He taught me to forgive. The sign of the wounds in his hands and side have turned my own festering wounds, those inflicted on me and those I have nurtured on my in terms of anger and hatred, into glorious scars of forgiveness and love. He has restored me my dignity as a Christian !"

Peace be with you ! Peace be with you !
Happy Easter to you all !

With  your death Lord, everything died : joy, hope, love, courage. Even your Words and promises, lost their power and attraction. Everything becomes frightening, threatening and dangerous. Your disciples wouldn’t believe that you were risen that you were alive... When you hear us say : "Jesus is live", we may be shouting out our fears and frustrations. We may be trying to reassure ourselves. It is not enough for you to be alive. You must be alive to us. If this does not happen, you are still dead and buried. Is it too much, Lord, for us to ask that you show yourself to us, Victorious, yes, but with the scars of the nails and the spear, clear and shining ? Through them we shall come to know and believe that our festering wounds are being transformed into glorious scars.