Peace Be With You
READ
Today, we encounter the disciples huddled together in fear, doors locked, and hearts racing. They've just witnessed their teacher's brutal execution, and now rumors are swirling that His body is missing. Then suddenly, Jesus appears. But instead of scolding them for their cowardice or demanding explanations for their absence at the cross, He speaks two simple words: "Peace be with you."
Let’s take a moment to read John 20:21-23:
“Again Jesus said, 'Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.' And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.'"
REFLECT
This isn't just a greeting – it's a declaration. Jesus is offering them His peace, not the fragile peace the world gives that depends on favorable circumstances, but the unshakeable peace that comes from His presence. It's the same peace He promised them in the upper room before His death: "My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives."
Then comes the commissioning: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." This is profound. Jesus isn't sending us out in some generic way. He's sending us exactly as the Father sent Him – with love, with grace, with truth, with patience. The Father sent Jesus not to condemn the world, but to save it. Not to lord authority over people, but to serve them. Not to build an empire, but to heal hearts.
But here's where it gets really interesting – Jesus breathes on them. This echoes Genesis when God breathed into Adam the breath of life. This is a new creation moment. Through the resurrection, Jesus is making all things new, including us. His breath carries His Spirit, empowering us not just to do His work, but to do it in His way, with His heart.
And then there's this puzzling statement about forgiveness. Jesus isn't giving the disciples the power to decide who gets forgiven and who doesn't. He's giving them the keys to reconciliation. Forgiveness removes what separates us from right relationship – with God and with each other. When we offer forgiveness, we're opening the door for restoration. When we withhold it, we're keeping that door closed.
In our current culture of isolation and distrust, this commission feels revolutionary. We live in an age where human interaction has become optional, where we can grocery shop, work, and even socialize without meaningful face-to-face connection. We've become experts at keeping people at arm's length, protecting ourselves from disappointment and hurt.
But Jesus is sending us out as carriers of His peace and agents of reconciliation. We're called to be people who show up with confidence in who we are in Christ – not projecting or proving, not defensive or guarded, but free to give ourselves away because we know whose we are.
What would it look like to live this way? To enter every room carrying Christ's peace? To approach difficult conversations not with the goal of being right, but with the heart of reconciliation? To breathe the life of the Spirit into situations of deadness and despair?
This is how transformation happens – not through grand gestures or perfect presentations, but through ordinary people filled with God's Spirit, carrying His peace into a world desperate for hope.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
How does receiving Christ's peace change the way you approach difficult relationships or situations?
What does it mean to you that Jesus sends you out "as the Father sent me"? How does this shape your understanding of your purpose?
In what areas of your life might God be calling you to be an agent of forgiveness and reconciliation?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
Prince of Peace, breathe Your Spirit into me afresh today. Help me carry Your peace wherever I go, not depending on circumstances but resting in Your presence. Make me an instrument of reconciliation in a divided world, offering forgiveness freely because I have been forgiven much. Send me as You were sent – with love, grace, and truth. Amen.