JOHN xx. 19. “Jesus stood in the midst,
and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.”

THIS was our Lord’s fifth appearance on the day of His
resurrection. He came to the upper room unexpectedly,
the disciples knew not how, and gave them the customary
greeting, “Peace be unto you.” The invocation of peace
at the beginning or close of intercourse was of high an-
tiquity, and also in our Lord’s day all the Semitic nations
used it as a matter of course. Jesus did not scruple to
use the conventional phrase, but He does not use it con-
ventionally. He picks up as it were, from the roadside,
the common words and phrases which fall from men as
they saunter unthinkingly through life. He restores to
language its original power. What would have been the
sense suggested to the apostles by those words “Peace be
unto you”?
1. It did not suggest peace with the Jews without. Peace
with the Jews was only to be had by surrender of the
honoured cause of Christ.
2. It did not suggest peace among themselves, for this
was not needed, there being yet no division amongst them.
The primary effect of Christ’s blessing of peace on the
disciples was the conquest of fear. His blessing breathed
safety, and their fears assuaged.
Christ’s blessing conferred freedom from inward tumult.
I. It solved the disciples’ mental perplexity. “They had
trusted that it should have been He that would redeem
Israel,” and upon this state of mind the arrest, crucifixion
and burial of their Master came like a thunderbolt. A
dense gloom settled down on all their hopes. The sight
of Jesus risen from the grave restored order into that world
of thought. There was no longer an apparent contradiction
between the word of God and the verdict of experience.
This is still Jesus’ work in the world, He brings with Him
intellectual peace.
II. It restored the object of their affections. They had
felt the void of an aching heart; but when He appeared, “I
have found Him whom my soul loveth, and will not let
Him go,” was the feeling of each disciple, and that feel-
ing in itself was peace. Only one Being satisfies the
affections, so that the soul’s peace is ensured beyond risk
of forfeiture.
III. It re-formed all their former plans for action and
for life. The disciples had been a prey to all the miseries
of hopeless inaction.
IV. In seeing Him they saw a career again open itself
before them. Christ’s blessing restored peace to the soul,
because He gave the sense of pardon for sin.
Henry Parry Liddon, D.C.L.