Go Anywhere, Do Anything.
That is Jeep’s motto.
I have a Jeep Wrangler that was passed down to me from my father. The Jeep was originally a 50th wedding anniversary present my mom gave my dad. It was costumed designed to bear a resemblance to the Jeep Wrangler my dad drove in Vietnam.
In one of the few photos I possess of my dad in Vietnam, he is sitting behind the wheel of his jeep, the young lieutenant smiling with a gleam of joy that was just a hint of the rich life that was awaiting him back in Georgia.
My dad does not talk much about Vietnam. I like to think the symbolic passing down of his Jeep connects him and me in some mysterious way, maybe like a way of saying, “Go Anywhere, Do anything.”
It is parked out back if you want to see it on the way out. You cannot miss it, Jurassic Park tire cover my kids gave me for Father’s Day and all. It is actually quite a stunning vehicle.
Did I mention that my Jeep is a six time Rubber Duck Winner?
You see, apparently the Jeep Wrangler has a fairly rich tradition and a cult-like following behind them. The ducks are awards presented to the coolest Jeeps in town. The idea is that another Jeep driver leaves it on your windshield with a tag that reads, You’ve been ducked @ #DuckDuckJeep.
My favorite tradition of the Jeep culture is the Passing of the Peace Sign every time you pass another Jeep Wrangler. Perhaps I like it because it reminds me, or even connects me, back to the Passing of the Peace we do here on Sunday mornings.
I like to think it connects me to other Wrangler drivers, like a microcosm of how we are all interconnected in some ways, bound together by cords of peace and goodwill.
The blessing of peace from one Wrangler stranger to another. The recognition that we are all neighbors on this strange journey of existence. Peace be with you… Now Go Anywhere, Do Anything.
This kind of thinking was far, far, away from the disciples thought process in our Gospel lesson this morning.
They had just witnessed the brutal crucifix of who was supposed to be their Messiah, their Rabbi, their friend, Jesus. And now, suddenly they find themselves as enemies of Judaism and traitors to Rome, hiding in fear behind locked doors, their hearts shattered by the weight and collision of Good Friday.
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked in fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:19-22)
Here we see the staggering assurance of God’s steadfast love and kindness.
As Adam and Eve hid in the garden, as Israel rebelled against God again and again, here we have the disciples, the very twelve whom Jesus handpicked, each betraying him in their own way.
A people who just witnessed the brutal slaying of God and were now suddenly a people living without hope, living in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
And what is the first thing Jesus does as he appears to his scared friends through their locked door?
Does he condemn their unbelief? Does he condemn them for hiding in fear? Does he chastise them for their betrayal?
No. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.”
Jesus actually bestows his peace upon them twice here, and then again he says it a third time when appearing to Thomas a week later. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
One is taught in biblical hermeneutics that the repetition of a word or phrase is extremely important. The word for peace used here is i-ray'-nay means oneness, peace, quietness, or rest. It can also mean wholeness or peace of mind.
It is a peace that carries with it the idea that all of the essential parts of life have been pieced back together to make the new whole.
And Jesus uses it, not just once, not just twice, but three times here in just this one short passage.
Within this one line of Scripture, we see Jesus’ true heart and his love for the disciples. He knew they were afraid, and he gave them peace.
So many times in life we are like the disciples, locked in a room because we are afraid. There are countless situations that have the potential to produce fear in our hearts, and when we’re afraid, we have the tendency to do what the disciples did, lock everything down.
Yet Jesus, knowing how we feel shows up to give us peace, his peace, in the midst of our situation.
What I find interesting in this story is that they were in a room with a locked door. They were not looking for or expecting Jesus to show up. Yet the locked door did not keep Jesus from finding them. He was purposeful in meeting with them because he had to speak peace to their hearts.
When we are broken, anxious, worried, or fearful, it is in those moments that God looks to hold us close. Remember, Jesus went through the locked door to give his friends his peace (his wholeness, his quietness, his rest). He will do the same for you. In our moments of greatest fear, Jesus is waiting to give us his peace.
The peace Jesus gives to his disciples was designed to move them from behind the locked doors of fear and into the purpose that Jesus had for them. Jesus’ peace is not designed to make us static, but to animate us, to get us moving in the direction of God’s will.
And Jesus reminds us that the peace he gives is not like the world’s version of peace. The peace, the wholeness, the oneness that Jesus gives to us is the very gift of the Holy Spirit.
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
It is the Spirit by which we are able to know God as Abba Father, our near and dear Daddy in heaven. It is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. It is the Holy Spirit of Adoption. As Eugene Peterson writes in his paraphrased translation of Romans chapter eight:
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. Its adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.
Jesus appears to his friends as the resurrected man, the new Adam, declaring and bestowing upon them his peace, his wholeness, his rest, his very essence in the form of the Life Giving Spirit of God.
Jesus does not promise a life of trouble free living, but he does promise to always remain within us.
As he says in the thesis statement of John’s Gospel, chapter 14, verse 20: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
God appears to us behind the locked doors of our hearts now in the form of the resurrected man. Jesus has defeated death and He now breathes his Spirit upon us, the Spirit of Life that informs our wills to, Go Anywhere, Do Anything.
This past Good Friday I was driving home from church in my Jeep Wrangler after the noon day service. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the traffic suddenly came to a dead stop in front of me near the Grovetown exit off Interstate 20. I was only able to avoid the stopped car in front of me by veering off to the side of the road.
At that moment I looked over to my left and a white van came flying passed me, slammed on the brakes, and then did a complete 180 degree turn off the side of the interstate, almost flipping over. The car that was following the van then came racing passed me as it miraculously just missed colliding into the van running into the woods.
It all happened so fast but felt like slow motion while it was happening. Do you know this feeling?
After it was all over, I looked out my window and there was a man slowly driving a Jeep Wrangler in the lane next to me with his hazard lights flashing. He held up the peace sign and then smiled at me with the biggest smile of relief upon his face.
I immediately returned the peace and he pointed to my collar as if saying, thank you Father for keeping us safe. I naturally went into making the sign of the cross about my chest and my Wrangler friend cracked up with laughter as I exited off the interstate.
My heart was beating out of my chest, cars were turned every which way around me, but I was safe, I was whole, I was at peace.
And perhaps that was the message God intended for me to get out of my Good Friday: life is fragile, unpredictable, sometimes scary, but God has defeated even death in order to live up to his promise, that he will never leave me nor forsake me.
There is an abundance of God’s peace behind the locked doors of life, and there’s even a spark of peace present within my own Thomas-like faithlessness and doubt.
As we read in our Psalm this morning, The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. (Psalm 118:14, 17)
Or as we read in our epistle, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come. (Revelation 1:8)
It is clear that we are dealing with the God, not of the dead, but with the God of the living by whose peace we have been made whole, and by who’s Spirit we can now boldly proclaim the resurrection life: Go Anywhere, Do Anything.
God’s peace ✌️
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