Happy Easter season, all! I didn’t get this posted in time for Divine Mercy Sunday, when the Sunday Gospel was punctuated three times by Jesus’ greeting of “Peace be with you.” But I hope you will still find it to be a meaningful Easter reflection. I think I understand these words better now than when I wrote them almost a year go for Give Us This Day. A gritty and unshakable peace is exhaled from a wounded body, not an unblemished one.
Peace Be with You
Just minutes after his election to the papacy on May 8, 2025, Pope Leo XIV stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and spoke these words to the watching world: “Peace be with you.” He chose these words with great care. They were, as he explained, the first words of the risen Christ to his disciples— words Pope Leo described as “disarming” and “humble” and, most importantly, “from God, who loves all of us.”
In Sunday’s Gospel the risen Jesus utters this profound greeting three times: “Peace be with you.” Repetition in Scripture signals that something significant is happening. In this case, it signals that “peace” is the signature greeting of resurrection.
“Peace” in Scripture (shalom in Hebrew; eirene in Greek) is a state of being. It is a way of existing in the world that allows us to be whole, unshaken—even thriving—amid change, disruption, and struggle. Earlier in John’s Gospel Jesus describes this peace as his own (“my peace”) and as a gift (“I give to you”). This gift far surpasses anything the world can offer (“Not as the world gives do I give it to you,” John 14:27).
The risen Christ imparts this peace—three times—to his disciples as they hide in a locked room out of fear. Why are they so afraid? They are afraid that what has happened to Jesus will happen to them: humiliation, torture, death. They might seem a bit cowardly to us, two thousand years later, but at the time their behavior was entirely natural. Jesus was a victim of horrific violence. Fear had overcome them.
Interestingly, Jesus’ spoken word of peace is immediately followed by the showing of his wounds. This is the case both in his initial visit and then again when he returns for Thomas. The showing of the wounds serves as much more than proof that this Risen One is Jesus. The wounds serve as clear signs of why peace is Jesus’ gift to give: He has overcome the world with a resounding victory that astounds the mind and seizes the heart. But victory has been won the hard way, with wounds that are eternal. Resurrection began as a struggle. It means nothing if it is disconnected from the death from which it emerged.
If resurrection has this kind of grit and intensity, then so does the peace that flows from it. Far from sitting on the surface of our lives providing fleeting experiences of calm, this peace—the one exhaled by the risen Christ from deep within his scarred and glorified body—takes hold of us. It is the Spirit at work in us, the presence of Jesus remaining with us. The purpose of this peace is not to make us feel tranquil, but to enliven us completely. Our own wounds become vehicles of resurrection. Our fear is transformed into mission.
The broken and healed body of Resurrection has breathed on us. We have received the peace that the world cannot give. And so we are sent: sent out to utter this humble and disarming greeting of resurrection and life to all who will listen, for as long as we draw breath: “Peace be with you.”
Amy Ekeh, from the April 2026 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2026). Used with permission.