Breath of Peace

John 20:19-23
5.24.26
Matt Goodale

We all want peace. Whether it’s peace from war across the world or the peace and calm found in a quiet content life, something we all want is peace.

As a parent of two young energetic girls who get along with each other about as well as a cat and mouse get along, peace costs a premium in our house right now.

The other day I was home watching both girls by myself and the most magical thing happened: they were both playing quietly on their own…at the same time. That never happens. Like ever.

So I pulled out my book and sat down in a chair, careful not to be noticed.

And I start reading. That was the most peaceful four minutes I’ve had in months. Because that’s about how long it took for one girl to go mess with the other and then it was all over.

But for four minutes I had peace! The rest of my life peace feels quite elusive though.

My guess is that nowadays, whether you’re a parent or not, peace can feel elusive for you as well.

Because not only do we live such busy, hurried lives, every time we watch the news or read the paper or get a notification to our phone, something else bad has happened somewhere in the world. How can we be at peace when the world is such a mess?

I hear it in my conversations with you and my friends and family…there’s a ratcheted up anxiety and restlessness and wondering where everything in our nation and in our world is heading.

Let me ask: give me some words to describe what you feel when you watch the news or read the paper or see what’s happening in the world today. Just shout some out.

And how do those things feel in your body?

Because fear and anxiety are never just ideas floating around in our heads. We feel them physically. We feel them as tightened shoulders, shallow breathing, clenched jaws, racing thoughts. Exhaustion and restlessness.

I think the disciples in our story felt those same things in their bodies as they huddled together in a locked room.

Jesus has just been crucified. His body is nowhere to be found. Rumors are flying everywhere. Some of them have seen Jesus, but most have not and they still have no idea what to think of it. And they’ve locked the doors because they are terrified.

You can almost hear the shallow breathing in the room. Whispered voices. Jumping at every sound outside. Bodies tense and braced for danger.

What are they afraid of?

They’re afraid the same religious leaders who crucified Jesus will come for them next.
They’re afraid Rome will blame them for stealing Jesus’ body.
They’re afraid everything they gave the last three years of their lives to was meaningless.

And honestly? I don’t think that room feels all that far away from the rooms many of us live in emotionally.

Rooms of fear.
Rooms of uncertainty.
Rooms of exhaustion.
Rooms where the doors are locked because we don’t know what might happen next.

But the good news is locked doors don’t keep Jesus out.

Because in our story, as the disciples are huddled together, afraid, Jesus steps right into the middle of the room and says, “Peace be with you.”

First of all—can you imagine? I’d probably be more terrified at first with Jesus showing up randomly in a locked room. But then he quickly shares peace.

And I think it’s important to notice what kind of peace this is. Because Jesus doesn’t walk in the room and say, “Good news everybody! Rome is gone! I’ve dealt with the religious authorities too and you have absolutely nothing to worry about anymore!”

Jesus shares his peace…but the danger is still there. His own body still bears the wounds inflicted upon him. The doors are still locked. And yet somehow, in the middle of all that, peace enters the room anyway.

Which is strange vision of peace for us.

If I envisioned peace, I would imagine all of those things would be gone and dealt with. We tend to imagine peace as the absence of conflict. We think peace will come after the anxiety is gone, after the conflict is solved, after my girls finally learn how to be friends, after the world calms down.

But resurrection peace—the kind of peace Jesus came to offer—seems to work differently. Peace is the experience of God’s life breathing through us even when the doors are still locked and we are still afraid.

And the peace he shares, starts with breath.

Let’s try something together for a moment. Take ten seconds and intentionally breathe short, quick breaths. If you are someone who is prone to dizziness or lightheadedness, please don’t do this. Use your imagination. But if you aren’t at risk of fainting, for ten seconds, let’s take quick, short breaths.

Now stop. How do you feel in your body?

And now, instead of quick, short breaths, for about 20 seconds, I want you to breathe in slowly for four seconds and out for eight. Count quietly. Breathe in for a count of four, and out for eight.

How do you feel in your body now?

Isn’t it amazing how quickly our bodies respond to breath? We are embodied creatures…this is how God made us! And sometimes we forget how embodied we are, because we live in our own heads so much.

And maybe that’s why it matters that when Jesus comes to frightened disciples, he doesn’t give them an idea or a lecture. He gives them breath. John says, “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” The Holy Spirit comes to them in the form of breath.

Years ago when I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks, part of my healing journey began with learning how to breathe again. My therapist—the first thing she did was give me a breathing technique to help settle my body when the anxiety came on.

And last week at the conflict mediation training I attended, one of the first things we learned was how important breathing is. Because when we are anxious or threatened or angry, our nervous systems move into fight, flight or freeze mode. Cortisol and adrenaline flood our bodies—this can happen every time you watch the news as well.

But slow, intentional breathing physiologically helps regulate us. it calms the nervous system.

This isn’t just some hippy-dippy spiritual thing. Breath changes something in us physically. Remember, we are embodied beings. Our bodies matter and so then does our breath.

But in scripture, breath is also something more than physical.

Breath is one of the primary ways the Bible talks about the very life of God. The Hebrew word ruach means breath and wind and spirit. In English, breath and spirit sound like separate things, but in the Bible they are deeply connected.

So when Jesus breathes on the disciples, he is intentionally calling our minds back to other moments in scripture. Like back to creation, where God breathes life into humanity. And back to Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, where God’s Spirit breathes life into what seemed dead.

This is new creation imagery. Jesus is re-creating a traumatized community. He starts not with theology, but breath. He doesn’t start with correcting their thinking, but in helping their bodies. Before the disicples can become the church, they must first learn to breathe again.

Slow breathing may calm the nervous system, but Jesus is doing more than stress reduction here. He is breathing new life into frightened people.

Jesus came and gave his Spirit to share peace. Shalom. And our Christian hope is that this peace will one day extend to the whole world—our hope is that one day there will be lasting shalom—nothing missing and nothing broken in the world. But notice where it starts here.

It starts with breath. It starts with Jesus’ presence amongst the disciples. And did you notice that Jesus still has his scars? Jesus does not return from the dead wound-free. The scars still remain. Rome still exists and there are still a lot of bad people outside those locked doors. Jesus has showed up, but the danger has not vanished.

And yet Jesus says, “Peace be with you.”

Jesus offers the disciples peace, even in the midst of scary and anxious things that are happening around them.

And I wonder if we can have that same peace even as we sit behind our own locked doors that shelter us from the scary and anxious things happening in the world.

And I wonder if peace starts smaller than we imagine.

Maybe Jesus’ peace begins with breath.

Maybe peace begins the next time you feel your shoulders tighten while reading the news and you decide to take a couple slow breaths.

Maybe peace begins when somebody says something that immediately makes your body tense and your jaw clench and instead of firing back, you pause for one deep breath.

Maybe peace begins sitting in your car at a red light after a hard day, grateful for the breath you still have in your lungs.

Maybe it begins at the kitchen sink.
Or in a hospital waiting room.
Or lying awake at 2am when your mind won’t stop racing.

Maybe peace begins when we remember that the Spirit of God is as near as the air in our lungs.

If you feel overwhelmed by the news or even your own life, maybe the first step is to learn to breathe again.

What if our very breath became part of the peace we share with the world?

And this is where our story turns.

Because the peace Jesus gives the disciples is never meant to stop with them. Jesus does not breathe peace into them so they can stay hidden forever behind locked dorrs. He breathes peace into them so they can carry his peace into a scared and anxious world.

And remember: Jesus never tells them to pretend the danger is gone. The doors are still locked, the wounds are still visible, Rome is still Rome. But something has changed.

Fear is no longer the only thing breathing in the room. God’s Spirit is there now too.

And maybe that is what resurrection looks like sometimes.

Not the absence of every fearful thing. But the presence of Christ breathing peace into us in the middle of it.

The disciples thought the story had ended in fear behind locked doors.

But resurrection began when Christ entered the room and taught frightened people how to breathe again.

Amen and may it be so.