Peace be with you, as the Father sent me, so am I sending you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Today brings to a close the octave of Easter, eight days of celebration and rejoicing, in which the church considers every single day to be Easter Day in its own right on a theological level, albeit with rather fewer trumpeters and peers of the realm than we had here a week ago. The Gospel readings at the daily masses each day this past week have been comprised of the various different accounts of the ways in which Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. If you study them closely, you will see that all of the appearances have several key things in common. And today, the last day of the octave, we hear from the end of St. John's Gospel in the story of doubting Thomas, of two appearances by the risen Jesus, which develop many of the themes that have been present throughout this week. So this morning I want to focus not so much on St. Thomas and his doubts. They tend to get quite a lot of attention each year, but rather on the appearances of Jesus himself and the ways in which they have things to teach each of us and the Church as a whole today. First of all, though not in the order presented in this morning's gospel, but first of all, there is the incredulity of the disciples when confronted with the fact of the resurrection. Thomas appears to be the most extreme example of this, or perhaps he was simply the bravest or the most eloquent in putting his doubts into words. But several times we are told that the disciples were amazed or astounded at what had happened. And can we blame them? The resurrection is a truth which even today cannot be understood by reason, it can only be believed in through faith. Not only that, but the disciples had to come to terms with the fact that the body of this risen Jesus had been transformed. This was not a ghost. Jesus ate and drank in front of them and invited Thomas to touch him, but at the same time he was able to get through locked doors. More importantly, this was the same physical body that had hung upon the cross. But the wounds of the cross, which Jesus shows the disciples today, have been transformed from shame into glory. Faith in the resurrected Jesus does not involve pretending that the cross never happened. Quite the reverse. It involves acknowledging that on the cross and in the resurrection the powers of death have been destroyed, so that life is transformed. But the cost of this to Christ is not forgotten. In the words of the priest poet Malcolm Gite, I recognize my Saviour's mighty arm because it has been pierced. The bloody nail means more to me than those who see no harm, and keep God as a talisman, a spell, a cozy comforter, a lucky charm. Talisman, spell, cozy comforter, lucky charm. The God of the resurrection is none of these things. He is rather the God who calls us to allow ourselves to be utterly transformed by our faith in him, so that we become at one and the same time completely new and recognizably the same, just like the risen body of Jesus. As an aside, this is also an important truth about the resurrection of the dead. We believe in a physical resurrection of the body, but one in which that physical body is utterly transformed into glory, in ways which for now at least are beyond our understanding. But to return to our theme, the consistent patterns in the resurrection appearances of Jesus. Once the disciples begin to accept that it is Jesus in front of them, and that he must therefore have risen from the dead, they rejoice. After all the hard work and soul searching of Lent and the dramas and efforts of Holy Week, we too must never forget to rejoice in these fifty days of Easter, and the eight days of the Easter Octave above all. We are called to rejoice in the truth which lies at the heart of our faith, that Christ is risen from the dead, never to die again. And it is perhaps of this overwhelming urge to rejoice that the risen Jesus so often appears to his disciples when food and drink are involved, the catching of fish, the breaking of bread. Today's account does not explicitly say that a meal was involved, but given that it was evening and the disciples were all indoors together, it seems quite probable that it was. And again, we should not be surprised at this when throughout his life Jesus rejoiced to eat with sinners and tax collectors, to sanctify wedding parties with his presence, and on the night before he died, to give us the most sacred meal of all as the memorial of himself. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, there is a great sense of movement across these stories of the risen Jesus appearing to his friends. Disciples on the road to Emmaus, women running from the tomb, Thomas absent but then returning, and so on. And Jesus does not stop this movement, he harnesses it. Again and again he sends his disciples out, he commissions them, he orders them to go and proclaim the good news, to baptize all the nations of the world. And Jesus commands us, you and me, to do precisely the same. The words he spoke to his friends in the days after his resurrection, he speaks to us today. He sends us out, just as we are sent out from mass with the command to go or depart. We, like them, must go and proclaim the good news of the resurrection to all whom we meet. But like them, we are not sent out unequipped for the task. Jesus gives us his peace, just as he gave it to the disciples, hence the precise words of the dismissal at the end of Mass Depart in peace. In the Jewish and Christian understanding, peace is not merely the absence of conflict, it is the presence of God and the blessing of abundant life. Three times in today's gospel, Jesus wishes peace upon his disciples, and to bestow this peace, he breathes on them. Just as at the creation God breathed life into Adam, so in this new creation Christ breathes new life, the life of the Spirit and the gift of peace into his disciples. And through the sacraments of the Church, God gives us that same life, that same spirit, that same peace, to give us strength and sustenance for what is not always an easy task, the life of faith. This means that even when we doubt, even when we wonder, even when we wonder, we can still, in the end, acknowledge the risen Lord with those wonderful words of believing Thomas, there's another transformation. And so if ever we, like Thomas and the rest, feel a little incredulous at the astounding truth the Church proclaims, or even if we just feel a little jaded and yearn to back away from doing the work of the Church's mission, we would do well always to remember that the instruction to go and proclaim the good news is a command of Christ Himself, and an unavoidable consequence of the transforming glory of the resurrection. Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so am I sending you, says the Lord. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.