A scene in the 1995 movie, While You Were Sleeping, portrays an early morning moment in the house of the Callahan family. Ox, the father, is sitting at the dining room table, drinking some coffee and reading the morning paper. Jack, his grown son comes in with a box of Dunkin Donuts. Ox’s other son, Peter Callahan, is recovering in a hospital after being mugged and being knocked unconscious onto the tracks of the Chicago elevated railway. Lucy Moderatz, a railway toll collector, had saved Peter’s life. But Ox takes a moment with his son, Jack, to reflect on the nature of life.
Ox says, “For just one moment, you have peace. For just one moment, everything is good.” Jack looks his father in the eye and say, “Dad, this is not one of those moments.”
You certainly can watch the movie to find out the rest of the story. But what Ox says about peace is true. For one moment you have it. But the moment may not last, this statement about peace was true for them.
There was a moment in the upper room, as Jesus washed his disciples feet, fed them the Lord’s Supper, and spoke words of love and encouragement, when the disciples seemed to almost get it. But the quietness and peace of that moment was shattered by a betrayer’s kiss and Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
That moment was shattered later by Peter’s denial of Jesus, and crowing of a rooster. That moment was shattered by the angry mob, the mocking soldiers, the nails, the thorns, the cross, the darkened sky, and the Savior breathing his last.
If you would have asked any one of Jesus’ disciples in the three years leading up to Holy Week, who they were, they would have told you.
“I’m a disciple. I follow Jesus. He’s our leader, guide, friend, and our master.”
Good Friday must have seemed like a nightmare to Jesus’ disciples. It’s the day their hope and their salvation died. Yet three days later, as Jewish people count, counting the day you start and the day you end, Jesus’ tomb was empty.
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, Peter, the Emmaus disciples and the ten disciples gathered in the upper room on Easter evening. Jesus spoke peace to his disciples. Jesus spoke forgiveness to his disciples.
They were overjoyed.