It was the first time He had spoken to them since the night when He was betrayed when they had forsaken Him and had run away. He might have met them with a reproof, but He knows all about our poor hearts, so He meets them with a smile and the sweet greeting, "Peace be unto you." And He says it to them _all_, even to Peter who had denied his Lord, and to the others who had forsaken Him. Yes, He has only one greeting for them one and all, and that is "Peace." Then a pause, and after the pause there came a revelation--"He showed them His hands and His side." Why did He show them the nail prints in His hands and the deep wound in His side? It was to reveal to them the wondrous truth that He Himself is our Peace, and that the Peace which He gives is the Peace which He has Himself made through the Blood of His Cross. [Footnote: Col. i. 20.] "Through Christ on the Cross peace was made, My debt by His death was all paid; No otter foundation is laid, For peace the gift of God's love." He showed them His hands and His side, because He wants them to understand that these sacred scars tell us of His wondrous love and of the infinite cost of Redemption. Let us lift up our hearts and say-- "Oh, make me understand it, Help me to take it in, "What it meant to Thee the Holy One To bear away my sin." We find from St. John's Gospel that Thomas, one of the twelve, was not among them when Jesus came, so the rest of the disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." He replied, "Unless I see in His hands the wound made by the nails, and put my finger into the wound, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe it." So when a week later Jesus says to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger and behold (or feel) My hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My side," [Footnote: St. John xx. 27.] it shows how our Lord made these scars the very test of his faith, and it is the same now.