From Behind Closed Doors

Scriptures:     Acts 4:32-35                           Psalm 133

I John 1:1 – 2:2                      John 20:19-31

What do you do when your whole world has come crashing down?  The disciples had walked away from all they had known – fishing boats, tax collection booths, friends, family – in order to follow a traveling teacher and healer from Nazareth named Jesus.  They had seen miracles! – sight and hearing restored, demons cast out, thousands fed from just a few loaves and fish.  Indeed, they had not only watched all of this but had been a part of it themselves!   Had they stayed out in Galilee, out in the rural areas, away from the authorities, who knows how long this could have continued?  But Jesus insisted on going to Jerusalem – to quote a Psalm, he “set his face like flint” toward Jerusalem.  He rode into Jerusalem, with his game face on.  He’d warned them that he would be arrested and killed, and it all unfolded just as he’d said.  And yet while it was bad enough to hear Jesus talk about it, it was a whole nother kind of awful to watch it themselves.  And most of it they couldn’t bear to watch – and they were afraid of being arrested themselves – and so they ran away.  Jesus had been there for them, but when Jesus needed them, they ran for the hills.  When the going got tough, the tough got going all right…..as far away from Jesus as their feet would carry them.

What do you do when your whole world has come crashing down?  Of course, eventually they’d probably go back to what they’d been doing – Peter and Andrew, James and John to their fishing boats, Matthew back to his tax booth…   But not just yet.  Not yet.  They needed some time to grieve together before they went their separate ways.  And they also needed to hide from the authorities until things cooled down.  So they gathered in a locked room.  They remembered.  They shared their stories.  “Remember when Jesus had met that guy living in the tombs and cast out the demons, and he was able to go home?  Remember that time he walked on water….how cool was that!.”  And so they told their stories.  Some of the women had come with some stories of their own – they’d gone to the tomb and seen an angel that told them Jesus had been raised.  Probably just some kind of hysterics, a case of the vapors….these women were always fluttering and fainting about something, weren’t they…..but the guys dutifully checked out their story.  Peter and John had gone to the tomb, and saw that it was empty, but no angelic appearances for them.  Jesus had been killed, and even after he was dead, his body couldn’t be left in peace.  What a world!

And so they gathered, and so they grieved….but suddenly Jesus was with them!  The doors to the room were locked, but somehow there was Jesus!   They weren’t sure what to expect him to say.  After all, they had messed up pretty badly, running away when they needed him.  Maybe he’d say, “Hey, Peter, James and John, you guys who fell asleep while I was praying in the garden, hope I’m not keeping  you awake now?  Hey Peter, do you know me now?  Hey disciples, where were you all when I needed you?”  But instead, Jesus said, “Peace be with you!”  He wasn’t angry.  What a relief!  And he showed them his hands and his side, so they knew it really was Jesus.

Jesus had a few more things to say.  “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”  “Send us where?”  they must have thought.  And then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  Jesus had promised that when he was gone, he would send another Comforter, the Holy Spirit….and here it was.

We’re not told when or how Jesus left.  We are told that the disciple Thomas wasn’t there.  Maybe they’d sent Thomas out to get pizza.  In all seriousness, though, give Thomas some credit – he’s the only one brave enough not to have been hiding out.   The others told Thomas what happened, and he wasn’t having any of it – just as the other disciples hadn’t believed when the women had told them about the Risen Christ.  “If I can’t put my finger in the wounds, I won’t believe.”

A week later, the scene repeats – same disciples, same room, same locked doors – and Thomas was with them.  Jesus appeared, and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he showed Thomas the wounds in his hands and side.  And Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus said, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  This last sentence was a word from Jesus to the readers of John’s Gospel – a word of blessing to all of us.  At the same time, it’s also a blessing to remember that Jesus came back a second time just for Thomas.  Jesus didn’t want to leave Thomas behind, and so he did for Thomas everything he’d done the week before for the other disciples, to give him a chance to catch up.

As I was reading, it struck me:  Why were the doors locked the second time they got together?  Remember that the week before, Jesus had told them, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”  But they hadn’t gone very far….a week later, they were back in the same place, back behind the same locked doors.  It took a second appearance of Jesus – with Thomas with them this time – to get them to leave their hiding place.

We may not be so different.  As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us.  But we don’t go very far.  Most of what we do as the church happens here, behind closed doors.  And while our front door isn’t locked, our members have sometimes had trouble getting past even our unlocked front door.  More to the point: does our message – does the good news of Jesus - get beyond our front door?  I ran into a person on Facebook again this week who thought our church was closed.  It’s frustrating – even after going door to door with flyers year after year, even with ads in the local newspaper, even with a website, a facebook group and a facebook page, some of our neighbors don’t know we’re here.

As the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends us – but we  need to go.   Fewer and fewer people are willing to set foot inside a church these days – and they certainly won’t do so if they think the building is vacant, unless they want to steal the plumbing to sell as scrap  metal – and so we need to come out from behind our closed doors.  We need to be visible.  The disciples were behind locked doors because they didn’t want anyone to find them.  But I think we’d like our neighbors to find us.

As the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends us.  What will it look like when we go?  Maybe it’ll look like Sean and his group feeding homeless people in Center City.  Might it look like us walking the streets of Bridesburg, looking for places of need and pain, and trying to bring healing?   Might it look like us helping with tutoring or an after school program?  Might it look like us connecting somehow with the veterans group in the neighborhood?  What will it look like?

John ended this section of his gospel with the words, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”   We at Emanuel are also a kind of book, an open book we hope, in which people can learn of Jesus and come to believe.  But will our book go unread, or will it gather cobwebs until it crumbles into dust?  Will all we say and do here lead anyone to Jesus?

May we go from this place, remembering that we are sent by Jesus, and sent for a purpose.  May we come out from behind our closed doors into the community to which God has called us.   Amen.