Second Sunday of Easter, Cycle C

John 20:19-31

Pastor Gayle M. Pope

Jesus Has Entered the Building.
Now It’s Time for Us to Leave!

Last Thursday night, 10 players on the Rutgers women’s basketball team, along with parents, coaches, administrators and a pastor, met with radio personality Don Imus at the New Jersey Governor's Mansion.

The meeting was held behind closed doors. People whose lives had become connected in turmoil were there looking for resolution … looking for a way to go forward in a positive direction following a distressing event. Emotions ran high … anger, regret, anxiety … perhaps even fear.

The meeting was facilitated by Coach Vivian Stringer’s pastor, so we can assume there was an element of faith present in the room. I wonder … do you suppose Jesus showed up? And if he did, what would he have said?

You know, it’s like Jesus to show up at a time like that. Just look at the gospel we heard this morning. Here you have a room full of Jesus’ disciples who had just been through a terrible ordeal together. Their teacher, master and friend in whom they had placed all their hopes, had been executed at the hands of their government, in cooperation with their own religious leaders.

They were afraid for their own lives. Surely there were regrets – Peter had denied him and the others had fled. They were doubtful about reports they heard earlier that very day that he had risen from the dead. They were unsure about what to do next. They had barred the doors.

And in walked Jesus.

The first thing he said was, “Peace be with you.” When Jesus speaks “peace” his word brings what it says – peace.

Peace with God. Peace that says, “Even though your world is upside down right now, all is well between you and God, and that’s all that really matters. So relax. Everything is going to be OK.”

The second thing Jesus did was to let them know that, “Yes – it’s really me! You’re not dreaming. I’m not a ghost. It’s me and I really was crucified and dead and now here I am, back with you again. Death could not keep me from you.”

They rejoiced as the emotional rollercoaster took them back up the track and, again, Jesus spoke peace.

The very next thing he said – without even a pause in between – was, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He didn’t give them much time to sit around licking their wounds, did he? “Peace. Yes it’s me. Now get out there and do what you saw me do.”

As the Father sent the Son, Jesus sends his disciples. And how was that? How did the Father send the Son? He sent him into the middle of the troubled world, as one who could identify with all the pain, in order to restore God’s Kingdom to earth.

He sent him as an obedient servant to preach and teach and heal and forgive and die and rise so that all God’s beloved children could be forgiven and their relationship with God restored. That’s what Jesus sends his disciples to do.

Then – as soon as Jesus declared this mission to his disciples – he gave them the power and authority and responsibility to carry it out. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Then he added, “It’s up to you now.”

Their mission was to bring God’s forgiveness into the world. If they would forgive sins, the sins would be forgiven. If they would not, it wouldn’t get done.

That’s all we hear about THAT meeting. But a week later, it’s a similar story. Again they were behind closed doors and, again, Jesus came and spoke peace to them and, again, assured them, “Yes. It’s really me.”

Thomas needed that, since he wasn’t there the first time, and Jesus obliged. It’s typical of Jesus to meet his followers at their point of need. Thomas saw and believed and declared his faith, with the strong words, “My Lord and my God!”

Seeing and believing is a major theme in the gospel of John. A person can “see” without believing – we can be exposed to the news about Jesus, but never accept the message and never receive its grace-filled forgiveness by faith.

And a person can “believe” without seeing – we can receive the grace and forgiveness available through faith in Jesus, even though we have never seen him in the flesh, as those who literally walked with him.

Faith in Jesus is an essential ingredient for whatever happens after Jesus enters the room and speaks peace and assurance and sends us out – because faith is necessary to receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus did signs and wonders in the presence of the first disciples, and he breathed the Spirit onto them directly.

Now, the Spirit comes to us through the words written by John and others – words inspired by the Holy Spirit so that we “may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in his name.” And, having received that life, carry it out to the world.

Was Jesus in the room with Don Imus and the women from Rutgers? No doubt Jesus WAS there. Was he heard? Is God’s mission being accomplished? Coach Stringer was quoted as saying, after the meeting, that the team had accepted Imus’ apology and were “in the process of forgiving.”

They are hoping the whole experience will help to bring about racial reconciliation. Time will tell. We probably will never really know all the good God may work out of this episode.

What’s important for

us to think about NOW, though, is our OWN lives. Where, in your own life, do you find yourself locked up behind a closed door in a room … where faith is weak … where doubts or regrets or fears abound … where the people or circumstances in which you placed all your hopes or upon which you based your security have been removed … where the future is unknown.?

Are you alone in that room, or are others there with you sharing in the turmoil?

Now, imagine Jesus walking right into that room – right through the barred door and saying to you, “Peace. All is well. I really am here. It’s really me.”

And then, imagine that, right from that place of turmoil he sends you out, saying, “As the Father sent me, so I send you. Go out and use this experience to bring God’s peace into the world by telling people about me and spreading forgiveness in my name. Receive the Holy Spirit so that my power and authority go with you.”

What, no time to rest and heal? Well, if you need time to rest and heal, God will give it. But maybe the resting and healing will come in the sending.

Maybe as God’s life and love and grace and forgiveness pass through us, strengthened by hearing and believing God’s Word, our own spirit becomes rested and healed.

Look what happened to Peter. The rock of faith who denied Christ when the going got tough, is a different person in the first reading we heard this morning from the Acts of the Apostles. Peter and the other disciples are being questioned by the high priest, accused of disobeying strict orders.

Peter is no longer afraid. “We must obey God rather than any human authority,” Peter declared boldly. “The god of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom YOU had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give REPENTANCE to Israel and FORGIVENESS of Sins. And WE ARE WITNESSES to these things, and so is the HOLY SPIRIT whom God has given to those who obey him.”

It’s all there. They are preaching repentance and forgiveness by the power of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus sent them out to do. The message almost got them killed that day, but their lives were spared and they were only flogged and sent away with orders to stop preaching. They didn’t stop.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, made alive in them by faith, the ordeal of their past and the trauma of their present only fueled their fire. They could NOT be silent.

How about us? It’s easy to get discouraged about the way we live out our faith – especially the way we bear witness to our faith, or don’t. But the story of Jesus entering the upper room and speaking peace and breathing the Spirit should give us encouragement.

It’s not all up to us. Jesus comes to us in the midst of our doubts and fears. The place to start is simply by believing and trusting Jesus for who he is and receiving the power he gives us.

When we do that, we will say, with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” And the trust that underlies that statement of faith will propel us into the world and guide our steps where Jesus leads.