Read the Lectionary Texts

“Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” “Alleluia!” “Rejoice!” “Glory Hallelujah!”

These are all words we Christians use when we tell the story of Easter. And yet, the Gospelwriters most frequently use another word when describing the resurrection experience.

They use the word “fear.”

“Fear not!” the angel said by the empty tomb as the women came to tend to Jesus’ body. And when the women left the graveyard that day, they ran as fast as they could, and Mark tells us,  “They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.” And that night, in John’s Gospel, we meet the disciples huddled in a room somewhere in Jerusalem. And we are told that the door was locked because…they were afraid.

Easter fear!

That’s not exactly the way we want to embrace the resurrection, but its clear that the Gospelwriters think it’s important that we do.

Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear.

And then, “Fear not.”

Maybe part of what Easter is all about is confronting our deepest fears, and finding a way to overcome them so we can truly find life in all its Easter glory!

So the disciples this night are in a dimly lit room and the doors are locked. And John tells us why the doors are locked. “…for fear of the Jews.”

I don’t know if you notice the irony here, but the disciples are Jews! And yet, they’ve locked themselves in this room “…for fear of the Jews.” What can this be all about?

Well, I suspect that after the arrest, conviction and execution of Jesus just a few days earlier, these men who have spent the last three years of their lives following the Lord, are well aware of the differences between themselves and their fellow Jews. And how those differences could get them killed, too! They believe one thing, the Jews believe another. They see things one way, the Jews see things another way. There is a huge gulf of uncommonality smack dab in the middle of all they hold in common. And you know how people are when they have differences.

Protestants and Catholics – both Christian, and yet still so divided. Palestinians and Israelis – both the descendents of Abraham, and yet so conflicted. Blacks and whites – created equally, and yet so separate. Many of the dear families in the various churches I’ve served. You know, even though the Smiths or the Jones are all members of the same family and share the same last name, they are so fractured and torn apart because one family member turns out to be gay, or one of them decides to marry the wrong person, or one of them inflicts some great injury upon another, or one of them follows a non-approved career path, or one of them develops some form of mental illness, or one of them drives everyone else crazy by always marching to the beat of a different drummer, and comes home from college with purple hair, tattoos all over her body, and her name changed to something like Moonglow.

Oh, it happens in the best of families! The best of communities! The best of churches! The whole world is torn apart by the raging blaze of our differences in the midst of all our commonality. And these differences frighten us. So we go and hide in our little inner rooms where we can dim the lights, and lock the doors “…for fear of the Jews.”

That’s why there are so many denominations, you know. Because we’re afraid of those who think differently than we do about Christianity. And, more importantly, that’s why denominations have such a hard time working together cooperatively and even worshiping together. Why, if we allowed Catholics to receive Communion in our church, do you realize what could happen? I mean, DO you?

Why…well…uh…surely SOMETHING bad would happen! I mean, they believe in transubstantiation and we believe in consubstantiation and…what?…you DON’T believe in consubstantiation, buddy? You don’t even know how to spell it, let alone believe it? You just believe that Christ is somehow made known in the breaking of the bread? Oh my God…! You see what happens when you unlock those doors and let “the Jews” in? I mean, call them Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans – I don’t care – or for that matter call them atheists, agnostics or even panmillenialists (who simply believe that everything will pan out in the end) – they’re all really “the Jews”, you know – at least in the sense of being people we need to be careful about. And lock out of our lives.

So here in the days after Easter, we hide – as churches, as families, as neighbors, as individuals – along with the disciples, in dimly lighted rooms, behind locked doors, “…for fear of the Jews.”

 Maybe you’re hiding in one of those locked rooms today.

Well, listen to the rest of the story.

The risen Christ comes into the locked room.

Now, you may notice from the story that it took some fancy spiritual footwork for Jesus to get into that room. Would have been so much easier if they had just left the door unlocked. But they didn’t. “…for fear of the Jews.”  So Jesus had to do the Star Trek thing and have Scotty beam him up into the room. John tells us that Jesus simply materialized. Poof!

And there’s a point to made here. When you and I lock out others from our lives, we’re also locking Christ out. Did you know that? If we know nothing else about this faith of ours, it must be that Jesus came to save the lost, and if we are doing our best to save ourselves from the lost, then what we’re doing is locking out Jesus and his love.

But still, in mercy and with grace, Jesus comes to us. Poof! Because – here in our fear – we have ourselves become the lost! Have you ever noticed how some of the saddest people of all in the world are those who spend their lives locking out other people? I knew a family once where two brothers had not spoken in over forty years. I only knew one of the brothers, and what struck me about him was that underneath all the bravado of the rationale he held for keeping away from his brother, he was in deep, inner pain. He knew. He knew it was wrong. Every time I preached a sermon about Christian love, or forgiveness, or reconciliation, he would become agitated and need to come by the office the next day and explain why that message didn’t apply to him. I wonder why he felt he needed to make the effort to come and tell me that? And what I marveled about was the fact that, there he sat, telling me all the reasons he felt he couldn’t follow Jesus. Talk about locking the Lord out of your life! Oh, every time you lock out another person, you have to close the door on God and God’s ways.

So Jesus comes to all of us today, hiding in our little locked rooms.

Listen to what he says.

“Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you!”

Jesus, you know, was sent by his Father into a world of sinners – to people who believed all the wrong things; to people who aspired to all the wrong values; to people who lived in all the wrong ways. Jesus was sent “to the Jews” – so to speak.

And that’s where Jesus sends …US!

To be a Christian is to break free from the locked rooms in which we hide from others, and to go in Christian love to engage and serve and bear witness to those very people from whom we are hiding.

“As the Father sent me, so I send you!”

And it’s scary!

If you were to forgive that person, you could get hurt. If you were to go and speak the truth in love to that family member with the drinking problem, it could cause all sorts of chaos. If you were to listen to that other point of view, the world of your own ideas and beliefs might be shattered and need to be reconstructed. If you were to come alongside and befriend that person whose lifestyle is not in the mainstream, people might think the worst of you. If you were to lovingly share what you believe and why you believe it with other family members, they might think you’ve become a religious fanatic. If you were to love your enemy and pray for the one who hates you, you could get killed.

That’s what happened to a friend of mine’s brother. Ted Studebaker. The Studebakers were brought up in a Mennonite home where they were taught pacifism as the Christian way. Now, some family members couldn’t go that far, and went and served their nation with honor as members of the military. But Ted really believed pacifism was the right way. He was committed to non-violence. So during the 1960’s, he chose to serve in Vietnam in a peaceful way – with the Mennonite service organization. He and his young wife helped the Montagnard people of Vietnam learn how to farm and be productive with their lives. But you know what happened. The Viet Cong didn’t like that. So one night they came to Ted Studebaker’s house and shot him dead.

It’s dangerous to leave those locked rooms and to go out in Christian love and service to those who are different from us. And, in the process of going out to where “the Jews” are, you come face to face with what I believe is our ultimate fear.

That is the fear that evil is stronger than good, that hate trumps love, and that no good deed will ever go unpunished.

This, I believe, is our ultimate fear.

That, when push comes to shove, God cannot be trusted.

That’s why this Easter story is not complete until Jesus shows us his nail scarred hands and feet. Yes, living among “the Jews” is dangerous in every way. There will be sacrifices that must be made. There will be hurt that must be borne. There will be discomfort, and danger, and distress – and maybe even death.

But those hands and feet of Jesus proclaim the Good News…

God CAN be trusted!

“Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” “Alleluia!” “Rejoice!” “Glory Hallelujah!”

Good DOES triumph over evil! Love DOES conquer hate. And every good deed WILL BE remembered and rewarded in time! Even DEATH is not the final word!

Because Christ the Lord is risen!

“So as the Father sent me, I send you,” Jesus says to you and me.

You may remember the story about the mother whose son refused to go to school. She found him there in his bedroom, cowering under the covers, pretending to be sick. She told him to get up and get going, but he insisted he did not want to go to school. The kids teased him. The teachers didn’t like him. The work was too hard.

Finally, the mother said, “Honey, you’ve GOT to go to school. You’re 50-years old and the Principal of that school! Now get up and get going!!”

Well, Easter tells us the same thing. We’ve got to leave the locked rooms of our lives and go out in Christian love and service and reconciliation to all those people we are afraid of, and hiding from, and standing at a distance from.

 “As the Father sent me, so I send  you!”

And those disciples did! They unlocked those doors and left that room, and history shows us they changed the world!

Today, I want to recruit you to help change our world.

Do you truly believe in Easter?

Do you really believe God can be trusted in life and in death?

Then unlock the door today.

And when you leave here, go in Christian love to your family member, to your estranged neighbor, and to your broken world in the name of the Risen Christ!

Amen.