Easter 2, John 20:19-23
Jesus had a habit of barging in on his people. Well what would you call it when you’ve locked the outside door against intruders and for good measure locked yourself in your bedroom or a closet? And suddenly, there he is standing in your midst.
Perhaps we might call it breaking and entering. For what purpose? To do what anyone who breaks in and enters intends to do, to burgle you, to rob you. Yes, robbery was his intend that Sunday evening when the disciples discovered him standing in their midst. Remember Jesus compared his coming to a thief in the night. What could the disciples and you and I have that He could want? Our Easter conversation began last with, “He is risen!” And you responded, _______. He has it all, all creation, all kingship, all life and all truth. Nevertheless, he wants to rob you and me. We sang the reason for his barging in, his breaking and entering as we ended the Festival of the Resurrection of our Lord. “I know that my Redeemer Lives, He lives to silence all my fears.”
He has come to rob you of your fears of enemies, fears of who might be on the prowl out there, fears of viruses, fears of neighbors, fears of family members, of losing our health or job, or home, fears of falling into the donut hole, fears of things that go bump in the night. Not the least of our fears is of what goes on inside ourselves that we keep shut and locked away. We fear that God knows all about us, and that ain’t good. How is your security system functioning or failing?
I talked to an elderly woman this past week. She has numerous physical difficulties including a stroke in her eye for which she has two pairs of glasses and one has a prism lens. She thinks she and her husband should move out of their house. Her husband, even with hearing aids in both ears, can’t hear. Nevertheless, she comments, “He likes to be in control.” If there is anything we should have learned the past Good Friday evening or this past week in the storms to the south, we are not in control.
Have you noticed that God is a social being? God doesn’t lock up the heavenly realms and pull up the draw bridge to keep out the riff raff like you and me. God craves and seeks our company. God has done so since that first evangelism call in the Garden of Eden. “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden…and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God…but the Lord God called to the man…”Where are you?’” From their hiding place among the trees, the man answered, “I was afraid.” ‘Where are you?” He asks still today, because god knows we are still afraid. God comes with His presence breaking and entering through the doors we have locked against his barging in.
It was in the little town of Bethlehem that, “the hopes and fears of all the years” met the night of Jesus’ birth. That is the answer to our Advent cry, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.” So the Lord did, he barged in garbed in a baby-soft skin and dwelled about us, full of grace and truth. He broke through the barrier between eternity and time, heaven and earth in our baptism and continues to do so through his word and in Holy Communion. Someone wrote, “I am never sure how or why, Jesus has come to me and stood in that sequestered place of fear and forgetfulness, but he has again and again.”
When Jesus breaks into our lives to rob us of our fear, He leaves behind something of great and lasting value, Peace. Three times in our gospel lesson Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” He who is the King of Peace gives the gift of Peace. This isn’t just the ordinary greeting like, “Hi.” Jesus greeting carries with it health, well being and all the gifts which God had for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and added to them, for our benefit, is salvation.
When Jesus was born, the heavenly chorus praised God for bringing “on earth peace.” When Jesus entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday the crowds cried out, “Peace in heaven.” Through his life, suffering, death and resurrection, sin was defeated on earth and our warfare with God was ended. We await Jesus return to deliver the coup de grace to death which is defined as, “A deathblow delivered to end the misery of a mortally wounded victim.” In this case it’s a deathblow delivered to death itself, our mortally wounded enemy.
Following his initial greeting of peace Jesus showed the disciples the marks of the cross on his hands and side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus, who has completed in his suffering, death and resurrection the reason the heavenly Father sent him, now says “Even so I am sending you.” Jesus having robbed us of fear and given the gift of peace now commissions you and me to an ongoing mission to go in peace with the good news that releases people from their sins, just as we have been released from ours.
When God created the man of clay in Genesis he breathed the spirit of life into the figure and he became a living being. Now in the new creation Jesus breathes on his people saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” “If you release anyone from their sins they are released. If you fasten anyone’s sins upon them they are fastened.”
Marghanita Laski a secularist and novelist said shortly before her death in 1988, “What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.” Of course she did have somebody to forgive her. She had available to her the forgiving love of Jesus Christ through the same cross as you and I do.
Like blood at a crime scene, sin is not so easily scrubbed away. The one who sheds another’s blood may try to wipe out the evidence. But when the crime scene investigator arrives he or she is able to detect the presence of blood through a special chemical that glows in the dark when blood residue is present. That is the way that sin adheres to a person. Though Pontius Pilate washed his hands of Jesus’ death, he still had blood on his hands. Someone might say, “Sin, who me? I have no sin. That’s an old fashioned idea that you have no business foisting upon me.” But as we reminded ourselves at the start of the service, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Then the conversation continued, “But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
That’s why Jesus barged in at Bethlehem garbed in human flesh. That’s why Jesus barged in on the disciples garbed in a resurrected body. That’s why he will one day barge back into our world and garb us in bodies fit for eternal life. May those who are so clothed be many. Break in and rob someone of their fears leaving behind the gift of peace in the release from sin.
Comments