Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
April 7, 2024
Christ the King-Epiphany Church
Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31
It was evening on the first Easter Day, and the doors were locked. Think about that simple detail for a moment. The disciples were locked in the room where they had met – probably a reference to the Upper Room where, just a few days earlier, they had experienced Jesus washing their feet – they were hiding for fear of the authorities. They had seen what the powers-that-be had done to Jesus. How could they not have been fearful that they would suffer the same fate as followers of their crucified Lord? The doors were locked to keep bad things away.
Though John doesn’t say, I can’t help but wonder if they were also locked in out of regret. They had not acquitted themselves particularly well in the 72 hours just past. Judas had betrayed Jesus, handing him over for arrest. Peter had tried to refuse Jesus’ gift of footwashing, then struck out with violence, cutting off the ear of the high priest’s slave, and then despite his earlier bravado, three times denied having anything to do with Jesus. None of them, perhaps with the exception of the one disciple that John tells us stood with Mary at the foot of the cross – none of them had stayed faithful to Jesus, and apparently none of them had believed Mary Magdalene’s testimony about encountering Jesus in the garden that morning. They must have been filled with remorse and regret for their behavior, and you know how it is when you’re feeling really guilty: you don’t want friends stopping by, you don’t want people checking in on you, you just want to be alone (or alone with others who share your shame). I’m guessing the doors were locked out of regret as well as fear.
And it’s an obvious but important point to make – they had undoubtedly locked themselves in. The text gives us no indication that they were being held prisoner there, no suggestion that they were locked in from the outside. No, they had most likely locked themselves in for the same reasons that we lock ourselves into our homes – for security and to keep out unwanted visitors. As the Baptist pastor Robert Hastings wrote: “It isn't the burdens of today that drive [people] mad. Rather, it is regret over yesterday or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.”
Regret and fear . . . rob us of today.
Into the disciples’ Upper Room self-imposed vault of regret and fear, the risen Christ enters, saying, “Peace be with you.” The locked door could not keep him out. So abundant was his love for his friends, so great his desire that they should believe that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, that he crossed all borders, all barriers, all boundaries of space and time so that they would have the kind of life that is not paralyzed by regret or fear but filled with the peace that comes from knowing he was with them in the present. Even as he is with us now. And he breathed the Holy Spirit into them. Even as he breathes the Spirit into our regretful, fearful hearts.
A woman by the name of Helen Mallicoat wrote a poem often referred to as The I AM Poem. I couldn’t find much information about her, except that she reportedly never copyrighted her poem because she believed that it had been given to her as a gift from God. I think it can be a gift to you, as well. She wrote:
I was regretting the past and fearing the future. Suddenly, God was speaking: My name is I AM.
I waited. God continued. “When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not I WAS.
When you live in the future, with its problems and fears, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I WILL BE.
When you live in the moment, it is not hard. I am here. My name is I AM.
I AM. Jesus is here, in the present. Remembering our own failures and fearing what the future will bring, it can be hard to feel God’s presence. When we wrestle with the damage we have done to our planet in the past and consider the future impacts of climate change, it can be hard to feel God’s presence. While coming to grips with our culture’s legacy of racial inequity and worrying about how we can ever repair the damage, it can be hard to feel God’s presence. But God is I AM. And Jesus is I AM – meaning he is – with us – in the midst of our struggles. And our struggles and fears are washed away in a flood of baptismal grace. If you can’t feel that flood of grace, if you can’t feel him near because you’ve locked up your hearts for fear of being hurt again, then I pray even more that the Spirit will bust you out of the twin tombs of regret and fear into a brilliant experience of Christ present here and now.
What would it feel like to enjoy the present for what it is, to experience all of God’s gifts to us in this present moment, rather than feel stress and fear for the future or feel stuck in the past? It would feel like the peace and presence of Christ. And since Jesus not only brought peace, but also sent out the disciples to share it with others, we have to ask the corollary question: What would it feel like for us truly to be present for others in their daily struggles? Not to fix things, but to walk side-by-side with them as partners in the journey? It would feel like the peace and presence of Christ. It would feel like new life. It would feel like true and abundant life. It would feel like Christ is risen! Which is exactly what we should feel because he is risen indeed.
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