APRIL 19, 2020

second sunday of easter

John 20:19-31 & Acts 2:14,22-32

READ LECTIONARY | watch SERMON RECORDING

I’m preaching today from inside a blanket fort, with my stuffed bear, because today I want to talk about safe places. About the fear and the circumstances that drive us to seek out those safe places. About what it means, and what it feels like, to hide. 

Today’s passages are about a lot of things: fear, doubt, faith, the jews. At another time I might want to present a meditation on doubt and faith. I might want to dive into the history of anti-semitism in the church and investigate this phrase “for fear of the jews.”

But it’s not another time. It’s this time. It’s a time that means I’m preaching to you over video, from my own home. And this time, the phrases that stuck out to me the most in the Gospel passages are these mentions of doors that are shut, and doors that are locked, because of fear.

When I was a little kid, I loved to build blanket forts. My brother and I would gather every pillow and blanket in the house and create a cozy den for ourselves to huddle up in. And while this was a fun game we liked to play, it was also a way for us to feel safe. I often found myself drawn to these forts, these piles of soft familiar blankets and stuffed animals, when I felt sad, or frightened, or overwhelmed. 

I’d bet, for most of us, a sense of cozy, comfortable safety is feeling pretty important right about now.

It was the same for the disciples. At the time of our Gospel passage today, their leader and Messiah had just been crucified - and the same violent, oppressive powers that had tortured and killed Jesus were also out to get them. They were seeking shelter, hiding away in a room with doors that were shut and locked.

They didn’t know what was coming - but they were afraid, and they were pretty sure that if they just went about business as usual, things would get worse. So they found a place to hide, a place where they could close and lock the doors. A place where they could shut out the threats of the outside world, as best they could.

I probably don’t have to work too hard to connect the situation that the disciples found themselves in with the circumstances we’re in now. I’ve read these passages before, and though yeah, I get it - I’ve been afraid, and confused, I’ve felt doubts - but this week, reading about the disciples hiding inside, stuck behind locked doors, it all hit that much harder.

Like the disciples, we’re all behind closed doors, working to avoid an outside danger. Like the disciples, most of us are probably with people we care a lot about, who share our fears. Like the disciples, we’re doing the best we can to understand our new predicament and cope with the uncertainty about what’s coming next.

But there’s something we know now that the disciples didn’t know when they shut those doors and locked them - because we have the gift of Scripture to pass down the stories and promises of Jesus’s time on earth. When they found a place to hide away and try to figure out what to do, they didn’t know what we know now.

We know now that the room the disciples saw as a hiding place, as a place of fear and confusion and despair, would also be a place where Christ would reveal Himself and where God would show up in peace, glory, and love.

There’s a dichotomy to these hiding places, to these locked rooms, to the blanket forts I made to try and find comfort and security as a kid. Because while they might bring a sense of safety, we seek them because we feel unsafe. The room where the disciples sat was filled, just like many of our homes today, with confusion. Anxiety. Hopelessness. Grief. 

And it was in that place - that place defined by fear, by the threat just beyond its walls, by its locked doors - that Jesus appeared to the disciples, speaking peace and bringing revelation. No amount of fear, no doubt, no locked doors, no hideaway, is enough to separate us from the love and the peace of Jesus Christ. Jesus stepped through those locked doors, into that space of despair.

When Jesus enters, he transforms it into a space of peace, and joy, and hope. When he invites Thomas to touch his wounds, he turns it into a place of revelation, a place where God’s complete love and endless presence in our world is made manifest. He enters a place of isolation and turns it into a place of connection.

A locked room is not a temple. A blanket fort is not a church. Temples and churches are spaces we build because we expect and honor God’s presence. We celebrate the ways God has shown up for us and anticipate that God will continue to do so. But a locked room is somewhere we go when we aren’t sure what’s coming. When we don’t feel hopeful, or secure.

They are places of doubt.

But the incredible promise of this Gospel passage is that they are also places where God does amazing, revelatory, redemptive work. The walls and doors of these rooms, and the fears and doubts that draw us into them, are not nearly enough to keep God out. In this passage, though the story of our friend Thomas, Jesus promises us that in these small places, in these scared places, in the locked rooms of our homes and our communities and our hearts, God can and will show up. 

God does not arrive despite the limitations of these places. It’s not that Jesus is just barely able to break through the closed doors. Our reading from Acts today reminds us that it was in the ultimate locked room - the grave - that Christ completed the work of the cross. It’s in the upper room that Christ’s resurrection is made real. 

There’s a big difference between our church, with its stained glass and its pews and pulpit, and the blanket fort I’ve built here in my bedroom. Churches and temples are places we expect God to show up - and it’s important to honor that, and I know we all really miss gathering at our beautiful St. Mark’s campus. But blanket forts and locked rooms are places we go when we aren’t sure. When we doubt. When we’re afraid. When we don’t know what to expect.
And God shows up there, too. Often in different ways. Quieter ways. Peaceful ways. God is present even in the circumstances that make it hard for us - like Thomas - to be certain of it. The promise of the Gospel is that no locked door, no desolate place, no fearful heart, can stop Jesus from showing up and declaring peace and truth. 

So as we sit, like the disciples, behind closed doors, wondering what comes next and whether God can move in these places of uncertainty and fear, let us rest in the promise handed down to us from our friend Thomas: where we least expect it, where we struggle, where we feel alone or afraid, God. Shows. Up.