Breaking and Entering

Easter 2A: John 20:19-31

The remarkable thing about Easter is that Jesus was not just raised from the dead, or that he defeated the powers of sin and death, but that he also returned to his disciples. It would have been enough that Jesus was resurrected, but he also came back to his fearful followers.

And it was a good thing that he did, given the state they were in after his crucifixion. Jesus, their leader and teacher, had been wrenched from them, arrested, tortured, and summarily executed. And the disciples figured they were next, that the authorities would soon be coming for them. Which is why they were huddled, frightened in the Upper Room, behind locked doors.

John says that it was “for fear of the Jews,” but maybe the Jewish leaders were not the only thing they were afraid of. One of the women, Mary Magdalen, had just that morning returned with the astounding, incredible news that she had seen Jesus alive. Surely, she was confused, delusional. Jesus couldn’t be alive…could he? But what if she’s right, what if Jesus has come back? What would he say to them, what would he do to them, after they’d let him down so miserably—betrayed him, denied him, abandoned him, and run away? No wonder they were hiding!

Only, the locked doors were no obstacle for the man whom death could not hold. Suddenly, despite their precautions, Jesus was present among them. John doesn’t say how, only that he was there, he came to them. Jesus’ business with the disciples was evidently not over. And he wasn’t about to let some locked doors, or their locked hearts, get in the way. He just came right in.

You may have seen the famous painting of Jesus by Holman Hunt, entitled “The Light of the World.” In the painting, it’s evening, and Jesus is outside a house. He’s got a lantern in hand, and with the other he’s knocking on a door, which has no handle and is overgrown with ivy, suggesting that it had not been opened in years. At the bottom are the words from Revelation: “Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come and eat with them.”

It’s a beautiful painting, a beautiful image, Christ tapping at the closed door of the human heart, hoping that door will be opened. But this picture has nothing to do with the Jesus of today’s lesson. Jesus here doesn’t politely tap at the door of the Upper Room. He completely ignores being locked out, and strides right in among his frightened disciples. He doesn’t ask permission; he just invites himself in.

Now, looking back over the course of his ministry, that was just the way Jesus operated. He didn’t wait to be invited to dinner or to have a conversation. He just barges in, strikes up a conversation, initiates the encounter. We saw this throughout our readings this past Lent—the woman at the well, the man born blind, Nicodemus: Jesus was the instigator, the initiator. Ok, Nicodemus did seek Jesus out, but the moment he found him, Jesus takes the lead in the conversation, and whatever Nicodemus came to discuss is forgotten. Never in these encounters did we hear Jesus say, “Excuse me. Would you be interested in hearing more about the Kingdom of God?” No, he just starts preaching. The same thing happens here, after his resurrection—he just shows up wherever he wants. Bidden or unbidden, Jesus is there.

Maybe this seems rude, even threatening, perhaps, but it’s ultimately a good thing, a gracious thing. For, if it was up to us, if we could perpetually keep Jesus at bay, locked out of our lives, reality is, a lot of us would. Because, let’s face it, many of us are like the disciples—afraid.

Oh, we’re not afraid of the police or even the religious police barging through the door at any time. (Our brothers and sisters around the world may fear that happening, but we don’t.) Still we are often afraid, of heights, of bullies, of the monster in the closet, sure. But more deeply, we are afraid of being hurt, of being abandoned, afraid to love, afraid to let go of the wrong done to us, afraid of being weak, of being a burden, afraid of dying.

And fear can be a powerful force. Fear of this or that, anxiety over some aspect of life, makes us lock our doors and lock up our hearts. We lock our windows and doors and garages at night. We screen our calls. We refuse to go out because we’re too ashamed, too down, or too afraid we will run into so-and-so. We don’t read any difficult books or listen to opinions we don’t agree with. We don’t let anyone get too close to us or let anyone disrupt our precious routines. Fear, you see, is a cage, restricting our movements, limiting our relationships, locking us in at the same time as it locks others out. In such a fearful state, even Jesus coming to us can seem like a threat.

And yet sometimes, amidst the fear and anxiety, there’s a small part of us that recognizes that disruption, a little shaking up, is the very thing we need. Oh, I have no illusions about how painful that can be, having your beliefs, the comfortable order you’ve made for yourself, cracked open, having to hold the pieces loosely for a time, until they can arrange themselves in a new order. That can be scary. But invariably, afterwards, you see how cramped it was in that cell, locked-up in the prison of fear.

That is why it’s so powerful that Jesus came back to the disciples. Jesus came to them, even when they had no intention of coming to him. He came to them even when they weren’t hoping to meet God. And he comes to us, when we least expect it. Jesus finds a way to get through the locks, past our defenses, inside the walls we build around ourselves. There is no security system that’s been devised that can keep us safe from Jesus.

Some of you here, I know, are here in church because, in some way or another, you invited Jesus into your life. Say, you hit rock bottom, found yourself at the end of your rope. Or you’ve tried this or that method for getting your life in order, but nothing worked, and so you decided to try Jesus. Or maybe you felt something was missing in your life and you decided to look for it here in church. If that is your experience, if that’s what brought you here, great!

But for others of you, your experience is more like the Jesus of today’s Gospel, barging in where he’s not invited. You didn’t ask for it, in fact maybe you were actively opposed to him, but he came in anyway, sat down on your couch and has never left.

One guy I know tells it this way: “I hated being taken to church as a kid. Didn’t understand any of it. Like they were talking about Martians or something. So at my first opportunity not to go to church, I took it. Never darkened the door of a church from eighteen to thirty. Then at thirty, my marriage falling apart, business not going the way I wanted, maybe that was it. Or maybe it was just that I had matured to the point where I could figure it all out. I just started having this strange tug toward church. I wanted to be there, needed to be there. Every sermon I heard made some sense to me for the first time.”

Another shared how it was for her: “How many sermons had I heard on The Good Samaritan? Like a hundred. So I thought to myself, when the preacher announced his sermon title and text, ‘Here we go again.’ Well, somewhere in the middle of a not-so-memorable sermon, it was like God Almighty just spoke to me. Like God said directly to me, ‘Well, get up. Take your place in the story. I need you.’ So that explains why I’ve been chair of the Social Justice Committee of the congregation for these many years.”

Sometimes though Jesus’ showing up can be quite dramatic. I just heard about a former Muslim, Afshin Javid. He was an executioner for Iran’s Basij internal police, part of the IRGC, the regime’s "Iron Fist.” According to his own words, he had grown up being taught to devalue life, to be desensitized to death. In fact, he glorified death, especially for the cause of Jihad, for a holy war, to be a martyr. But then one day, after performing gruesome services for the regime, he had a vision of Jesus. He repented and converted to Christianity, and is now an evangelist to Iranians in exile.

Now, if you want to talk about locked doors, places where it’s nearly impossible to get into with the Gospel, Islamist Iran is certainly one of the most securely locked-up. And yet Jesus found a way to get in, to get past the locked doors and armed guards, and the cultural indoctrination, to get to Javid. And Javid is not alone. Missionaries are reporting that thousands of Muslims are coming to faith right now, after meeting Jesus in their dreams. No matter how hard, Jesus is finding his way in.

And the risen Jesus keeps doing that, keeps showing up. He showed up a week later for Thomas, and he keeps coming back week after week among his gathered disciples – showing up in word and sacrament. Just as Jesus came back to his disciples, Jesus comes to us, moving through whatever locked door we are hiding behind, opening doors that we don’t know how to unlock, to reunite with us, forgiving us, making himself available to us, showing himself before us, patiently teaching us, and inviting us to trust him, to be bold in our faith.

It’s understandable, hearing this, if you are like Thomas and have doubts, some reservations and fears. Who wouldn’t? But the Good News is Jesus’ presence doesn’t depend on us, on what we can feel or believe or think, or even our openness to him. Jesus won’t let any of our reservations, fears, misgivings, doubts, questions or refusals keep him out, not in the end. He’s likely to kick open whatever doors we’ve locked, come in on us, breathe his life-giving Spirit on us, and give us a job to do. Because that’s what Jesus does.

I know someone who for forty tortuous, tumultuous, wasted years fled from the summons of God. He tried everything to silence the call of God, always fleeing in the other direction whenever he feared that God was calling his name. The week he came back to church, after a 20-year hiatus, he explained his return to church in just four short words: God got to me.

God got to him, just as God got to the disciples in Jesus, just as Jesus keeps getting to us. Jesus is the “hound of heaven,” to use the poet Francis Thompson’s title, “dogged” in his determination to come to us, to pursue us, to bring us back.

The great wonder of Easter is not only that the crucified Jesus has been raised from the dead, it is also that he came back to us. The risen Jesus returns to his own, going where he’s not expected, where he’s not invited, where he’s been locked out, finding a way to us.

You see, even though we celebrated Easter last Sunday, Easter isn’t over. Easter isn’t just about one day, Easter Sunday, or even the Easter season, “Eastertide.” Easter is what we call the new reality we’ve been in since Jesus was resurrected. A reality in which fear doesn’t imprison us, where death is not the end, where a Jewish man from 2000 years ago and half a world away can just show up one day in our house or neighborhood or dreams. All because God as determined to get to us so that we can come back to him. And for that we say, Alleluia! Amen.