Sermon - Easter Takes Time

Preached on April 19, 2009 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.
John 20:19-31
Acts 4:32-35

Fear is a terrible feeling, a debilitating state of being, and an obstacle to change, to taking risks, and love itself. Fear keeps us from growing, giving ourselves in love to one another, and drawing closer to God, and the bad news for us today is that fear is always going to be with us. Fear is a part of being human. We can’t get rid of it, partly because fear is originally a healthy feeling. When you are walking in the woods and the path comes alongside a steep drop-off, fear of falling is a good thing that will make you cautious and keep you safe, and if we could just keep the right amount of cautious fear, we’d be much better. But fear has a way of growing unchecked. When fear gets too big, instead of cautiously hiking the trail, we turn around and go back, and never go hiking again.

There is something healthy about the fear of the disciples on the evening of that Easter Sunday, when John’s gospel tells us that they were together with the doors locked, for fear of the Judean authorities. That seems like a healthy fear, seeing as they were disciples of a rabbi who had just been arrested in the dead of night, and tried and executed by the morning, before the news could get out. They were in hiding because, Who knew that they might not be next? I picture them sitting in a tense silence, their stomachs in turmoil and their mouths dry, expecting at any moment a knock on the door, or the door being bashed in.

And maybe we are also waiting for a knock on the door. We don’t expect to be arrested for coming to church, but we are also, in our own ways, waiting in fear, expecting at any moment that someone will come to tell us that our job has been cut, to tell us that the tests came back and there is bad news, to tell us that the violence we hear about everyday in the news has come close to us, affecting someone we love.

The disciples were afraid of the Judean authorities who had arrested Jesus, the gospel tells us, but I think that they were also afraid of Jesus himself. Just that morning, Peter and John had seen the empty tomb, and then Mary Magdalene came back to tell them that she had seen Jesus, though she’d mistaken him for the gardener at first. If a part of them fears arrest, I believe the other part of them fears the shame of coming face to face with Jesus, the one whom they had abandoned, and even denied. They hadn’t stayed close to offer what support they could. Instead, they’d gone into hiding.

I also see this fear reflected in our lives. We take elaborate measures to avoid embarrassment, shame, or losing face. After a fight with someone, it sometimes feels easier to keep seething from the wrongs we suffered than it is to apologize for the things we said. When we have let someone down, it’s easier to focus on the circumstances that were out of our control than it is to face our own failures. Like the disciples, we may lock ourselves away from the ones we love as much as from any danger.

The disciples never heard a knock, and the locked door wasn’t battered in. Instead, Jesus came and stood among them, and the very first thing he said to them was “peace be with you.” And the very second thing he said to them was “peace be with you.”

Just so, the risen Christ who faced and conquered fear in the name of love comes into our lives, into our locked rooms, and gives us peace. If the bad news is that fear will always be with us, the good news is that in Christ, God has conquered fear with love. In the first letter of John, he writes “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Whether the next knock at the door brings bad news, or brings the face of one whom we have wronged, or brings a calling for our lives that scares us, God gives us the strength to face our fears with love, and with the peace that comes from the far side of the empty tomb.

On the evening of Easter day Jesus has come to the disciples in the locked room to bring them peace, to show them his wounds, even to breathe on them the Holy Spirit (remember that breath is always symbolic of spirit) and to send them just as he was sent by God to proclaim forgiveness. With the exception of Thomas, they were all there. But Thomas was there the next time the risen Christ appeared to them. This was a week later, when the gospel tells us that the disciples were in the same house, with the doors locked.

Now, think about this for a moment. On Easter, the disciples were behind locked doors in fear of, well, of a number of things, when the risen Christ, who had just conquered death, came to them to give them peace, to give them the Holy Spirit, and to send them forth just as he had been sent. A week later, they are right in the same place with the doors still locked. It seems that Easter takes time to sink in.

Have you ever had a meeting at work to do something like improve customer relations, or to eliminate inefficiencies, and after the meeting thought to yourself “well, we won’t have to worry about that anymore!” Or have you ever gone through the work of setting appropriate limits for your children, like a curfew, and then thought to yourself “that’s the last time we’ll have to deal with that!” Sometimes we ministers will find ourselves preaching about some particularly difficult, like the will of God, the problem of suffering, or even the resurrection, and we’ll think, in the back of our minds: “you know, I preached about this about years ago and thought that I had cleared it all up!” It doesn’t work like that, does it?

So for all of you who have been frustrated about having to say the same things again, or having to confront the same issues at work or at home, remember this: even the risen Christ came back a week later and found the disciples in the same exact place. And maybe that helps us to think about our own spiritual journeys. We come back to this place week after week to encounter God. We come back to Easter year after year. And that’s okay. Easter takes time with us. The transformation from fearful people behind locked doors to disciples who are filled with love that casts our fear takes some time. And we know that they get there eventually. In our second scripture reading, from the book of Acts, we heard about the disciples and the growing church: “with great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.” And no one among them was in need. They shared their possessions, and were one in heart and mind. We’re getting there, but Easter takes time.

The transformation from fear to love is a gift from God, and it works itself into our lives in different ways. I have heard it said that we think our way into a new way of acting, and also that we can act our way into a new way of thinking. I think it goes both ways. Sometimes it is better to just start acting with kindness and generosity even if we don’t feel them. When we start to be more attentive to others because we know we are supposed to, we then find that we feel more interested in others, and more blessed by them. When we start to give away more than we want to give, we begin to think more in terms of generosity, and it changes the way we view the resources we have. We act our way into a new way of thinking.

But we can also think our way into a new way of acting. Sometimes this happens by regret. We see those opportunities slip by when we might have reached out to someone who was celebrating or grieving: a co-worker, neighbor, or friend. We regret the missed chance, but our regret makes us better prepared. I can still remember a conversation fifteen years ago when I didn’t speak up to defend people in a conversation. Later, I practiced in my mind what I could have said, and since then I have been more ready.

Or we may spend some time thinking about others who have made a difference to us. We think about what they said and did that made such a difference, and in a way we are then rehearsing for our chance to say and do those things for someone else. Maybe it was the person who talked to you when you were a stranger. Maybe it was the person who invited you to church. Maybe someone told you how good it is to count you as a friend.

I would guess that the disciples spent a lot of time thinking about how Jesus came to them without anger or reprimand, but with the word peace. And they must have thought about his love for people, even as he put his life at risk. But there must have also been a part of them that just decided to begin living in love instead of fear even if they didn’t quite feel that way. Even with fear in their minds, they began to act as if they weren’t afraid of anything, not because nothing bad could ever happen, but because nothing could separate them from the life, the love, and the peace of the risen Christ.