Full Text Sermon: Stop Being Afraid

It’s very difficult to live life on the upbeat all the time. Some days we are exhausted and even trying to be upbeat is close to impossible. Some days we are so overwhelmed with grief or beaten down by illness or physical pain that we despair thinking that there will never come a day when we could even smile again. Many are dealing with the loss of jobs, the failure to find a job after months of looking, or the impossibility of trying to make meager financial sources stretch to cover current expenses, maybe even facing homelessness due to failure of adequate income. Some days we just want to go into our own room, lock the doors behind us so that no one can disturb us and suffer in silence.

That’s sort of the place the disciples found themselves after the death of Christ. They went to the house of one of their community in the area of Jerusalem and locked the doors behind them, afraid for their lives, despairing over the lost vision of the fantastic future they had imagined because their leader was now dead. Even when Mary came to bring the news that she had seen Christ alive they didn’t change their behavior much. They didn’t throw the door open wide and steam out into the city to declare him alive. Nope, they stayed right where they were, and probably tried to convince Mary she was just being hysterical.

Suddenly, despite the locked door, Jesus appears in the room with them and for the first time tells them, “Peace be still.” Then the author of the Gospel of John tells us that Christ breathes his holy spirit into them, telling them to go out into the world and love and care for others just like God had sent Christ. This is John’s Pentecost when the disciples receive the Holy Spirit of God, breathed into them, just like God had breathed into Adam and Eve at their Creation. Christ was giving them Christ’s presence and power to go out and take God’s love to a suffering world.

He also speaks about forgiveness, probably the hardest thing to talk about in any church, even harder than sex and money.

Thomas comes back to the room. He’s been out. Apparently he’s not afraid leave that locked room, but he is disappointed that Christ appeared to the rest of the followers of Jesus but not to him. Basically he says to them, ‘I won’t believe what you are telling me until I, too, can see him and touch him, and feel the wounds in his body.’

When we grieve we can get pretty particular about what we want in order to give up our grief. I’ve sat in hospital waiting rooms holding up faith and hope for others while a beloved person undergoes surgery following an accident or due to and illness. I’ve heard people say, “I won’t believe she is okay until I see her walk out of this hospital on her own. I won’t believe God can heal him until I can hug him and see that he is okay for myself.” When we grieve we can make some mighty big demands upon God and upon ourselves.

Do you notice something rather interesting about this story. What did those followers of Jesus do after Christ appears to them and breathes the Holy Spirit into them? Not much. Even Jesus appearing to them alive didn’t get them to budge out of that room. A week later we find them still hiding behind closed and locked doors, but this time Thomas is present. Jesus comes again. Jesus tells them once more “Peace be with you.” In other words, “Stop being afraid!”

Why do you think they are still afraid? I remember growing up and my mother saying to me when I had been rather disobedient, “Just wait until your father gets home, young man.” My father was a rather violent disciplinarian when I was little. He changed over the years and you would not know the gentle person he is today is even the same person who disciplined so violently as a child. Now, Pastor Ray, just what does that memory of yours got to do with the disciples in the upper room. Plenty.

They were afraid of being arrested and killed by the Sanhedrin and the Romans for being followers of the condemned man Jesus. Rightly so. I would have been, too. Why stop the killing with just Jesus? Why not go after the whole bunch of them and get rid of the insurrection with a mass arrest and a mass killing. It wouldn’t have been the first time the Romans acted in such a manner. I’m sure they had heard the news reports and the rumors.

Then Jesus appears to them alive again. As my grandmother would have said that must have scared the be-jesus right out of them. First of all, if the Romans didn’t get it right the first time they killed Jesus, perhaps they will come after Jesus again, and who among them is safe if it becomes known that Jesus has returned and has been in your home with you? But…that isn’t the most scary thing about this whole situation.

What’s really scary is thinking about what Jesus will do to you. Sure it’s a childish thought, be we all have them. If Jesus can command life into being even after dying, what kind of power does Christ have over you, over the very followers that professed to be loyal to him, but who deserted Jesus at the moment of his crisis?

Will Jesus punish Peter for betraying him, not once mind you, but three times? Will Jesus discipline the disciples for running away and hiding? Just what will this Risen Christ do to them? Remember they lived in a society where people believed that the gods of the world could and did come into your life and punish you for your misbehavior; in much the same fashion that a violent father will beat his children for disobedience.

We know now that is not how God works in our lives. We also know that when we read the stories in the Old Testament about a vengeful, wrathful God that those stories reflect more the immature reasoning of primitive people. From other more reasoned scriptures we know that God works with us in love and truth to give us opportunities for New Life, to give us a chance to start over again, without the failures of the past haunting us. Like a loving parent of a toddler learning how to walk, when we fall down God picks us up, puts us back on our feet, gently brushes the dust off our clothes and tells us to try again.

However, many of us still live our lives in fear of God like frightened children who have just been told, “You just wait until your Father comes home.” We believe that God will somehow be forced into punishing us for our misbehavior or our wrong decisions. People ask me all the time, “Why is God doing this to me? What have I done that is so bad that God would punish me this way?”

Listen to me, carefully, God doesn’t work that way. God doesn’t intentionally punish you for disobeying God. It may seem like that to you, but that is a childish immature reaction, and it is not based on the truth about how our God works with us. Instead the scriptures tell us that God loves us and wants to demonstrate that love for us by giving us God’s power and presence and another chance to start all over again even when we or others screw up our lives.

It’s hard to change our behavior, our thinking, and our mis-perceptions of life even when we are looking square into the face of a miracle. We linger in the past, hesitant to move on into the future, even when the future seems so bright and so full of hope.

I once asked a depressed friend why she kept herself hidden away in her home and refused to engage with those who loved her and wanted her to heal and return to a productive life again. She said, “I’m comfortable here. No one bothers me. No one is asking me to do anything or go anywhere. I like being left alone.” I also suspect she was afraid to face the unknown of life beyond her home where you never know what is going to happen to you. It’s safe living behind closed and locked doors, even if you have few opportunities for real living.

But just like the disciples, Jesus won’t leave us alone in our despair. Jesus keeps coming back into our lives again and again bringing hope and a vision for a future full of possibilities and life. Jesus wants to give us a New Life in God’s New Community with our New Chosen Family of Faithful Friends. Sometimes we feel Christ’s presence as no more than a nagging feeling to get up and unlock the door to our heart, unlock the door to our life and welcome Christ and friends back in to be with us. Sustained by their love and care we again are able to think about moving beyond the closed doors and back out into life.

The disciples took the challenge Christ gave them. They moved beyond the closed and locked doors and out into their city and eventually across the whole Roman Empire. Centuries later we are the living legacies to their faithful witness of Christ’s Love for all people everywhere.

Whatever overwhelms you this morning, know that God can and will come into the midst of your fear and say to you, “My Peace be with you. Don’t be afraid.”

Whatever doubts churn in your mind, whatever sins trouble your conscience, God can and will come into your life and say to you, “My Peace be with you. Don’t be afraid.”

Whatever pain and worries bind you up, whatever walls you have put up or doors you have locked securely, God comes into your life anyway, and says to you, “My Peace be with you. Don’t be afraid.”

Whatever hunger or need you feel deep in your soul, God wants to call us to this table today, to feed us well, and to send us out into a world to be God’s justice, God’s peace, God’s salt and light, God’s love and hope for the world.

We can do it! You know we can do it! But only if we keep our eye, and minds, and hearts open and willing to love others just as we have been overwhelmed by the love of God.

As God sent Jesus into the world, so God sends us this day. My Peace is with you. Don’t be afraid.

Why don’t you take the challenge this week: Unlock and open the doors to your life. Take the Peace that Christ offers. Stop being afraid! Begin to enjoy life again. Begin to move out into the world sharing the Love of Christ with all you meet.