|
We
usually end the Easter scripture reading from John’s
Gospel where I have ended it in the reference above,
concluding with Mary’s encounter with the risen Christ and
her return to tell the disciples what had happened. I want
to add one verse to that passage—actually, half of a verse
now and the other half a little later. The verse I would add
reads: “In the evening of that day, the first day of the
week, the disciples met together with the doors locked for
fear of the Jews...” (John 20:19a, J.B. Phillips
translation)
Bill
Cosby used to do a comedy routine about a football coach who
had that coveted ability to inspire a team to ever greater
heights of achievement. In the routine, “Coach Cosby” is
giving a pep talk to the team at halftime. Every phrase
increases in intensity and the feeling of energy mounts in
the players, and then, in the final moment, he cries,
“Okay, boys, I’m sending you out there to win! Go get
‘em!” And the team leaps from the benches and charges
towards the exit—and discovers that the door is locked.
You
don’t go very far from behind locked doors.
In
the case of the disciples, however, nobody was trying to go
anywhere. The locked room in which we find them had not been
accidentally bolted from the outside by the custodian. The
door was locked from the inside by the disciples.
They were hiding out.
In
a sense, that may seem understandable. The crucifixion was a
dreadfully immediate experience. If the One who had stilled
the waves had been put to death, what chance did they have?
But notice when this was: “It was evening of that
day, the first day of the week...”
Remember
what day we are talking about. This half-verse of scripture
comes immediately after Mary’s announcement that she had
seen the Lord! We read that far on Easter morning and we
usually stop there, but this line about the locked doors is
the very next verse!
This
was not the evening of that dark Friday when their Messiah
had died, nor was it the evening of that long, depressing
Saturday when no one dared to venture forth. This was
Sunday. Early in the morning, Mary Magdalene and two other
women had gone to the tomb to anoint the body and found that
the tomb was empty; Peter and John had checked out the
women’s story and it is said that John, at least,
believed; a little later Mary had her encounter with the
risen Christ and went back and told the disciples that she
had seen the Lord.
This
is the evening of that day! The news of the
Resurrection was still echoing in their ears and here are
the disciples huddling in fear! Rather amazing, isn’t it?
Hiding behind locked doors with a Risen Christ let loose
upon the earth! Moreover, hiding behind doors that were
locked, not from without by those who would keep them from
going forth, but bolted from within by those who are
prisoners of their own fears.
It
makes one think a bit: How many of our prisons are
self-imposed? Fear itself is the greatest jailer of all, is
it not? Someone once observed that the greatest sufferings
are not those we have to endure, so much as those that we
anticipate. Such fears do
not have to be rational. A father turned on the lights in a
child’s bedroom to show the little guy that there were not
really any bears there. But the child was not convinced.
“The
kind of bears I’m scared of,” he said, “are the kind
that only come out in the dark.”
Aren’t
a great many of our fears like that? Rationally, with the
lights on, we know they shouldn’t affect us the way they
do, but in the dark...? In one of the Disciple Series
videos, Maxie Dunham recalls Rembrandt’s painting of
“The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” The artist recreates
the scene so dramatically that the viewer can almost feel
the spray from the towering waves that hold the little ship
at the brink of disaster. The sail has torn loose and lines
and rigging are flailing in the gale. Five disciples are
pictured struggling to capture the canvas with one hand
while clinging desperately to the mast with the other. The
rest are gathered in the stern of the boat, one of them
desperately seasick, the others clustered around the figure
of Jesus. The Master’s face is calm, and the viewer has
the feeling he has just spoken the words, “Why are you
afraid?”
It
is not until after one has felt the impact of the storm and
noted the fear on the disciples’ faces that one observes
that there are fourteen people in the boat, not thirteen, as
there should be—twelve disciples and Jesus. Then one looks
carefully and notes that one of the figures is Rembrandt. As
he often did in group scenes, the artist painted himself
into his picture. He is the one clutching the side of the
boat, looking like he either just has—or is getting ready
to—lose his lunch. But Rembrandt didn’t have to do a
self portrait. He could have used one of us as a model for
that painting, couldn’t he?
Whether
cowering in storm-tossed boats or hiding behind locked doors
or putting on the front that hides our fears from those
around us, we know that feeling. We are worried about the
future; we have concerns about our success in an
over-competitive world; we are fearful of the opinions of
our peers; we are caught up in the value judgments of our
culture; we are anxious about the next attack of terrorists;
we nervously watch the stock market; we worry about what the
doctor will say or what the tests will reveal—or what the
doctor has already said or the tests have already revealed.
We may think that such anxieties are the exclusive property
of our century, with its more hectic pace and more
complicated pressures, but that is not the case.
Do
you know how many times the Bible says “Fear not”? I
confess that I didn’t count them myself, but I read
somewhere that there are over 365 such admonitions. That’s
one for every day of the year. I don’t say that in the
sense of chiding us for ignoring so many counsels; I mention
it as a witness to how much it has been needed to be said to
others before us. I am not saying that the disciples had
nothing to be concerned about, or that we don’t, but I
would remind us that they were also hiding from the good
news of a risen Christ. And sometimes we do the same.
Fred
Craddock tells a poignant story about his father and the
closed door behind which he lived so much of his life. His
particular door had to do with the church. The other members
of the family were faithful members of a little church, but
the father would have nothing to do with it. The rest of the
family went and he stayed home, and on Sundays he always
complained about dinner being late because everyone had to
fool around visiting after the worship service.
Occasionally
a minister would try to talk with him, but he always
dismissed him out of hand, saying that he was only
interested in his money or in chalking up another notch on
his altar rail. Then Dr. Craddock tells about a day in a
veteran’s hospital. His father was recovering from radical
surgery on his throat that had rendered him voiceless. One
of the days when he entered his father’s room and looked
around, he saw flowers everywhere—on the table, on the
window sill, on the floor. He walked around looking at the
cards. Every one of them was from some group in that little
church his father wouldn’t have anything to do with—the
men’s Bible class, the women’s fellowship, the youth
fellowship, the children’s Sunday school, the pastor—the
flowers and the stacks of get well cards were all from
people and groups in that church. Mr. Craddock was an
educated man and well-read. He saw his son examining the
cards and, unable to speak, he picked up a pencil and wrote
on the side of a Kleenex box, a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
“In this harsh world, draw your breath to tell my
story.”
Fred
read it and said to his father, “What is your story?”
And his father wrote again on the Kleenex box, in capital
letters, “I WAS WRONG.” (Related in a sermon by Don
Shelby, FUMC, Santa Monica, California)
Sometimes
we think our problems and our fears are all there is.
Alcoholism, drug dependency, anger, hostility, violence,
deep anxiety, insecurities, health concerns, career,
marriage—there are plenty of concerns that can make us
want to hole up and bolt the door. This is why we need to
hear the other half of the verse I read about the locked
room a few minutes ago. That verse continues, again from J.B.
Phillips: “…and Jesus came and stood right in the middle
of them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” So Easter
comes as the reminder that we need not try to hide from our
fears. It comes to remind us that Christ can and does join
us in those locked rooms, bringing a message about not only
the end of life, but the living of life.
Don
Underwood, of Plano, Texas, tells of a time when he decided
to let his young son have a hand at the controls of the
small aircraft he was flying. After they were aloft, he put
the controls in his son’s hands, showing him how to make
the plane climb and how to make it turn and how to hold it
on a given course. After a while, they turned back toward
the airport. His son was still at the controls, having the
time of his life, when the airport came into view.
Suddenly,
the father noticed that his son’s hands had developed kind
of a death grip on the yoke of the plane. The look of
pleasure that had been on his face a moment earlier had been
replaced with an expression of worry approaching panic.
“What’s
the matter, Adam?” he asked.
With
deep emotion, the boy replied, “I don’t know how to land
the plane!” Don said he had forgotten to tell his son that
he would handle the landing. And he did.
Easter
is that word for us. We need not be afraid. The landing is
in the hands of God. He has not forgotten to tell us, but
sometimes we do not remember what he said. He stands beside
us and says it again. Do you remember?
Peace
be with you! Happy Easter!
|
