And Then What Happened?- Rev Wendy McCormick

“And Then What Happened?”

Rev Wendy McCormick

First Presbyterian Church, Granville

 April 7, 2024

John 20:19-31

The doors were locked. Dead-bolted. Security system armed. They were locked down. This is the setting of the first of the two scenes in today’s reading.

It’s Easter evening and the disciples are in lock-down. Perhaps 12 hours after first hearing from Mary that she had seen the risen Christ, they have locked themselves in a safe house for fear of the religious leaders. We think of Easter as all trumpets and rejoicing, proclamations of Christ is risen, unmitigated hope and joy. But they were in lock-down. Paralyzed by fear.

Fear that the religious authorities who had turned their backs on Jesus for what they saw as blasphemy might be looking for his followers for something that might be deemed beyond blasphemy – resurrection. This isn’t just your typical “it’s good practice to keep your home and belongings secure”. This is hiding out, locked in, paralyzed by fear.

Their circumstances were so different, but after a wonderful Easter here, I wonder if there are ways in which we are cautious, if not fearful, ways in which we stay locked down so to speak, keeping our faith on lock-down. For fear. Ways in which we hide the good news that has claimed us. It’s ok to talk about it in here, it’s ok to acknowledge and experience it in here, behind closed doors, locked doors, but out there it’s better to blend in, to go along and get along and not get mixed up in matters of religion. For people like us, we probably don’t want to be judged “too religious” or unconventionally religious. I for one don’t want to be lumped in with all kinds of people who claim the same label I do – Christian – but whose beliefs and actions are nothing I want to be associated with. Better to stay on lock down. It’s pleasant in here. We get along. We feel good about what we believe. But out there things are different. We fear controversy, criticism, guilt by association. Perhaps we simply fear commitment. A locked away faith is a safe faith. Be nice. Don’t make waves.

The disciples were locked down in fear. And then Jesus came and stood among them. Not appeared. Came and stood. With the same broken body that had been crucified. In other words, this is no ghost, no apparition. This is another resurrection appearance. Like the one Mary had.

They are afraid and locked down and Jesus appears. “Peace be with you,” he says. Twice. Peace be with you.

In the middle of their fear, Jesus speaks of peace. “Peace be with you”. As Michael Joseph Brown of Payne School of Theology discusses, the peace Jesus brings is rooted in the Jewish concept of shalom, more about wholeness than the absence of conflict. The Greeks and the Romans associated the idea of peace – eirene in Greek --  with the inner nature of human beings and with absence of conflict or war. The Hebrew word, shalom, by contrast, is primarily about peace in our interpersonal social relations, and it carries a connotation of justice and welfare. For the early Christians, it was also a greeting, like Jesus’ words here: Peace be with you. We still say it.

John doesn’t talk much about peace in this gospel, but it carries some of that interpersonal power of the Hebrew word when it’s associated with forgiveness like we read today.

Perhaps the disciples remembered Jesus talking earlier about peace when he said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, the kind of peace the world cannot give.” Peace that was meant to enable them to overcome their fear. 

He also said “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world, you have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” The Roman peace (pax Romana) was enforced by violence. It was the absence of conflict through military conquest, surveillance, and oppression. Not shalom at all. We realize Christ’s peace comes from the victory over evil through the absorption of suffering, as the one with the still broken body stands among his friends and says “peace be with you.”

In offering this to them – twice saying “Peace be with you” – perhaps Jesus reminded them of those earlier conversations, reminded them that his peace overcomes fearfulness and all the other worldly ways that hold them back.

But then Jesus breathes on them. It’s almost like in their fear they were holding their breath. Like blowing air into someone who has stopped breathing and suddenly their chest begins to move up and down as they come back to life. We may catch the reference to God breathing life into the human creature made from the dust in Genesis, animating what would otherwise be no more than mud. Jesus breathes on these fearful followers. Like breathing in resurrection life and blowing out the cobwebs and the stale air of fear. John is playing with words like breath and spirit and different layers of meaning of the word life.

We know what it is to exist without being truly alive. A physical body going through the motions, oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, food in, daily tasks out. Human bodies doing what they do, bundles of bodily functions going through the actions of life. That’s what it is to live so cautiously, fearfully, isn’t it?

Protecting ourselves so that breathing in and out can continue. Securing ourselves and our possessions so we always have what we need to keep going through the motions of it all.

Easter was supposed to change everything. For them. For us. Supposed to move us from fear and self-protection and going through the motions of life to something John calls abundant life, filled not just with air but with the breath of life, with the spirit of God.

Jesus breathes this new life on them, this resurrection, this Holy Spirit – breath and spirit are the same word in the languages of the bible – breathes this spirit into them and reminds them we aren’t called to hide behind closed doors. “As the Father sent me, I send you.” And he tells them they are sent to forgive sins. To bring mercy and forgiveness to places of sin and brokenness.

Disciples --- learners --- become apostles --- sent ones. Receive the spirit. Forgive sins. Get out there.

The one with the still-broken body, commissions them – us -- to get out there – out from behind the walls and the locked doors to the places where people are broken, where people can’t breathe, where life is anything but abundant. Get out there and bring forgiveness and abundance.

If I use my imagination, close my eyes and breathe deeply, I can almost feel what that might have been like, that warm breath, Jesus breathing onto them and into them – onto us and into us – the spirit of God. A sense of new life, of empowerment, of real purpose. What John calls abundant life.

I send you, he says, just as the Father sent me. He doesn’t say you have to travel around the world and tell people they need a new religion. No, the effects of a sinful world are nearby, on the other side of your locked door. I send you. To bring forgiveness. Mercy. Abundance. Life.

We don’t know much about what happened after that. The scene ends. It doesn’t say they flung open the doors, re-entering the world with new life, filled not just with air, with breathing in and out, but with the breath of God, with Holy Spirit.

It doesn’t say that.

It does say that Thomas had not been with them that night in scene 1. And just as the disciples didn’t really believe Mary until they saw Jesus for themselves, Thomas tells them he won’t really believe until he sees for himself. All pretty normal. He wanted to see the same thing the rest of them had seen, the still-broken body of the crucified and risen Jesus.

And all of a sudden, centuries of church-goers and interpreters have pushed aside that beautiful moment of Jesus breathing abundant life into his friends and that simple commission sending them out to breathe forgiveness into a hurting world and turned all the attention to arguing about having the right beliefs and forcing yourself not to doubt and making a bad example of Thomas, telling generations of people that doubt is a bad thing. You shouldn’t need proof, we’re told. You shouldn’t try to understand, we’re told. You should just parrot the correct belief. Don’t be like Thomas. Stay inside and argue about whose belief is more correct and whose lack of doubt is more virtuous. That’s a much more diverting parlor game than being sent out to bring forgiveness and abundant life into a broken and sinful world. Generations of young people have gotten the message that it’s best not to question. So many people have said to me, “It just didn’t make sense . . . and sometimes I would ask,” but all anyone ever said was “you just have to have faith.” Don’t be a doubting Thomas. Thomas the fall guy. Thomas the object lesson.

Scene 2 of our story is set in the same place a week later. The disciples are again shut up behind closed doors. The only thing we know from the intervening week is the conversation with Thomas. Huddled behind closed doors just like they were before, except this time Thomas is there too. Thomas who had simply asked to see whatever the others saw. And Jesus comes to them again, the same way as a week earlier. The first appearance to Mary. The second appearance to the locked-down disciples, minus Thomas. And the third appearance to the still-locked-down disciples, now including Thomas. A three-fold Easter appearance of the one who came that all might have life and have it abundantly commissioning us to get out from behind our closed doors and our locked down selves into a world desperate for life abundant.

When we read closely, we notice that Thomas is actually the one who seems to get it. We don’t know what the others said and did, but Thomas proclaims faith, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus says to Thomas, “Do not doubt but believe.” Some say, it might be better translated as, “do not be unbelieving but believing.” Either way, the emphasis is on Jesus’ invitation, on Jesus’ sending, and not on castigating Thomas. Thomas had said before that he wanted to touch the wounds, but it doesn’t say he actually did that. Instead, he professes faith and his faith turns outward. That’s the point.

Faith turned outward. Faith flinging open the locked doors, refusing to hide and cower and worry about what others will think or say or do in response to the news that God means more for all of us than sucking air in and out and going through the motions of existence.

We don’t really know what happens next. Our storyteller, John, thinks we have heard everything we need. He wraps up the gospel here and tells us that there are more stories but these will have to do, stories shared so that we might know Jesus as the one sent by God and in knowing this Jesus have abundant life.

History tells us that there always have been those who stay behind closed doors. Locked down. Fearful.

And there have always been those who point fingers, using this story to look down on those have doubts, on those who ask questions, those who want to see more, those who long for real experiences instead of second-hand information.

And maybe not just different sorts of people but different stages in our own lives – stages when we are fearful and locked down. Stages when we are more interested in judging than in living. Stages when we hold back, wait and see. And perhaps also stages, moments, when we open the doors to bring mercy and forgiveness and abundant life.

We are here because along the way some of those who received peace and spirit were moved to share it. We are here because of those who opened the door, however tentatively, to tell us and show us about abundant life by bringing mercy and forgiveness when we needed it. And that’s the commission – to bring forgiveness and to breathe new life into our families and friendships and neighborhoods and daily encounters. It’s rarely a big event with trumpets, it’s just like breathing in and out, bringing good news and new life of forgiveness and mercy where sin and brokenness keep people locked down and struggling to breathe. Nobody said we’re supposed to do it perfectly or in ways that make headlines. But just to share the abundant life that has been breathed into us when we really needed it. To share some of the peace that has calmed our troubled spirits. It’s not about whether you doubt, it’s not about whose belief is better. It’s about breathing new and abundant life and carrying the good news of forgiveness out the door and into the world. Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” Maybe he also says, “you can open the door now.”