From Fear to Joy: John 20 (BCP & RCL)

In Easter 2’s Gospel reading, we hear the story of Jesus on the evening of his resurrection as he enters the house of fear and doubt, re-creates his disciples and sends them out to embody God’s peace to the world. However, before he enters, the disciples hide in a house behind locked doors in fear of the Jewish authorities. This setting is quite different than the one in which the disciples sat with Jesus just a few days before: eating bread and drinking wine with their Lord. Then, they were twelve with Jesus. Now they are but ten: Judas betrayed Jesus, and Thomas is absent. Like sitting in a coastal home awaiting a tropical storm surge they sit in a house of fear.

They have some reason to be anxious. Wouldn’t we also be stressed out? This is not a poker night, this is a frightful night. The Greek word for fear in John’s gospel is “phobos,” fearfulness, timidity; shrinking from fear” – and the disciples do shrink from fear. We can imagine that the disciples bolting the doors; duct taping the windows, and stockpiling the canned food. Though the disciples hear Mary’s message of the resurrection they obviously don’t yet believe that message. In this house of fear, the disciples probably long for the past. They remember their Lord and wonder: “what will happen now?” Would he judge mercifully when he returns? The disciples were not model followers in those last days. Even Peter denied Jesus at the end. While he was alive and taught them, the twelve believed; or thought they did. But, now two are gone, what will happen to the rest of the disciples? Jesus had come, and promised he would come again. John reminds us just earlier in Chapter 20, v. 9:

“For as yet they did not understand the Scripture,

that He must rise again from the dead.”

Sitting there in that room, the disciples long for the past. But, in the present, they sit nervously, breathing the spirit of fear.

And how fear can immobilize us! Though we work to keep fear at bay, we, too, are no strangers to fear: terrorism, global warming, environmental destruction, gun violence, aging, and death. Fear can grab us and once started, it can overwhelm us like a flood. We fear for the safety of our young ones, our aging parents, and our fragile friends. Our hearts pound when the telephone rings in the middle of the night. We have resided in the house of fear. We know fear, and it can immobilize us, it can cause us to hole up in our own safe houses, our own gated communities. We can hide behind locked doors, security systems, and we try to avoid “dangerous areas.” Does our fear prevent us from living abundant lives? (Jn. 10.10) Does our fear also prevent us from looking beyond ourselves to those who don’t look like us, who don’t sound like us, who are the “other”? Does our fear prevent us from opening our doors and reaching across the divides of religion, of race, of class, of theological position?

In the midst of this house of fear, Jesus enters and says: “Peace Be With You.” Fear drains from hearts; and thoughts of the past and future are annihilated in the present. The doors open. Looking at the eyes of Jesus, hearing his voice, and seeing his outstretched arms, the disciples see the beauty and calm of the present moment. Jesus enters the house of fear and transforms fear into the radical Joy of the Resurrection!