Dove Sermons

Sermon based on John 20:19-31

The Gospel of John tells us when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear.

I want us to sit in that sentence for a moment. The disciples had heard it by now. Mary Magdalene had told them, breathless and wide-eyed, that she had seen the Lord, resurrected. The tomb was empty. The grave clothes were folded. The stone was rolled away. The story was getting out. And what did the disciples do with that news?

They locked the doors.

That is often the human response to the impossible. We lock the doors. We pull the blinds. We huddle together in the dark and try to figure out how to survive what is happening to us.

And if you think that instinct belongs only to first-century disciples hiding from Jewish or Roman authorities, consider this: a survey released just this past year found that 42% of all Americans believe the U.S. economy could completely collapse[1] someday… not slow down, not struggle, but collapse entirely. The researchers who analyzed the data described us as a country that is “objectively wealthy, subjectively terrified.” That phrase stopped me cold. Because that is exactly the room John is describing. People who, by any measurable standard, have immense reason for hope, and yet are terrified behind locked doors anyway.

The resurrection had been announced, and these men and women, the very people who had walked with Jesus, eaten with him, watched him heal and teach and feed crowds with a handful of food, they were still afraid. Still paralyzed. Still behind locked doors.

I think we need to consider why that is.

John tells us it was fear of the Jewish authorities. That is accurate and specific, but underneath that political fear was something deeper. You see, these disciples had failed Jesus. Peter had denied him three times in the firelight of a courtyard while Jesus was being interrogated and beaten. The rest of them, all except John, had scattered. When the moment arrived, the real moment, the one that mattered… they were gone. And now Jesus was reportedly alive again.

Think about what that means from the inside. If the man you abandoned, the man you denied, the man you ran away from… if he is suddenly alive and walking around, the last person in the world you want to see is him. Because you know what you did. You know how you failed. And you are terrified that the resurrection is not good news for you. You are terrified that what comes next is the reckoning.

So they lock the doors. They lock them against the authorities. They lock them against the future. And maybe, just maybe, they lock them against Jesus himself.

And then Jesus comes through the locked door.

John says it simply, without fanfare, without explanation. Jesus came and stood among them. He did not knock. He did not wait. He did not send word ahead. He did not require that they get themselves together, settle their doubts, or process their shame before he would show up. He just entered.

And what were his first words?

Peace be with you.

Shalom. Peace. Well-being. The wholeness and flourishing that only God can give. That word, shalom, is not just the absence of conflict. It is a Hebrew concept loaded with the idea of everything being as it should be, of justice and prosperity and human dignity restored, of people living fully within the covenant of a God who keeps his promises.

When Jesus says “peace be with you,” he is pronouncing a blessing that cuts straight through the fear and shame these disciples are carrying and says: you are not condemned. You are not abandoned. You are not defined by your worst moment. You are loved by God.

Then he shows them his hands. And his side.

This is Jesus, flesh and blood, the same Jesus who was crucified, the marks still in his hands and side. John is making a point here. The resurrection does not erase the cross. The wounds are still there. The marks of what happened on Friday do not disappear on Sunday. But now they mean something different. Now they are not evidence of defeat. They are proof that the one standing in the room has been through the worst the world can do and come out the other side.

John says that Jesus “breathes on them”. It is a strange, peculiar detail. It seems John is reaching back to Genesis, to the moment when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. This is a new creation moment. Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into his frightened disciples, and something new begins. The same God who breathed life into dust at the beginning of all things is now breathing new life into a community that had every reason to believe it was finished. The church, the sent people of God, is born in that breath.

And then Jesus says something that carries enormous weight and has been wrestled with for centuries. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

John’s Gospel has a particular understanding of sin. Sin in John is not primarily a moral category, it is not simply the list of wrong things you have done. In John, sin at its root is unbelief. It is the refusal to receive the revelation of God in Jesus. It is the turning away from the light.

And what Jesus is sending his disciples to do, what he is sending us to do, is to make that revelation known. As people encounter the living Jesus through those he sends, they are freed from unbelief, from the darkness, from the alienation from God. If we fail to bear witness, people remain stuck. The stakes are that high. The mission is that serious.

Jesus then tells them, As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

This is the turning point of the whole passage. The disciples came into that room as frightened, failed, hiding people. Jesus came through their locked door and turned them inside out. He sent them, not despite their failure, or after they had cleaned themselves up, or once they had demonstrated their worthiness. He sent them. Right there. Right then. From their locked room, into the world.

But one of them wasn’t there.

Thomas.

I think we may have done Thomas a disservice over the centuries. We have made him a cautionary tale, a spiritual second-class citizen, the patron saint of stubborn doubt. Doubting Thomas, right? But look at what Thomas said. When the other disciples told him they had seen the Lord, he said: unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.

That is an honest, genuine response. And here is what the text shows us: every single one of the disciples required something. Mary required Jesus to call her name. Peter and the beloved disciple required a look inside an empty tomb. The disciples in the locked room required Jesus to show up physically and display his wounds. Not one person in this story believed on the basis of someone else’s testimony alone. Thomas is not an outlier. He is a representative. He is the face of every human being who has ever said: I need more than a second-hand story.

The story goes on. John tells us that one week later, Jesus comes back, again. The doors are still locked, by the way. A week has passed, and the disciples are still behind locked doors. Thomas was not the only one still uncertain. Jesus comes and he goes straight to Thomas. He offers him exactly what he asked for… the hands, the side, the invitation to touch. Thomas doesn’t even need to take him up on it. The text nowhere says Thomas actually touched the wounds. Jesus shows up and speaks, and that is enough. Thomas falls to his knees and speaks the highest confession in the entire Gospel of John.

My Lord and my God.

My Lord and my God. The whole Gospel of John has been building to this moment, the Word who was in the beginning, who was with God, who was God, and it takes the guy we call “doubting Thomas” to finally say it out loud.

Jesus responds with a blessing. He doesn’t say, Thomas, you should have known better. He says: you believe because you have seen. Blessed, or also translated, happy, are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

The way of Thomas, the wrestling, the demanding, the refusing to accept secondhand faith, is not a lesser path. It is just another way that real people, honest people, get from doubt to belief. Jesus showed up for Thomas. Jesus did not shame him. He did not leave him out. He kept coming back.

Jesus keeps coming back.

That is the promise hidden in the structure of this story. One week after Easter, the disciples are still in that locked room. Still afraid. Still uncertain. And Jesus comes again. He keeps showing up… not because they have earned it, not because they have finally gotten their act together, but because that is who he is. The wounds are still there. The peace he speaks is still the same.

John tells us at the end of this passage that everything he has written, all of it, has been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. This book, this testimony, this witness passed down across two thousand years of church history, has been written for those of us who were not in that room. For those of us who have not seen the wounds. For those of us who are still, if we are honest, sometimes hiding behind locked doors of our own.

So, what are the locked doors in your life? What rooms are we hiding in… individually, as families, as a congregation? What fears have made us pull the blinds and hunker down, become more focused on security than on the mission Jesus has called us into?

Because here is what this text promises: Jesus cannot be stopped by our locked doors. He comes anyway. He comes speaking peace into the places we are most afraid. He breathes the Spirit into our tired, anxious, grieving, doubting selves. And then he sends us… not after we’ve figured it out, or once we’ve conquered our fears, but right now, right here, still shaken, still uncertain, still carrying our wounds. As the Father sent him, so he sends us.

The early church was born in a locked room among frightened people who had failed their teacher. And Jesus breathed on them anyway. He said peace anyway. He said go anyway.

He is still saying it.

He comes to us in word and water, bread and cup. He comes in the gathering of his people week after week, not wanting any of us to miss out on what he is offering. He comes not to confront us with our failures but to meet us inside them, show us his wounds, and call us by name.

Thomas demanded proof and got it, and gave us one of the most powerful declarations in all four Gospels.

Mary wept at an empty tomb and heard her name.

The disciples cowered in a locked room and received the breath of God.

And we, who have not seen and yet are here, who are perhaps not sure and yet keep showing up, we are exactly the people this Gospel was written for.

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.

A gift, spoken across two thousand years, landing right here.

May we receive it. May we unlock the doors. And may we go. Amen.

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[1] https://www.webpronews.com/the-collapse-anxiety-why-nearly-half-of-americans-now-fear-a-total-economic-meltdown/

Written by: Rev. Dave Wasson