This Easter, some of us will be out serving as first responders, health-care workers, or otherwise providing essential services.
This Easter, some of us will be in church, foolishly I believe, defying stay-at-home orders.
This Easter, most of us, wisely I believe, will be spending this holy day behind closed doors. As such, we are in good company.
The Apostle John, an eyewitness to the events of Holy Week, recalled:
On the evening of that day [the day of the Resurrection], the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
The disciples, like some of us, were afraid, uncertain about the future. Unlike us, the disciples could easily see the threat coming, the tramp of their booted feet could be heard before the soldiers had reached the locked door. That door wouldn’t stop determined soldiers, of course, but it might slow them down enough for the disciples to slip out another way. Already shaken by what had happened to Jesus on Friday, they were further unsettled by the strange discovery of the empty tomb and the bizarre claim of Mary to have seen Jesus. Their troubled hearts needed peace. And peace is what the Risen Lord gifted them. That peace, grounded on the Lord’s victorious resurrection, would sustain them as they faced hostility, as they labored in strange places, as they set out to change the world.
This Easter we, too, need to hear a word of peace. We face a threat we cannot see without a microscope, which we cannot hear coming, which may wait quietly on a handrail or grocery cart. Like the disciples, we too may be anxious. I like the way The Voice translation has rendered Jesus’s words. “May each one of you” Jesus says, “be at peace.” This Easter our hearts may be fearful for different reasons; some by fear for their own health, some may fear as they watch a retirement portfolio shrink as investors panic, some may fear for parents who are especially vulnerable to the virus, some may fear their jobs will be lost, some may fear for loved ones who cannot remain safely indoors, some may fear for the nation’s future—financial or social. But this Easter, behind our closed doors, we may still hear the Jesus’s words of peace. This Easter, through God’s Spirit, we may still know the Risen Lord’s presence. This Easter, like the disciples before us (20:20), we may rejoice with one another—albeit electronically—in the reality of the resurrection.
So, though being behind closed doors on Easter may be different, it isn’t unprecedented.
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As you pray this Easter, behind your closed doors, remember our Christian brothers and sisters who always worship behind closed doors, always live under the threat of a hostile government breaking down doors to stop their worship of the Risen Lord. Pray that they may know peace.
