Jesus Unlocked The Door
Finding the key to a life with God now and forever is beyond question the greatest and most important quest in your life time and mine. Here's the good news. We don't have to search for it. Jesus is the key, and he comes to us. We learn in John 20: 19-31 that he comes right into our heart and unlocks the door so we can live, really live, with God, now and forever. April 15, 2007
But imagine being locked in a room – stuck there because of your own fault – and the door has no knob and no key hole. You can’t get out the lone, small window, and there are no MacGyver-like tools to help you, nor a dropped ceiling or air vent through which you can escape. How would you feel? Do you think there would be a flash of fear floating through your veins? Do you think a dollop of doubt would make its way into your mind? Do you think that the specter of death might loom large in that room?
The disciples of Jesus were locked in a room on that first Easter evening, described by John in the gospel for this day. But something amazing happened, Jesus Unlocked The Door.
(By removing) Fear
There are people who pay money to get scared silly on wild rides at an amusement. There are people who pay money for parachute lessons and then jump out of an airplane. More power to ’em. Usually fear is not something we sign up for. Fear either jumps up quickly or sneaks up slowly. Either way it causes great stress and distress. Normally, you wouldn’t call up some bad guys, “Would you please terrorize me sometime next week?” Normally, you don’t ponder and then plan, “I think I’ll do something or say something very hurtful and mean to someone else so that I can feel really bad about it later.” Fear caused by outside evil or by inside evil is not what we typically want. But it happens. It’s real. It’s there. I don’t know about you. Maybe I’m just foolish or naïve, but I don’t sense a lot of fear from external factors. I lock my car. I lock the house. I avoid dark alleys at night. I trust that homeland security, law enforcement agencies, and the military will prevent bad guys from bashing down the church doors. The real source of fear for me comes from inside. How could I do such stupid things and say such hurtful things when I know better? How can I face God and God’s people? The fear caused by guilt is awful. It’s a ball and chain. It’s like being locked in a room, and the door has no knob and no key hole.
That’s what the disciples must have felt like on Easter evening and a week later when hiding behind locked doors in a house in Jerusalem. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews … Fear. They had heard reports of Jesus’ resurrection from the women who went to the tomb, from Peter to whom Jesus had appeared privately, from two other followers who had been walking to a village called Emmaus. While all of that was exciting and mind boggling, they still had to reckon with two sources of fear, one from outside the doors of that room and the other from inside the doors of their hearts. Externally they were worried that the religious leaders would get Roman storm-troopers to bash down the doors and do to them what they did to Jesus. Internally they bore all kinds of guilt for not believing, not understanding, not supporting Jesus in his dying days.
But all of a sudden with the doors locked … Jesus came and stood among them, and everything changed. Jesus came with the Easter miracle and Easter message. He said,“Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hand and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you!”. Peace is more than an absence of loud noises. Peace is more than “Shhh! Let’s keep it quiet.” It’s much more than that. It’s the assurance of a “not-guilty” verdict in God’s courtroom. It’s the message of love so amazing that it drives out fear. It’s the calming and soothing reassurance that, “Yes, you’ve goofed it all up by your sin, but God no longer counts your sin against you.” That peace, which Jesus won for the disciples outside the doors of that room, he now miraculously brought inside that room by his divine power to appear there without needing a key to get in. That peace, which Jesus won for the disciples outside the doors of their hearts, he brought inside their hearts by the divine power of his word. He himself is the key.
That peace Jesus brings into your heart and mine. He does not need a key to open the door of our heart and drive out fear. He is the key with the power to win peace with God for us outside of our hearts on that hill called Calvary and with the power to open our hearts and remove fear. Are you troubled by fear on the inside caused by guilt more than any other fear? Does the thought that you wronged other people and thus wronged God bother you? Are you afraid of the consequences, not just getting verbally spanked by those around you, which you obviously deserve, but getting kicked into outer darkness by God? Jesus has risen. He is alive. Without a key, he comes right into our hearts and removes fear with the announcement, “You’re OK with God. You’re at peace with God.” We are just over one month past the four hundredth birthday of the great Lutheran hymn-writer, Paul Gerhardt. He had it right when we sang earlier today:
This is a sight gladdens – What peace it does impart!
Now nothing every saddens The joy within my heart.
No gloom shall ever shake, No foe shall every take
The hope which God’s own Son In love for me has won. (CW 156:3)
And Jesus didn’t just unlock the doors of the disciples’ hearts. He propelled them out the doors of that room to tell others so they, too, can be released from the grip of fear. Jesus gave his disciples keys to unlock the doors of the hearts of others. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven”.
Those keys – to forgive or not forgive sins, to point out sin and to point people to the Savior, to proclaim the bad news of God’s threats and the good news of God’s promise of love – those keys are in your hands and mine. That’s worth emphasizing with more than a paragraph in a sermon, more than a worship theme. It’s a lifetime privilege which we carry out by our prayers, by our personal sharing with others what God has done, and by our joyful and generous giving so that peace can be proclaimed to more in more people in more and more places. Jesus removes fear from our hearts and unlocks those church doors so we go without fear to friends and acquaintances to tell them what they need to hear most. We’re going to sing about that at the close of worship today, the last thing on our lips before we leave:
Now he bids us tell abroad How the lost may be restored,
How the penitent forgiv’n How we, too may enter heav’n.
Hallelujah! (CW 155:6)
(By Removing) Doubt
It may have come in a high school physics class. It may have jumped off the pages of a biology text. It may have popped into your mind after a conversation with a roommate or friend … doubt. Did it really happen? I’m not talking about landing on the moon in July of 1969 or a reported media stunt by a celebrity craving attention. I’m talking about the resurrection of Jesus. Even faithful Christians can have doubts pop into their minds, “Is it really true?” And if we have doubts about his resurrection, then other questions can come up. What about his other miracles? Then, what the other miracles of Scripture like honey-crisp wafers appearing on the ground every morning for forty years to feed two and a half million people camped in a semi-arid wilderness, like fire from heaven burning up a water-soaked sacrifice to prove there’s only one God who is active and idols are idle, like Jonah surviving three days of claustrophobia in the belly of a big fish? If we have doubts about those, then we might become susceptible to goofy reports which claim that Jesus was merely mortal, had a relationship with Mary Magdalene, had a family, died, and is gone for good. And then some people start to ask, “How do we know the Bible is different from all other literature in the history of the world as God’s own accurate cover-to-cover message to people?” Doubt is disturbing. It’s like being locked in a room with the floor shaking, making you feel unsettled and uncertain, and the door has no knob and no key hole.
That’s what Thomas the Twin must have felt like. He had heard the reports. When the other disciples told him that they had seen the Lord, he declared, “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”. Doubt. How can it all be true?
But all of a sudden, though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” The next thing the Bible writer tells us is that Jesus turned to speak to Thomas. If you did not know this Bible account and had never heard it before, what would you expect Jesus to say? “Thomas! Oh, you of little faith! If I told you once, I told you a dozen times. I came to Jerusalem to die for sinners and to rise again to prove it’s true. I did that. It’s true. It’s real. How much wax did you have in your ears? How many miracles did I perform with you standing right there? You know that none of those were sleight of hand tricks. How does a lame man, whom everyone knows was crippled from birth, get up and walk? How does a leper, whose skin disease everyone knows is incurable, get a clean bill of health? How did Lazarus, whose flesh had already begun to decompose and stink after four days in a tomb, come walking out smiling and smelling like a rose? Thomas, I did not need a key to get out of my tomb, I did not need a key to get into this room, and I don’t need a key to get into your heart to remove doubt.” But Jesus didn’t say that. Instead, he just showed Thomas his hands and feet and said, “Stop doubting and believe.” I’m real. I’m alive. My payment for your sins is real. Because of what I did God loves you and always will.”
Then Jesus, still standing in that room, worked another miracle. He peered across the centuries like riding in some futuristic time machine and, with better insight than using a catheter tube micro-camera, he peers into your heart and mine, sees us locked up and shaking with our doubts and says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”. Jesus does not need a key to open the door of our heart and drive doubt out. He is the key with divine power to pay a price big enough for all our sins, with divine power to come back to life from the dead, and with the divine power to drive doubt from our hearts. His miracles are verifiable on the pages of Scripture, miracles seen and attested not by a few but by thousands, and the Scriptures, cover to cover, are verifiably true – so true that both internal and external evidence and especially the power of the Bible’s message on our hearts give us the certainty to ward off any goofy notions about Jesus, give us solid ground to stand on, and unlock the door of our hearts, removing doubt. That’s what we sang in the rousing hymn a few minutes ago:
Blessed are they that have not seen
And yet whose faith has constant been;
In life eternal they shall reign. Alleluia! (CW 165:8)
(By Removing) Death
We go to funerals to comfort those who have lost a loved one. We go out of care and concern, out of love and loyalty, expressing fellowship and friendship. But it’s hard. We don’t like to see other people hurting because of loss, and we don’t necessarily like the reminder of our own death. Death seems so final. It’s the end of our life on earth. Death seems so confining, especially if you have ever witnessed a casket being closed, then lowered into a hole in the ground, ceiled with a cement slab on top and six feet of dirt.
The disciples of Jesus knew he was buried, not six feet under, but laid in a cave and sealed in there by a huge stone. His death seemed so final, so confining.
But all of a sudden, though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”. His resurrection from the dead made all the difference in the world. Jesus did not need a key to get out of his tomb. He did not need a key to get into that room. And he did not need a key to remove death from the list of experiences the disciples would have to go through. Oh yes! They would die physically, but not eternally. That’s what he told Lazarus’ sisters even before he called Lazarus out of his tomb, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though the dies [physically]. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die [eternally]” (John 11:25-26).
And that’s what he tells us. The apostle John was there in that room on Easter evening when Jesus removed fear from the disciples’ hearts. He was there again a week later when Jesus removed doubt from Thomas’ heart. He personally saw and touched and talked to the living Lord Jesus. That’s why he adds a special ending to this chapter just for us. Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Jesus does not need a key to get into this church. He does not need a key to get into our hearts and souls to remove death. He is the key. Do you know and believe that you deserve God’s anger forever? Do you know and believe that Jesus paid for all those sins and that he rose from the dead to prove that God has accepted his payment? Then you will not die in hell. You will live forever. Oh yes! You and I will likely experience physical death if Judgment Day does not occur first. But we will never be separated from God’s love and acceptance and kindness. We will never experience eternal death. Jesus is the key. He made it happen. He unlocks the doors of heaven and gives us everlasting life. Paul Gerhardt’s poetry captures it well:
He brings me to the portal That leads to bliss untold,
Whereon this rhyme immortal Is found in script of gold:
“Who there my cross has shared Finds here a crown prepared;
Who there with me has died Shall here be glorified. (CW 156:5)
Finding the key to a puzzle or mystery story may be fun for some, but finding the key to a life with God now and forever is beyond question the greatest and most important quest in your life time and mine. Here’s the good news. We don’t have to search for it. Jesus is the key, and he comes to us. He comes right into our heart and unlocks the door so we can live, really live, with God, now and forever. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on April 15, 2007
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