Easter 2 - April 19, 2009

We Have Seen the Lord
John 20:19-31
Easter 2 – April 19, 2009

The real world is a scary place. There's no escaping it – the news reminds us every day of all of the things we have to be afraid of. The world we live in has the power to strike fear into our hearts. For so many of us, anxiety is a regular companion on our journey through life. Sometimes we can point to the source of that anxiety and sometimes it goes unnamed, resting just below the surface of our conscious minds – we know that something is bothering us, but we can't quite put our fingers on what it is. We live in a culture of fear that fills our imaginations with all of the horrible diseases we could catch, the many possibilities and methods of meeting our untimely demise. For months, our nation has been filled with financial fears – And many of us or people we know are afraid of not having enough, afraid of losing our jobs or our retirement money, afraid of losing our homes because of a mortgage that is more than the house is worth, afraid of not being able to pay our bills because the credit card debt has gotten out of control. It is a scary world out there because we are never sure of what can happen.

This atmosphere of fear reminds me in some ways of the story The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Lucy and Peter and Edmund and Susan first come to the land of Narnia, they come to a world that is caught up in fear. As the story opens, they find Narnia under the power of the White Witch, whose magical abilities make Narnia a place where it is always winter and never Christmas, a place that has no hope for the future, no hope for spring, no hope for change and new life. The White Witch loves no one but herself, values nothing but her power and control of the kingdom. She rules with an iron fist and a magical wand that can turn her enemies into stone, leaving those who would oppose her living in fear, hiding out, daring to meet only in secret, knowing what happens to the Witch's enemies if they are caught.

It's no wonder to me that Easter Sunday evening finds the disciples locked away in fear. The real world, then as now, was a scary place. It was a dangerous place, and the past 3 days of their lives have proved that to them. Jesus, their Lord and Master, their teacher and friend, faced off against the powers of the world – and Jesus lost. He was dead and buried - and as a character on Lost said just a few weeks ago, “Dead is dead.” No one expects a dead person to come back to life. And so even though Peter and the Beloved Disciple have seen the empty tomb; even though Mary Magdalene has seen and talked to the risen Jesus & come back telling them all, “I have seen the Lord,” Sunday night finds the disciples still gripped with fear, meeting in secrecy, huddled together behind locked doors. They have seen what happens when you oppose the powers of the real world, and they don't want to be next in line. No one wants to be turned into a stone statue; no one wants to be hauled off to certain death.

And so even though the disciples are trying to stay free from their enemies, the irony is that they have already been captured. They are held hostage by their fear, turned into stone – not by a magic wand, but by the power of that fear. They are immobilized, unable to live the full, abundant lives that Jesus promised.

And so on that night, Jesus comes to them. He walks straight through the locked doors, straight into the heart of their fear, and says “Peace be with you.” He shows them his hands & his side, and when they realize who it is, the disciples rejoice. Again Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” Jesus gives them the gift of his peace & he sends them on a mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And then he does something kind of strange... he breathes on them.

I've often thought that CS Lewis, author of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, must have been thinking of this story from John when he was writing the story. Because after Aslan, the great & noble lion, has been killed, he too is raised from the dead. But no one expected that. It seems that the White Witch has won, so when he returns, Aslan finds his people filled with fear and despair, certain that the White Witch will rule forever.

But Aslan has a plan. Taking Lucy & Susan with him, he goes straight to the Witch's lair, to her castle which is littered with the stone statues of her enemies in every corner. They were caught by the power of the witch & it seemed that they would be paralyzed forever. But then Aslan does a strange thing... he breathes on the statues, one by one. And as soon as he does this, each creature comes back to life. When Aslan breathes on them, they are set free from the power that held them immobile. They are transformed from statues to living, breathing beings. And they have been brought back to life for a purpose, for Aslan has a mission for them: they are to follow him back out into that scary real world and join him in the battle against the White Witch and all of the evil that seeks to rule their world forever.

That's what I think of when I read this passage in John. The disciples are afraid of what a world without Jesus holds for them, and they are frozen in that fear like stone. But Jesus cannot be contained by the powers of this world! Even death cannot hold him down, and Jesus has a plan. He comes to find the disciples, despite their fear, and breathing on them, he brings them back to life. He gives them the Holy Spirit, filling them with the faith and the courage to face whatever dangers the world holds. Jesus does this because he has a mission for them. Just as the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus now sends his disciples. They have a new purpose on this resurrection day: to follow Jesus back out into the real world, a world held hostage by the powers of sin and fear and death.

And you know what? They did! Having seen the risen Lord and received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples are set free from their fears, set loose as changed people out to change the world, to declare to the powers of this world that there is a greater power, and his name is Jesus Christ!

Jesus is still living, and he is here with us today. He comes to us through the locked doors of our fears, speaking peace into our hearts. He comes in the renewing waters of our baptism, reminding us that we too have been raised to live a new life. He comes to us in the meal we share, feeding us with his very self. He comes to us in the power of his resurrection, breathing the Holy Spirit into us, giving us courage and faith to live lives freed from the fear that would hold us captive. When we leave this place this morning, we leave as changed people, sent to change the world. As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us – to say to the world that we follow the one who has power to bring life even out of death, to shout out “We have seen the Lord!” and he has come to set us all free!

Thanks be to God. Amen